{"id":54949,"date":"2026-02-23T05:36:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T05:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=54949"},"modified":"2026-02-23T05:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T05:36:22","slug":"how-south-koreas-democracy-rallied-after-the-president-tried-to-impose-military-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=54949","title":{"rendered":"How South Korea’s democracy rallied after the president tried to impose military rule"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took just over 14 months for Yoon Suk Yeol to go from South Korea’s presidential residence to a life behind bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took South Koreans less than six hours to thwart the insurrection attempt that put him there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 4 December, 2024, Yoon announced to the nation that he was declaring martial law \u2013 plunging South Korea into chaos and setting in motion a series of events that would precipitate his downfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 443 days that followed saw months-long protests, Yoon’s impeachment, a string of indictments and a widening fracture that now runs through the heart of South Korean politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, Yoon was found guilty of masterminding an insurrection and jailed for life. Prosecutors had demanded<\/a> that the 65-year-old be sentenced to death \u2013 which, in a country that has not carried out an execution since 1997, would have amounted to a life sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outcome of the verdict \u2013 and the expediency with which South Koreans held their leader accountable \u2013 sends a powerful message at a time when the United Nations<\/a> has warned of rising authoritarianism around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“At a time when global democracy appears fragile, the Korean case offers a rare example of democratic resilience,” Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Korea program at Stanford University, tells the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It reminds us that democracy ultimately depends not only on formal rules, but on citizens and institutions willing to defend them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC: It took just over 14 months for Yoon Suk Yeol to go from South Korea’s presidential residence to a life behind bars. It took South Koreans less than six hours to thwart the insurrection attempt that put him there. On 4 December, 2024, Yoon announced to the nation that he was declaring martial law \u2013 plunging South Korea into chaos and setting in motion a series of events that would precipitate his downfall. The 443 days that followed saw months-long protests, Yoon’s impeachment, a string of indictments and a widening fracture that now runs through the heart of South… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54951,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54949\/revisions\/54951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}