South Korea: Protests on eve of deadline to arrest Yoon

Thousands of supporters and critics of ousted South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol brave the snow in Seoul on Sunday, a day before an arrest warrant against him expires for his failed attempt to impose early martial law. December.

In front of his residence, supporters of the former star prosecutor came in numbers, AFP journalists noted, despite the cold and the white coat that covered the capital during the night.

“I went through war and -20 degree temperatures in the snow to fight […] This snow is nothing,” Park Young-chul told AFP, asserting that the “war is here again.”

“I left my job to come protect our country”

Another rally, this time of Yoon’s opponents, is planned from 2:00 p.m. (6:00 a.m. Swiss time) but some detractors were already there in the morning.

“I left my job to come protect our country and democracy. I live two hours from here and going to the demonstrations and then leaving was too much,” Lee Jin-ah, a 28-year-old anti-Yoon, told AFP.

“Snow is nothing […] we will still be there,” continues the former cafe employee, who spent the night in front of Yoon Suk Yeol’s home.

The painful memory of the military dictatorship

The arrest warrant issued against him, to force him to answer questions about his brief imposition of martial law in early December, expires Monday evening. The investigators, who failed to seize him on their first attempt on Friday, had assured that the warrant would be executed within the deadline.

Yoon Suk Yeol, 64, is the subject of several investigations, including for “rebellion”, accused of having shaken the young South Korean democracy with his coup, which revived the painful memory of the military dictatorship.

On the night of December 3 to 4, in Parliament surrounded by soldiers, enough deputies managed to vote for a motion demanding the lifting of the state of exception. Under pressure from elected officials, thousands of demonstrators and constrained by the Constitution, Yoon Suk Yeol had to comply a few hours after his shock decision.

A motion for impeachment

On December 14, the Assembly passed an impeachment motion against him, leading to his immediate suspension. However, he officially remains the titular president while waiting for the Constitutional Court to rule on his case by mid-June.

His possible arrest would be a first for a sitting South Korean president.

However, investigators left his home empty-handed on Friday, blocked in their attempt to arrest him by his guard, who refused to respect the warrant.

“The presidential security service violated the Constitution”

The Senior Corruption Investigation Office (CIO), the entity centralizing the investigations, asked Acting President Choi Sang-mok on Saturday to order protection staff Yoon Suk Yeol to cooperate.

“The presidential security service has violated the Constitution, becoming in fact a rebel force,” Park Chan-dae, head of deputies of the Democratic Party, the main opposition force and majority group in the Parliament, lambasted Saturday in Parliament. hemicycle.

South Korea has continued to descend into political chaos since the beginning of December, with the first interim president also having been dismissed on the 27th by MPs, who accused him of obstructing the proceedings against Yoon Suk Yeol. Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok then took over and serves as the second acting president.

In this context, the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken is expected in Seoul, notably for a meeting on Monday with his counterpart Cho Tae-yul.

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