Marine veterans get their heads shaved – a traditional Korean gesture of protest – at a Dec. 5 rally outside the presidential office in Seoul. Days earlier, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, which lawmakers quickly voted down amid a tense standoff with soldiers at the National Assembly.Ahn Young-joon/The Associated Press
Latest updates
- South Korean lawmakers are getting ready to vote this Saturday on whether to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol, who police are now investigating for treason after an opposition party’s complaint. The Democrats, who hold a majority in the National Assembly, said they too would pursue treason charges if the impeachment motion fails.
- On Thursday Mr. Yoon replaced his defence minister, Kim Yong-hyun, who had offered to quit after Tuesday’s abortive declaration of martial law. Hearings at the National Assembly revealed that Mr. Kim gave the order to send soldiers to the legislature that night.
- Foreign ministries in Canada, the United States and other western nations have urged their citizens in South Korea to avoid demonstrations and monitor local media for the latest developments. If martial law had continued, the military would have had sweeping power to limit public assembly and regulate news outlets.
'Yoon Suk Yeol should step down,' reads this woman's sign at a candlelight vigil in Seoul.HILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images
Yoon Suk Yeol’s crisis at a glance
President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose recent approval ratings have hovered around 20 per cent, has had a rockier time than usual in recent months.
April’s elections were a rout for his People Power Party, and in the National Assembly – which, unlike the Canadian or U.S. legislatures, has a single chamber – rival parties took nearly two-thirds of the seats. Since then, the liberal Democratic Party, led by Lee Jae-myung, has repeatedly passed bills – which Mr. Yoon vetoed each time – to have a special prosecutor investigate alleged wrongdoings by Mr. Yoon’s wife. Recently, the Democrats also cut more than four trillion won, or about $4-billion, from Mr. Yoon’s budget proposal, then pushed those changes through committee, which brought an angry response from the president’s office.
Tuesday’s martial law lasted only about six hours. Mr. Yoon announced the measures on TV around 10:30 p.m. When troops entered the legislature, lawmakers – urged by the speaker to rally immediately for a vote – climbed walls to get inside while staff held the soldiers at bay with makeshift barricades. By 1 a.m., there were 190 legislators present, 18 from the PPP, who voted unanimously to reverse martial law. By 4:20 a.m. Mr. Yoon rescinded his order. By Wednesday, the Democrats and allies regrouped with a motion to impeach Mr. Yoon.
South Korean army tanks withdraw from downtown Gwangju, South Korea, in 1980, after government troops recaptured the city, a hub for student-led protests against the dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan.The Associated Press
What is martial law? How does it work in South Korea?
When the military seizes power from a civilian government, or is given that power in a time of crisis, martial law is the set of rules that overrides a country’s usual laws. South Korea has done this more than a dozen times since the republic’s creation in 1948, often in response to democratic uprisings. Two involved coups by military officers, Park Chung-hee in 1961 and Chun Doo-hwan in 1980: In Mr. Chun’s case, he and his supporters forced then-president Choi Kyu-hah to crush the opposition, labour and students who wanted democracy restored.
South Korea’s constitution says the president can use martial law only in “wartime, war-like situations or other comparable national emergency states.” When the president declares martial law, they must notify the assembly of the decision, and cabinet must review the declaration: Questions of whether and how Mr. Yoon did this will be central to the impeachment process he might soon face. When the assembly requests that martial law be lifted – as it did within hours of Mr. Yoon’s declaration – the president must comply.
At a Seoul bus terminal, a man watches Mr. Yoon's Dec. 3 announcement, where he said martial law would stop the country from 'falling into the depths of national ruin.'Ahn Young-joon/The Associated Press
The martial law decree’s six points, explained
Mr. Yoon’s martial law commander, General Park An-su, issued Tuesday’s statement about what the measures would involve, saying they were necessary to “protect liberal democracy from the threat of overthrowing the regime of the Republic of Korea by anti-state forces.” Gen. Park laid out six prohibitions, warning that anyone violating them would be arrested or searched without a warrant. Here’s some context on each of the six points.
1. All political activities, including the activities of the National Assembly, local councils, and political parties, political associations, rallies and demonstrations, are prohibited.
Korean troops last tried to suppress the assembly after Mr. Chun’s coup in 1980, but after a massacre of student demonstrators in Gwangju, the regime faced stronger public and international pressure to democratize, and the first free and fair elections followed in 1987. Martial law had never been used since, until Mr. Yoon’s declaration on Tuesday, and when that came, lawmakers immediately mobilized against it.
2. All acts that deny or attempt to overthrow the liberal democratic system are prohibited, and fake news, public opinion manipulation, and false propaganda are prohibited.
3. All media and publications are subject to the control of the Martial Law Command.
Even before Mr. Yoon came to power, polarization in South Korea has left journalists open to political accusations that they are “not on our side,” according to Reporters Without Borders, whose global rankings of press freedom puts South Korea 62nd out of 180 countries. Mr. Yoon often denounces his legislative critics as propagandists, and under his presidency, defamation cases against the news media have risen dramatically.
4. Strikes, work stoppages and rallies that incite social chaos are prohibited.
5. All medical personnel, including trainee doctors, who are on strike or have left the medical field must return to their jobs within 48 hours and work faithfully. Those who violate will be punished in accordance with the Martial Law.
Thousands of doctors have been striking for months over government plans to expand the number of students at medical schools. The military said anyone who violated the decree could be arrested without a warrant.
6. Innocent ordinary citizens, excluding anti-state forces and other subversive forces, will be subject to measures to minimize inconvenience in their daily lives.
Like the South Korean strongmen of the 1980s, Mr. Yoon sometimes accuses legislative critics of being North Korean sympathizers, and while the declaration did not say this outright, Mr. Yoon did in his televised announcement: He called the opposition “shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces who are plundering the freedom and happiness of our citizens,” without elaborating.
How can presidents be impeached in South Korea?
Lawmakers have already taken the first step to impeach Mr. Yoon, submitting a bill that could be voted on by Saturday. To remove a president, impeachment needs to be put forward by more than half the legislators in the 300-member assembly, then passed by a two-thirds majority. The first step is easy for the Democrats and their allies, who each have 192 seats; the second will require eight or more votes from the PPP, whose leader opposes impeachment, though he voted for rescinding martial law.
If Mr. Yoon is forced out, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo would take over until the Constitutional Court allows or rejects the impeachment. The court last did this in 2017 for Park Geun-hye, who was mired in a corruption scandal; it had 180 days to decide her fate, and did so in half that time, ruling unanimously for impeachment.
With reports from Associated Press and Reuters