South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared an ‘emergency martial law,’ accusing the country’s opposition of controlling the parliament, sympathizing with the DPRK and paralyzing the government with anti-state activities.
Yoon made the announcement during a televised briefing, vowing to “eradicate pro-DPRK forces and protect the constitutional democratic order.” It wasn’t immediately clear how the steps would affect the country’s governance and democracy.
#southkorea #southkoreapolitics #politics #southkoreaparliament #yoonsukyeol
Yoon made the announcement during a televised briefing, vowing to “eradicate pro-DPRK forces and protect the constitutional democratic order.” It wasn’t immediately clear how the steps would affect the country’s governance and democracy.
#southkorea #southkoreapolitics #politics #southkoreaparliament #yoonsukyeol
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NewsTranscript
00:00Yeah, this has really caught everybody by surprise. It's been a long time since a leader
00:06of South Korea has declared martial law, invoked Article 77 of the Constitution, of course,
00:13in which the president can step in, essentially to respond with the military if necessary
00:21to maintain public order. This can affect free speech. It's normally only brought in
00:26in the case of a war or a dire emergency or that sort of a threat. And it comes after
00:33a long gridlock in the National Assembly, where the main opposition Democrat Party,
00:39the left-leaning party, has a strong majority that came through the last midterm elections
00:46and essentially blocked all of President Yun Song-il's measures. But he hasn't really given
00:53us details on how this equates to being sort of a pro-North Korean activity or given any
01:01sort of detail at all on, you know, sort of what he means by this sort of insidious element
01:06of the National Assembly. So I think this, of course, is going to be the big focus tomorrow.
01:11He has already said that this will be revoked if the National Assembly, a majority in the
01:17National Assembly moves it against it. And of course, that will happen because the opposition
01:21party holds the majority in the National Assembly. So it's very confusing at this point. We don't
01:28know what particular parts of the Article 77 he wants to invoke. It has vast sweeping powers,
01:35essentially puts control over the whole state apparatus. Or if he's just thinking of small,
01:40selective ideas, everybody, of course, is wondering what's going on right now. This
01:46is really unprecedented in modern South Korean history. But I think we're going to have to
01:51wait till tomorrow. It's almost midnight here in South Korea at the moment. We're going to
01:55have to wait till the daytime to find out if he misspoke or if this is real and what it entails.