The New Yorker:

President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, then backed off, in a matter of hours. He now faces impeachment and mass protests.

By E. Tammy Kim

Late on Tuesday night in Seoul, Yoon Suk-yeol, the unpopular South Korean President facing growing calls for impeachment and resignation, appeared on television to issue an emergency declaration of martial law. All political meetings and strikes were banned; all media would be subject to government approval. The action was necessary, Yoon insisted, because of legislators’ recent attempts to impeach various members of his administration and obstruct his budget—not to mention the ever-present threat of Communist North Korea that had infiltrated the primary opposition party and was “plundering the freedom and happiness of our people.” He used the word “paralysis” again and again to describe the state of his government, which, he said, was “on the verge of collapse,” as grave a situation as actual war. Thousands of citizens and journalists crowded outside the gates of the National Assembly, while a phalanx of military special-forces officers, toting rifles, broke through windows to get inside. Helicopters flew overhead. The images recalled footage from May, 1980, in Gwangju, after the previous time a South Korean leader had instituted martial law—resulting in a government massacre of pro-democracy protesters. Around 1 a.m. on Wednesday, nearly two-thirds of the members of the National Assembly convened to vote to overturn Yoon’s declaration, under a provision of the 1987 constitution that had seemed like a relic, until now: when a majority of the legislature “requests the lifting of martial law . . . the President shall comply.”

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