South Korean students ‘ashamed’ by Yoon’s martial law gamble

Student and faculty groups in South Korea have condemned President Yoon Suk Yeol’s unsuccessful attempt to impose martial law and reiterated calls for his resignation. 

In a statement issued hours after the president’s shock announcement of martial law, which was quickly blocked by MPs, Seoul National University’s student council condemned the move as “an act that tramples on the free democratic constitutional order of the Republic of Korea”. 

The group, which represents Mr Yoon’s alma mater, described it as a “pretext” that “reduced” the country’s legislature to a pro-North Korea, anti-state force. 

“What is even more disastrous is that this undemocratic martial law threatened and attempted to trample on even our academic temple,” they said, referring to restrictions on free speech and assembly that would have come into force under the measures.

Others have also spoken out against the president’s decision. Four hundred students and academics at Korea University gathered in front of the institution’s library to publicly call for the suspension and impeachment of the president, according to local media. 

“As intellectuals, we are ashamed and devastated that we could not stop such a preposterous incident from happening,” they reportedly said in a statement.

Groups at other institutions, including Dongguk University and Seoul National University of Science and Technology, have laid out similar demands in the wake of the president’s shock move and called on him to step down.

“We need to remove him immediately,” Konkuk University’s student council said in a statement. 

“During the two-and-a-half years of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s term – about half of his presidency – we have lost too much.

“We cannot put the remaining two-and-a-half years of our future, Korea’s future, or even a single day in his hands.”

Mr Yoon already faced calls to resign prior to Tuesday evening’s events, with academics at some of South Korea’s most prestigious universities publicly criticising the president for alleged corruption and his perceived poor handling of the economy and a fatal crowd crush in Seoul in October. 

The president also failed to reform medical school admissions – a historically thorny subject in Korean society – and, in attempting to do so, provoked a strike among medics, further turning the public against him ahead of key parliamentary elections earlier this year. 

Lawmakers have now begun the process of impeaching the president, but it was unclear whether they would succeed. 

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com