Yoon Suk Yeol. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was resisting arrest for a third day on Thursday (January 2, 2025) after vowing to “fight” authorities seeking to question him over his failed martial law bid.

The embattled leader issued the bungled declaration on December 3 that led to his impeachment and has left him facing arrest, imprisonment or, at worst, the death penalty.

Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a defiant statement to his conservative supporters gathered outside his residence in the capital of Seoul, vowing to “fight to the end” against what he called “anti-state forces,” as law enforcement prepared to detain him over last month’s martial law decree.

Supporters and opponents of Yoon have since camped outside his Presidential residence, while members of his security team have blocked attempted police raids in a dramatic stand-off.

Yoon has gone to ground but remained unrepentant as the crisis has rolled on, issuing a defiant message to his base days before a warrant expires on January 6.

“The Republic of Korea is currently in danger due to internal and external forces threatening its sovereignty, and the activities of anti-state elements,” he said in a statement passed around to protesters, his lawyer Yoon Kab-keun confirmed to AFP.

“I vow to fight alongside you to the very end to protect this nation,” he added, saying he was watching the hundreds-strong protest Wednesday evening on a YouTube live stream.

The impeached leader remains in the capital Seoul, the lawyer confirmed to AFP.

Opposition lawmakers were quick to condemn Yoon’s message as inflammatory, with Democratic Party spokesperson Jo Seoung-lae calling him “delusional” and accusing him of trying to incite clashes.

Yoon’s legal team has filed for an injunction to block the warrant and claimed Wednesday that the arrest order was “an unlawful and invalid act”.

But Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) chief Oh Dong-woon warned that anyone trying to block authorities from arresting Yoon could themselves face prosecution.

South Korean officials have previously failed to execute arrest warrants for lawmakers — in 2000 and 2004 — due to party members and supporters blocking police for the seven-day period the warrant was valid.

Refused questioning

Discussions between prosecutors and police are taking place in the background of a political crisis that initially saw the country briefly lurch back to the dark days of military rule.

But the martial law order — which he said was aimed at eliminating “anti-State elements” — only lasted a few hours.

Heavily armed troops stormed the building, scaling fences, smashing windows and landing by helicopter, but Yoon was quickly forced into a U-turn after a night of protests.

He was then stripped of his presidential duties by parliament and now faces criminal charges of insurrection that could result in life imprisonment or even the death penalty.

Yoon has since refused summonses for questioning three times and doubled down on claims the opposition was in league with South Korea’s communist enemies.

In the wake of his refusal, supporters have raced to Seoul to support him.

As night fell on Wednesday (January 1, 2025), pro-Yoon protesters spewed vitriol at police while waving glowsticks and anti-impeachment placards.

A constitutional court will rule whether to uphold Yoon’s impeachment.

The turmoil deepened late last week when Yoon’s replacement, Han Duck-soo, was also impeached by parliament for failing to sign bills for investigations into his predecessor.

Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok has been installed as acting President and pledged to do all he can to end the political upheaval.

He has since decided to appoint two new judges to the constitutional court hearing Yoon’s impeachment — meeting a key demand of the Opposition but branded an overstepping of his powers by Yoon’s staff.

Choi took office on Friday and found himself immediately thrust into handling a disaster, after a Jeju Air plane crashed on Sunday, claiming 179 lives.

South Korean law enforcement officials on Monday (December 30, 2024) requested a court warrant to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol as they investigate whether his short-lived martial law decree on Dec. 3 amounted to rebellion.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, which is leading a joint investigation with police and military authorities into the power grab that lasted only a few hours, confirmed it requested the warrant from the Seoul Western District Court. They plan to question Mr. Yoon on charges of abuse of authority and orchestrating a rebellion.

The warrant request came after Mr. Yoon dodged several requests by the joint investigation team and public prosecutors to appear for questioning and also blocked searches of his offices.

While Mr. Yoon has the presidential privilege of immunity from criminal prosecution, such protections don’t extend to allegations of rebellion or treason.

It’s not clear whether the court will grant the warrant or whether Mr. Yoon can be compelled to appear for questioning.

Under the country’s laws, locations potentially linked to military secrets cannot be seized or searched without the consent of the person in charge, and it’s unlikely that Mr. Yoon will voluntarily leave his residence if he faces detention. There are also concerns about possible clashes with Mr. Yoon’s presidential security service if authorities attempt to forcibly detain him.

Mr. Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the National Assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14 over his imposition of martial law, which lasted only hours but has triggered weeks of political turmoil, halted high-level diplomacy and rattled financial markets.

Mr. Yoon’s fate now lies with the Constitutional Court, which has begun deliberations on whether to uphold the impeachment and formally remove Mr. Yoon from office or reinstate him.

The National Assembly voted last week to also impeach Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who had assumed the role of acting president after Mr. Yoon’s powers were suspended, over his reluctance to fill three Constitutional Court vacancies ahead of the court’s review of Mr. Yoon’s case. The country’s new interim leader is Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok, who is also finance minister.

To formally end Mr. Yoon’s presidency, at least six justices on the nine-member Constitutional Court must vote in favor. Three seats are currently vacant following retirements and a full bench could make conviction more likely.

Choi, who has been handling the government’s response to a plane crash on Sunday (December 29, 2024) that killed 179 people, has yet to say whether he intends to appoint the Constitutional Court justices.

In a separate criminal investigation of Mr. Yoon, authorities have already arrested his defence minister, police chief and several other military commanders involved in the attempt to enforce the martial law decree, which harkened back to the days of authoritarian leaders the country hasn’t seen since the 1980s.

Mr. Yoon and his military leadership have been accused of attempting to block the National Assembly from voting to end martial law by sending hundreds of heavily armed troops to encircle the building. Lawmakers who managed to get in voted unanimously 190-0 to lift martial law, hours after Yoon declared it in a late-night television address.

Mr. Yoon has also been accused of ordering defence counterintelligence officials to detain key politicians, including opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik and the ex-leader of his own conservative party, Han Dong-hun, a reformist who supported investigations into corruption allegations against first lady Kim Keon Hee.

Mr. Yoon has defended the martial law decree as a necessary act of governance, portraying it as a temporary warning against the liberal opposition Democratic Party, which he has described as an “anti-state” force obstructing his agenda with its majority in the National Assembly. Mr. Yoon has claimed he had no intention to paralyze the functioning of the assembly, saying that the troops were sent to maintain order, and also denied planning to arrest politicians.

Mr. Yoon’s claims have been denied by Kwak Jong-keun, the now-arrested commander of the Army Special Warfare Command, who testified in the National Assembly that Mr. Yoon called for troops to “quickly destroy the door and drag out the lawmakers who are inside” the assembly’s main chamber where the vote occurred. Kwak said he did not carry out Yoon’s orders.

The joint investigation team has also questioned Maj. Gen. Moon Sang-ho, commander of the Defense Intelligence Command, who has also been arrested over suspicions that he sent troops to the National Election Commission in Gwacheon city after Mr. Yoon declared martial law.

Mr. Yoon has defended the troop deployment to the election commission, which happened at the same time as the military operation at the National Assembly, saying it was necessary to investigate supposed vulnerabilities in the commission’s computer systems potentially affecting the credibility of election results.

Mr. Yoon’s failure to offer any evidence in support of his claims has raised concerns that he was endorsing conspiracy theories on right-wing YouTube channels that April’s parliamentary elections were rigged. The Democratic Party won those elections by a landslide. The election commission rejected Mr. Yoon’s allegations, stating there was no basis to suspect election fraud.

Protesters drag a figure depicting South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol as they march during a rally against Yoon Suk Yeol, who declared martial law, which was reversed hours later, in Seoul, South Korea, December 28, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

South Korea’s suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol refused a summons to appear for questioning on Sunday (December 29, 2024), the third time he has defied investigators’ demands in two weeks.

Investigators probing Yoon had ordered him to appear for questioning at 10 am (GMT 0100) on Sunday, a demand he rejected.

Yoon, a former prosecutor, also failed to attend a hearing he was summoned to last Wednesday, giving no explanation for his absence.

The conservative leader was stripped of his duties by parliament on December 14, following a short-lived martial law declaration that plunged the country into its worst political crisis in decades.

Yoon faces impeachment and criminal charges of insurrection, which could result in life imprisonment or even the death penalty, in a drama that has shocked democratic South Korea’s allies around the world.

“President Yoon Suk Yeol did not appear at the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) at 10 am today,” said the office in a statement.

“The Joint Investigation Headquarters will review and decide on future measures,” it added.

The CIO is expected to decide in the coming days whether to issue a fourth summons or ask a court to grant an arrest warrant to compel Yoon to appear for questioning.

He is being investigated by prosecutors as well as a joint team comprising police, defence ministry, and anti-corruption officials, while the Constitutional Court deliberates on the impeachment motion passed by parliament.

If upheld by the court, which is required to deliver its ruling within six months of the impeachment, a by-election must be held within 60 days of the court’s decision.

Former president Park Geun-hye was impeached under similar circumstances, but she was investigated only after the Constitutional Court removed her from power.

A 10-page prosecutors’ report seen by AFP stated that Yoon Suk Yeol authorised the military to fire their weapons if needed to enter parliament during his failed bid to impose martial law.

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s shock declaration of martial law revved up South Koreans from 0 to 100.

Within hours of Yoon’s late night announcement on Dec. 3, protesters massed on Seoul’s streets and lawmakers were so frantic to block the decree that they climbed over the fence of the legislature. A few days later, the president barely survived an impeachment attempt. The following weekend, officials once again gathered to oust Yoon. This time they succeeded. On the roads, thousands of demonstrators screamed with joy and released balloons into the air.

For much of the world beyond South Korea, the intensity of the past couple of weeks is a hard-to-fathom episode in a nation that’s fought hard for democratic rights and clearly refused to part with them. But beyond raw anger at a government many feel has failed them, the swiftness of  Yoon’s fall also gestures at the culture of South Korea, which has rapidly industrialized in recent years partly through maximizing efficiency and a head-on approach to solving conflict, for better or worse.

This ethos — referred to in Korean as palipali, or “hurry hurry” — touches issues big and small. In its most positive form, it’s an approach to life that’s allowed the country to climb atop global supply chains and punch above its weight in business, politics and pop culture.

Over the past few decades, South Korea’s most enviable companies, among them Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co., found success through embracing creative destruction and taking daring swings. Infrastructure projects have often moved at turbospeed, and the scars of poverty and past colonial and military regimes inform decision-making, motivating the populace to keep striving for a stabler future.

Unlike neighboring Japan, for instance, where corporates often struggle to innovate and the same party has mostly been in power for decades, Koreans aren’t afraid of bold pivots or voicing their displeasure. Yang Keeho, a professor of Japanese studies at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul, called the two countries “polar opposites.” In Japan, regime change is rare because resistance is broadly shunned.

Yet Koreans wasted no time in a largely unified pushback after Yoon declared martial law, one of the nation’s most consequential events in decades. Thousands of demonstrators poured onto the streets of Seoul with light sticks and danced at rallies to pop songs like Whiplash, a hit from the girl band Aespa.

“Palipali culture is an extremely powerful tool,” said Yoon Sooyeon, 41, a supporter of the protest movement who works in Seoul at an orchestra. “It’s a big part of what makes Korea do things that other countries can’t. This characteristic of how we can all gang up together very quickly and get excited.”

She said the past month also illustrates an anger that’s embedded in another popular term: naembi geunseung, or the boiling pot syndrome. Koreans heat up fast, she said, and cool down just as swiftly. “I’m not exactly a huge fan of this easy-to-heat-up nature,” she said. “But when the momentum is there, it really translates into a huge amount of energy.”

South Korea’s history helps explain its culture. In less than 100 years, the East Asian nation broke free from Japanese occupation, survived conflict with North Korea, and transformed its impoverished, agrarian economy into one of the world’s most formidable, with a gross domestic product that’s 85 times larger today than it was five decades ago. Some link the development of palipali to the Chollima Movement, when North Korea urged labor to work harder and faster to boost production after the Korean War ended in 1953.

This mentality influenced South Korea, which was the poorer of the two economies after the fighting ended. Business and political leaders pulled the country up through encouraging a uniquely abrasive — and often theatrical — approach to achieving speedy results.

Strongmen feature prominently in South Korea’s chaebols, massive, family-run conglomerates that dominate the economy. Former Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee is famous for telling his employees that they must sacrifice everything for the good of the company except for their wives and children. In 1995, he set fire to 150,000 phones and faxes, some of them defective, to make a statement about quality control, an event known as the “Anycall execution.”

To construct one of South Korea’s first highways, the Gyeongbu Expressway, developers hired 9 million people and members of the military, finishing the job a year ahead of schedule. And Park Tae-Joon, the founder of Posco Holdings, one of the world’s largest steel manufacturers, was so committed to expediting the building of a plant in the city of Pohang that he lived on the construction site.

This approach to development has its downsides. In the political context, South Korea’s leaders are often criticized for dramatic excesses and a level of public strife unheard of in other parts of East Asia. Many of the nation’s premiers have been impeached or imprisoned. Even Yoon’s decision to declare martial law has hints of palipali: After meeting with advisors for just five minutes, the president went ahead with the decree — in his telling to thwart “anti-state forces” among his political opponents.

Koo Jeong-woo, a sociology professor at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, said the word carries some negative connotations, though it’s also “what drives a highly-sophisticated level of cooperation.” Others see it as a simplistic depiction of Korean culture, noting that palipali  is expressed differently from the past. Many argue that living standards are high enough today that extreme measures broadly aren’t needed anymore.

Even so, palipali is an emotion that suggests perseverance and survival. After Yoon’s announcement, Koreans knew what to do.

“We get a glimpse into a culture’s nature when things like this happen,” Koo said. “Koreans are not shy about expressing ourselves. We’re very passionate and we have a strong obsession toward achieving goals, something we earned and developed in response to our geopolitical status, the Japan occupation and the Korean War.”

For many, the goal this month was ousting Yoon, whose approval rating plunged to 11% before the impeachment vote. During his tenure, young Koreans, in particular, have held his administration responsible for widening income disparities and lack of job opportunities.

On Saturday, more than a quarter million Koreans braved the cold to bring the president’s chapter to an end. A rival group of pro-Yoon protesters, largely older and more conservative, also gathered in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square, a central landmark for Korean history.

Ahead of the voting, Kim Yebin joined protesters outside the National Assembly with her parents and sister. The crowd sang along to Saturday Night, a popular K-pop song, changing the lyrics to meet the moment. “On Saturday night, impeach Yoon Suk Yeol!” 

Many spoke emotionally about the last time South Korea was under martial law. In 1980, students led an uprising for democracy in the city of Gwangju. The military met demonstrators with force, firing indiscriminately into the crowds and killing hundreds.

Soon after the votes were counted, phones lit up with news alerts: 204 ballots in favor of removing Yoon and 85 against. The crowd erupted. Demonstrators cried and embraced their neighbors. “We did it!” Kim shouted.

“Everything has happened at lightning speed from beginning to end,” said Kim, whose throat was sore from singing. “The truth is we are a crowd of 200,000 different individuals. But we were here together united with a single goal.”

The days ahead could still be rocky. After Yoon declared martial law, South Korea’s markets shed billions of dollars and the won fell against the dollar to its lowest level since the global financial crisis. The Bank of Korea has vowed to stabilize the economy after Saturday’s vote, but volatility remains a possibility.

Within a few months, South Korea’s Constitutional Court will also rule on the validity of the impeachment motion. If the measure moves forward, and Yoon is formally removed, the government has 60 days to hold fresh presidential elections.

Yet even with the uncertainty, many Koreans say this month has brought much of the country together, illustrating the unique resilience of a populace unwilling to turn back the clock to darker chapters of history.

“There is a hundred-year-long tradition of resistance,” said Ben Forney, a researcher at Seoul National University who writes about economic security. “I think now the Korean people have this confidence that they can make a change.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

A traffic police office walks near the National Assembly as a rally demanding South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment takes place, in Seoul, South Korea, on December 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Yonhap news agency says police are searching President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office.

Yonhap says the search is happening on Wednesday (December 11, 2024) over Mr. Yoon’s December 3 martial law declaration.

Police didn’t immediately confirm the report.

The reported search happens as the country’s main law enforcement institutions are focusing on finding whether Mr. Yoon and others involved in the December 3 martial law imposition committed rebellion.

South Korea’s two highest police officers have been detained to be investigated for their roles in enforcing President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law decree last week, police said Wednesday (December 11, 2024).

The development comes hours before the main liberal opposition Democratic Party submits a new motion to impeach Mr. Yoon as the country’s main law enforcement institutions expand their investigation into whether the President’s declaration amounted to rebellion. The first impeachment attempt failed last Saturday when the ruling party boycotted the vote. The Democratic Party said it aims to put the new motion to a vote on Saturday (December 14, 2024).

Mr. Yoon’s ill-conceived power grab has paralyzed South Korean politics, frozen its foreign policy, and rattled financial markets, greatly reducing his chances of completing his five-year term and casting a turbulent shadow over one of Asia’s most robust democracies.

After last week’s impeachment motion fell through, the leader of Mr. Yoon’s conservative party pledged to arrange his stable exit from power, saying the party will coordinate with Cabinet members over state affairs and that Mr. Yoon will be sidelined from duties during a transition to an early election.

However, the plans have been widely criticised as unrealistic and unconstitutional. The constitution explicitly states that impeachment is the sole method for suspending presidential powers and that the authority to command the military rests solely with the President. The Defence Ministry said this week that Yoon remains in charge of the country’s military forces.

Earlier Wednesday (December 11, 2024), Mr. Yoon’s former Defence Minister, Kim Yong Hyun, was arrested after a Seoul court approved a warrant for him on allegations of playing a key role in a rebellion and committing abuse of power. Mr. Kim became the first person arrested over the December 3 martial law decree.

Police said National Police Agency Commissioner General Cho Ji Ho and Kim Bong-sik, head of the metropolitan police agency of the capital, Seoul, were being held at Seoul’s Namdaemun police station.

They have been investigated for their roles in deploying police forces to the National Assembly in an attempt to block lawmakers from entering the Parliament to vote to lift Mr. Yoon’s martial law decree, which was abruptly announced on the night of December 3.

The Assembly was also encircled by heavily armed troops, which military commanders say were deployed on the orders of the former Defence Minister. But enough lawmakers eventually managed to enter a parliament chamber and unanimously rejected Yoon’s decree, forcing the Cabinet to lift it before daybreak on December 4.

During a parliamentary hearing Tuesday (December 10, 2024), Kwak Jong-keun, commander of the Army Special Warfare Command whose troops were sent to Parliament, testified that he received direct instructions from Kim Yong Hyun to obstruct lawmakers from entering the Assembly’s main chamber. Kwak said the purpose of Mr. Kim’s instructions was to prevent the 300-member parliament from gathering the 150 votes necessary to overturn Yoon’s martial law order.

Mr. Kwak said Yoon later called him directly and asked for the troops to “quickly destroy the door and drag out the lawmakers who are inside.” Mr. Kwak said he discussed Yoon’s order with the commander at the scene and that they concluded there was nothing that could be done, ruling out the possibility of threatening the lawmakers by shooting blanks or cutting off electricity.

At the same hearing, senior officer Kim Dae-woo of the military’s counterintelligence agency said his commander, Yeo In-hyung, asked him if an army bunker in Seoul had space to detain politicians and other figures after martial law was imposed. Yeo is considered a close associate of Kim Yong Hyun. Last week, Hong Jang-won, a deputy director of the country’s spy agency, said Mr. Yoon ordered him to help Yeo’s command to detain some of his political rivals but he ignored the president’s order.

Mr. Kwak and Mr. Yeo are among those who face opposition-raised rebellion charges along with Mr. Yoon and Mr. Kim, and the Defence Ministry suspended them last week.

If Mr. Yoon is impeached, his presidential powers would be suspended until the Constitutional Court decides whether to restore his powers or remove him from office. If he is dismissed from office, a new presidential election would be required.

Opposition parties and many experts say the martial law decree was unconstitutional. They say a President is by law allowed to declare martial law only during “wartime, war-like situations or other comparable national emergency states” and South Korea wasn’t in such a situation. They argue that deploying troops to seal the National Assembly to suspend its political activities amounted to rebellion because the South Korean Constitution doesn’t allow a President to use the military to suspend Parliament in any situation.

In his martial law announcement, the conservative Mr. Yoon stressed a need to rebuild the country by eliminating “shameless North Korea followers and anti-state forces,” a reference to his liberal rivals who control Parliament. Since taking office in 2022, Mr. Yoon has had near-constant friction with the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, which introduced motions to impeach some of his top officials and launched a political offensive over scandals involving Yoon and his wife.

On Wednesday (December 11, 2024), North Korea’s state news agency for the first time reported about the political turmoil and street protests triggered by Mr. Yoon’s martial law decree. The report mostly attempted to explain the South Korean events though it used its typical abusive language like calling Mr. Yoon “a traitor” and his military “gangsters.”

Many experts say North Korea is sensitive to the domestic spread of news on massive anti-government protests in foreign countries because its own people have no official access to international news and could be affected by such events.

Seoul:

The lawmakers of South Korea’s opposition coalition on Wednesday moved a motion in the Asian country’s Parliament to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol after his shocking imposition of martial law that brought thousands of protesters to the streets.