Yoon Suk Yeol declares emergency martial law in South Korea

He made the pronouncement in a late-night address.

On Tuesday, December 3, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol announced that he is placing the East Asian country under an emergency martial law.

Yoon said that he is taking this measure in the midst of what he calls communist influence from North Korea, as well as the standoff in the National Assembly over budget plans for 2025.

According to reports, the opposition party cut ₩4.1 trillion from the planned ₩677 trillion budget for the forthcoming year.

Yoon then noted that the martial law will end once he gets rid of what he described as “anti-state agents.”

Many lawmakers have since denounced the move. As of writing, the physical entrance to the National Assembly has been closed down, per Yonhap News Agency.

This declaration is the first time that martial law has been imposed in South Korea since the dictatorship under former President Chun Doo Hwan in 1980.

Yoon Suk Yeol, 64, was elected in March 2022 after garnering more than 16.3 million votes, over 200,000 more against his rival Lee Jae Myung.

Since then, his public approval rating continued to dip, with many being critical of his handling of multiple state affairs like the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush and the crisis in the medical field, which has resulted to strikes from many workers in the sector.

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