On December 3rd, 2024 President Yoon was impeached and arrested for abstraction and abuse of power.
On January 8th, South Korean residents gathered outside President Yoon’s residence to show their support for the impeached president and share their frustration with the Constitutional Court. They were discussing the matters of the impeached president’s second arrest attempt. Supporters of President Yoon adopted the slogans and iconography from the Make America Great Again movement; seeing similarities between South Korea’s current political crisis and the United state’s prior situation with former President Trump. The impeached President’s residence compound was fortified with barbed wire and barricades; which led to an AFP journalist seeing Yoon’s guards walking behind rows of buses and locked entrance gates covered in barbed wire. Acting President Choi Sang-mok warned against violence in the event of another standoff. On Wednesday the court’s parliament voted down 2 bills to investigate Yoon and his wife for different charges. Protestors gathered around Yoon’s residence, carrying glow sticks and holding placards that read “Detain, arrest insurrectionist Yoon Yuk Yeol.” Yoon is under criminal investigation for insurrection over his failed attempt to impose martial law on December 3rd,2024. This decision stunned South Korea and prompted the first arrest warrant for a sitting president.
One of Yoon’s lawyers said the president could not accept the execution of the arrest warrant because it was issued by a court in the wrong jurisdiction and the team of investigators formed to probe the incumbent leader had no mandate. On Tuesday, Oh Dong-woon, head of the Corruption Investigation Office for high-ranking officials (CIO), which is leading the investigation, apologized for failing to arrest the President last week after a six-hour standoff with hundreds of PSS agents, some of whom were carrying firearms, and military guards at the compound. “ We’ll do our best to accomplish our goal by thoroughly preparing this time with great determination that the second warrant execution will be the last,” – Oh Dang-woon ( Parliament Committee Member ).
