{"id":20543,"date":"2025-04-05T14:41:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T08:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=20543"},"modified":"2025-04-05T14:41:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T08:56:18","slug":"thousands-rally-for-south-koreas-impeached-ex-president-yoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/thousands-rally-for-south-koreas-impeached-ex-president-yoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands rally for South Korea’s impeached ex-president Yoon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thousands protested in the South Korean capital Saturday in support of disgraced ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office a day earlier over his bungled martial law declaration.<\/div>\n
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South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously ruled on Friday to remove Yoon over the December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule, triggering fresh elections to be held by June after months of political turmoil.<\/div>\n
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A long wait for the court’s ruling had heightened tensions in the Asian nation, fuelling far-right support for Yoon and weekly rival rallies in capital Seoul.<\/div>\n
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His supporters took to the streets in the capital and braved the rain on Saturday, chanting “impeachment is invalid!” and “nullify the snap election!”<\/div>\n
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“The Constitutional Court’s decision destroyed our country’s free democracy,” said protester Yang Joo-young, 26.<\/div>\n
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“Speaking as someone in my 20s or 30s, I’m deeply worried about the future.”<\/div>\n
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Yoon had defended his martial law attempt as necessary to root out “anti-state forces” and what he claimed were threats from North Korea.<\/div>\n
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But there were many scenes of jubilation in Seoul on Friday from those opposed to Yoon’s rule, with people hugging and crying after the ruling was delivered.<\/div>\n
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Yet Yoon had found backing from extreme religious figures and right-wing YouTubers who experts say used misinformation to court support for the former star prosecutor.<\/div>\n
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“Yoon’s presidency has revealed the societal cracks based on political polarisation and misinformation,” Minseon Ku, a postdoctoral fellow at William & Mary Global Research Institute, told AFP.<\/div>\n
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The court ruled that Yoon’s actions in December had posed a “grave threat” to the country’s stability.<\/div>\n
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Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is seen as the frontrunner in the next election, experts say, and his party has taken a more conciliatory approach towards North Korea.<\/div>\n
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Some Yoon supporters were worried about the prospect of a Lee presidency.<\/div>\n
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“I honestly believe South Korea is finished,” said pro-Yoon supporter Park Jong-hwan, 59.<\/div>\n
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“It feels like we’ve already transitioned into a socialist, communist state.”<\/div>\n
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Thousands protested in the South Korean capital Saturday in support of disgraced ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office a day earlier over his bungled martial law declaration. South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously ruled on Friday to remove Yoon over the December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule, triggering fresh elections to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20545,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20543\/revisions\/20545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}