On December 3, Han Dong-Hoon was listening to the radio while driving home from dinner in Seoul when he heard a breaking news update: President Yoon Suk-Yeol was preparing to give an emergency speech. One of the president’s closest allies at the time was Han, who led Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP). However, that was Han’s first indication that Yoon would take an extraordinary step.
In a self-declared attempt to eradicate “anti-state forces” and North Korea sympathizers, the president proclaimed martial law at midnight, plunging the nation into a political whirlpool.
I felt, ‘We must stop it, because if it isn’t lifted that very night, a bloodbath would erupt,’ when I first heard the news of martial law,” Han tells BBC Korean. There was an overpowering sense of panic and terror that South Korea’s hard-won accomplishments over the past few decades might suddenly come crashing down.
Shortly after Yoon’s declaration, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party streamed a call for protesters to gather outside the National Assembly building in the heart of Seoul.
In a frantic attempt to stop Yoon’s order, opposition legislators rushed into the assembly building, scrambling over walls and gates as thousands of people reacted, fighting with police and obstructing military forces.
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