South Korea: Episodes of Fallen President Yoon Sook Yeol’s Fans and Opponents

Hundreds of protesters clashed with each other on Tuesday (02.01.2025) in front of the deposed president’s official residence in . Others demand his immediate detention and others demand his protection in the face of the risk of his arrest. Faced with an arrest warrant against him by authorities in South Korea, 64-year-old Yoon Sook Yeol, remains confined to his residence in Seoul, promising to “fight to the end” against authorities, who want to question him about his failed attempt to enforce martial law. CORVERSE Following the December 3 coup d’état, Yoon has shown no regrets and his systematic refusal to submit to researchers’ questions raises fears that an attempt to arrest him will cause violent incidents, further exacerbating the deep crisis that Asia’s fourth largest economy is going through. Hundreds of loyal supporters of Yoon, among them far-right stars of YouTube and evangelical leaders, gathered in front of his Seoul home, having against the protesters against Yoon and police riot response units. A woman fell in front of a police bus with her hands stretched to the windshield. Other supporters of fallen Yoon lay in the street, with their eyes closed and hands crossed, when police attempted to remove them. CORVERSE Park Shi-dong, a 74-year-old protestor, told the French Agency that he went there to “fight to death in order to save liberal democracy”, arguing that the imposition of military law by Yoon was justified and he should not be repudiated. “Cancellation!” shouted the protesters, holding South Korean flags. “Yoon Sook Yeol, we protect you! We protect you!”, it was also among the slogans heard. Dozens of people broadcast online on YouTube the mobilizations, as AFP journalists observed. Yesterday, Yoon sent a message to his most extreme supporters in front of his residence, telling them he is watching them on YouTube and urging them to help him “defend democracy” and “war to the end”. The opposition and experts criticised this action, in which they saw an attempt to mobilize the most extreme protesters, who could cause incidents. However, supporters of Yoon, such as 63-year-old Kim Sang-bae, said they would not leave the region, as they are determined to “stop the injustice”, which represents the arrest of an acting president, something unprecedented in South Korea’s history. A protestor in favor of Yoon was arrested for obstructing police, broadcast South Korean media. The arrest warrant was illegal, Yun’s lawyers argued and the security team refused to comply with the recently issued search warrants. The president himself ignored three times the subpoena from the Corruption Investigation Office, leading investigators to issue an arrest warrant. Nearby, hundreds of protesters against Yoon organized an anti-declaration, chanting the national anthem, while dozens of riot response units police hardly kept the two rival camps at bay. Yoon’s critics “received blows to the head and repeatedly attacked them” by the opposing camp, while trying to grant a press conference, according to one of them, the 46-year-old Bae Hoon. “I had a feeling that if we stayed five minutes longer, a serious incident would happen,” he filled in, clarifying that the police attempted to intervene, but it was numerically inferior. “The crowd in favor of Yoon was suffocating, with about 500 to 600 people surrounding us… until the first insults and attacks,” Bae described.