Pro-Yoon protests shrink substantially after impeachment verdict
Vows of 'revolution' against court ruling ring hollow as rallies supporting ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol draw smaller crowds
Following the Friday verdict by the Constitutional Court expelling Yoon Suk Yeol from the presidency, far-right activist and pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon called for 30 million people to gather to protest the decision.
According to police estimates, 18,000 people showed up to the Saturday protest led by Jeon. Organizers claimed it was a million, and had reported to the authorities that 200,000 were expected to participate.
A significant number of protesters filled the streets of Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, but calls for protection of the former president have subsided substantially after the court ruling that made Yoon the second president ever to be ousted via impeachment.
Save Korea, a right-leaning Christian group that had notified the authorities of a Saturday protest of 20,000 in Seoul, cancelled the demonstration shortly after the Constitutional Court ruling. Reporters stationed at the official presidential residence in Hannam-dong -- which had been packed with Yoon supporters before the verdict -- had said the area was mostly empty as of Sunday morning.
Yoon and his wife Kim Keon Hee are to move out of the official residence to their personal residence, with the former first couple yet to state when they will vacate the premises.
At protests on March 1 in Seoul, the crowds of Yoon supporters surpassed the police-estimated 120,000 participants, with Save Korea hosting an event in Yeouido, near the National Assembly, that drew 55,000. Scores of lawmakers with Yoon's People Power Party joined the demonstrations, including multiple-term legislators Kim Gi-hyeon, Na Kyung-won, Yoon Sang-hyun and former party floor leader Choo Kyung-ho.
South Koreans both supporting and opposing Yoon's impeachment did hold rallies across Seoul on Saturday, but on a much smaller scale than before. Pro-impeachment demonstrators on Friday were seen removing the tents they had set up at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul for long-term demonstrations, which had been held since shortly after Yoon declared martial law on Dec. 3.
Avid supporters of Yoon still oppose impeachment
Those who attended the pro-Yoon rallies over the weekend appeared angered by the court ruling. They voiced their discontent with the National Assembly that passed the impeachment motion and the Constitutional Court for upholding it, even denying the authority of the court and the legitimacy of the upcoming election to choose a new president.
Jeon urged participants to prepare a "revolution" against what he claimed was an unjust decision by the court, telling protesters to each send text messages protesting the impeachment to 10 acquaintances. Jeon claimed that Yoon's approval rating is "actually over 70 percent," and he himself has been cleared of all charges related to Yoon's alleged insurrection.
Yoon's approval rating peaked at 53 percent in June 2022, according to Gallup Korea, but by the week after his martial law declaration in December 2024 had fallen to 11 percent. Jeon is still under investigation for suspicion of inciting the Jan. 19 attack on the Seoul Western District Court, which left scores of police officers and civilians injured.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
11 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Who is Lee Jae-myung's pick for prime minister, Kim Min-seok?
Rep. Kim Min-seok, who was considered President Lee Jae-myung's "wingman" when they were in the Democratic Party of Korea leadership, has been nominated as his prime minister. As prime minister, Kim would steer Lee's Cabinet and serve as a key adviser. The position requires the National Assembly's confirmation. From as early as August 2024, Kim began raising alarms about former President Yoon Suk Yeol preparing to impose martial law. Kim had argued with conviction that Yoon was not only thinking about martial law, but taking concrete steps to go through with it. Kim was met by skepticism even within the Democratic Party, where a sizeable majority felt that the party was "taking things too far" with the martial law claims. Democratic Party lawmakers were seen distancing themselves from Kim's claims. When Yoon declared martial law on the night of Dec. 3, 2024, Kim's early warnings were revisited. Face of 'new pro-Lee' group Rep. Kim Min-seok, a former star politician who made a stunning return to the spotlight under Lee's Democratic Party, has been at the center of the new pro-Lee Jae-myung group. When Kim ran for a seat on the Democratic Party's supreme council last August, it soon became apparent that he was Lee's preferred choice to serve in the party's top decision-making body, a coveted and prestigious spot. Youngest lawmaker of his time to be elected Kim, the youngest in the batch of lawmakers elected in the 1996 general election, stepped into the limelight as soon as he entered politics. As a young politician, Kim served as chief secretary to former President Kim Dae-jung, when he was the leader of the Democratic Party. Jailed for occupying US-owned building in Seoul Kim was one of some 70 university students to occupy the US Cultural Center near the US Embassy in Seoul in May 1985 in an unarmed protest. Recalling the protest, Kim said in an interview with a local broadcaster in Gwangju on Oct. 12, 2024, that he was one of the first to raise suspicions that the US might have been behind the "massacre in Gwangju." Kim was referring to the series of pro-democracy protests in May 1980 in Gwangju against the then-government under Chun Doo-hwan, a military dictator. In the interview, Kim said that when he was the president of the student council at Seoul National University, he called for "uncovering the truths about the possible US intervention in the Gwangju massacre." "I said something on that scale (in Gwangju) would not have been possible without acquiescence from the US. That's what the US Cultural Center incident is about," Kim said. "It marked the first instance of getting what happened in Gwangju a recognition outside Korea." Kim served two years and eight months in jail for violating the laws on public demonstrations at the time. arin@
Korea Herald
11 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Russia advances to east-central Ukrainian region
Russia said Sunday that its forces had advanced to the edge of the east-central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk amid a public row between Moscow and Kyiv over peace negotiations and the return of thousands of bodies of soldiers who fell in the war. Despite talk of peace, the war is stepping up with Russian forces grabbing more territory in Ukraine and Kyiv unfurling high-profile drone and sabotage attacks on Russia's nuclear-capable bomber fleet and, according to Moscow, on railways. Russia, which controls a little under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, has taken more than 190 square kilometers of the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine in less than a month, according to pro-Ukrainian open-source maps. Now, according to the Russian defence ministry, units of the 90th Tank Division of the Central Grouping of Russian forces have reached the western frontier of Ukraine's Donetsk region and are attacking the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region. "The enemy does not abandon its intentions to enter the Dnipropetrovsk region," Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces said on Telegram. "Our soldiers are courageously and professionally holding their section of the front, disrupting the occupier's plans. This work does not stop for a minute." Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia's Security Council, said the Dnipropetrovsk offensive showed that if Ukraine did not want to accept the reality of Russia's territorial gains in peace talks, then Moscow's forces would advance further. The pro-Ukrainian Deep State map showed Russian forces very close to the Dnipropetrovsk region, which had a population of more than 3 million before the war, and advancing on the city of Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region from several directions. A Ukrainian military spokesperson, Dmytro Zaporozhets, said that Russian forces were trying to "build a bridgehead for an attack" on Kostyantynivka, an important logistical hub for the Ukrainian army. Russia on Saturday accused Ukraine of delaying the swap of prisoners of war and the return of the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers. Ukraine denied those claims. On Sunday, Russia said it was moving bodies towards the border and television showed refrigerated trucks containing the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers on the road in the Bryansk region. Ukraine, officials said, was playing politics with the dead. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pledged to press on with prisoner exchanges. "The Russian side is therefore, like always, even in these matters, is trying to play some kind of dirty political and information game," he said in his nightly video address. "We believe that the exchanges will continue and will do everything for this. If the Russians do not stand by agreements even in humanitarian matters, it casts great doubt on all international efforts — including those by the United States in terms of talks and diplomacy." Zelenskyy said he had reviewed commanders' reports about areas hit by heavy fighting, including near Pokrovsk, targeted by Moscow for months. He said the situation was "far from easy, but everything depends on the resilience of our units." US President Donald Trump, who says he wants an end to the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, on Thursday likened it to a fight between young children and indicated that he might have to simply let the conflict play out. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he did not think Ukraine's leaders wanted peace, after accusing them of ordering a bombing in Bryansk, western Russia, that killed seven people and injured 115 a day before talks in Turkey. Ukraine, which has not commented on the attack on a Bryansk bridge, has similarly accused Moscow of not seriously seeking peace, citing Russian resistance to an immediate ceasefire. Russia is demanding international recognition of Crimea, a peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and four other regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed as its own territory. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from all of them. Russia controlled 113,273 square kilometers, or 18.8 percent, of Ukrainian territory as of June 7, according to the Deep State map. That is an area bigger than the U.S. state of Virginia. The areas under Russian control include Crimea, more than 99 percent of the Luhansk region, over 70 percent of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, all in the east or southeast, and fragments of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions in the northeast. Putin told Trump on Wednesday that he would have to respond to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia's bomber fleet and the bombings of the railways. Zelenskyy warned Ukrainians in his video message to be particularly attentive to air raid warnings in the coming days. The US believes that Putin's threatened retaliation against Ukraine over its attacks has not happened yet in earnest and is likely to be a significant, multipronged strike, US officials told Reuters. (Reuters)
Korea Herald
12 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Could Lee Jae-myung avoid trials during presidency?
With the ruling Democratic Party of Korea set to push for an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act to postpone any criminal trials involving sitting presidents until they leave office, President Lee Jae-myung will likely be unaffected during his term by the ongoing criminal trials he faces. A total of five different criminal trials presented major challenges for Lee during his presidential campaign, allowing other candidates to question whether Lee was truly qualified to lead the country. Some in the legal community expected that the trials would remain hurdles for Lee even after the election as Article 84 of the Constitution -- which stipulates that the president cannot be criminally prosecuted while in office except in cases of insurrection or treason -- does not clarify whether this immunity extends to ongoing trials that began before the president took office. But the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, led by the Democratic Party, approved a revision to the Criminal Procedure Act in early May to prevent legal ambiguity. The ruling party is reportedly considering proposing the amendment in a National Assembly plenary session on Thursday. 'The Constitution guarantees the president immunity from prosecution in order to ensure stable governance. The Criminal Procedure Act also states that criminal trials fall under the definition of prosecution,' said Democratic Party Rep. Jeon Hyun-heui during the ruling party's Supreme Council meeting on Monday, claiming that the entire case needs to be suspended regardless of when it began. The Democratic Party added that the amendment is a legislative clarification introduced to avoid any conflict between constitutional immunity and the actual judicial process. The main opposition People Power Party condemned the liberal party's legal revision, calling the amendment of the Criminal Procedure Act a 'bulletproof law,' a self-interested measure aimed at granting immunity to the president. 'All are equal before the law. The presidency is not a position to escape trials that began before taking office,' said People Power Party interim leader Kim Yong-tae in a press conference held Sunday, asking whether President Lee is willing to attend a hearing in his trial for alleged election law violations scheduled on June 18. Kim criticized the proposed bills -- the amendment of the Criminal Procedure Act and a proposed expansion of the Supreme Court -- which he said the ruling party is attempting to ram through only for the benefit of the current president. In early May, the Supreme Court's Court Administration Office stated that the judges of each court will have to decide whether to stop or proceed with the trials by applying Article 84 of the Constitution to a criminal defendant who has been elected president. Meanwhile, the Seoul High Court announced Monday that the hearing in Lee's retrial on charges of election law violations, which was set to be held on June 18, will be postponed. 'The court has rescheduled the hearing date and will set a new date later. The decision was made after considering Article 84 of the Constitution,' the Seoul High Court said, without giving a new date for the hearing. Decisions about Lee's remaining criminal trials, in which the president is accused of subornation of perjury, corruption, illegal money transfers to North Korea and misappropriating public funds, are yet to be announced.
