Broken glass and barricades litter the sidewalk in front of the Seoul West District Court. The interior of the building is a veritable battlefield. With desks overturned, doors smashed and equipment damaged, supporters of President Yoon Suk-yeol attacked the courtyard. This riot of rare violence in South Korea left around fifty people injured. Very violent young people On January 19 at 3 a.m., the judges granted the authorities a new arrest warrant against President Yoon, accused of insurrection against the state for attempting to impose martial law on December 3, 2024. Upon the late announcement of his arrest, hundreds of young demonstrators present in front of the court began to invade the building and hunt for Cha Eun-kyung, the judge who pronounced the sentence. “I was there, and around 4 a.m. people got excited, especially the young people,” Park Jeong-seok, a retiree and supporter of Yoon, said the next day. They entered by force, raised the gates and broke the windows with fire extinguishers, there were injuries on all sides. » If this fervent defender of the deposed president affirms that the judges’ decision is unfair, violence is a red line for him. Not for certain groups of radicalized young people. Generational divide The majority of the hundred or so individuals arrested by the police are men in their twenties or thirties. A very different age group from President Yoon’s usual supporters, aged over 65. A generational divide has formed around political violence. “The demonstrations by conservatives, who are rather elderly, are usually good-natured,” comments Cho Kyung-hee, professor of law at Hongik University in Seoul. But the very recent arrival of the youngest has added a physical radicality to these demonstrations. »Violence normalized by these new demonstrators like Kim Joon-hyup, 29 years old. “If we were in a normal situation, yes the violence would be intolerable,” he explains, “but the context justifies our resistance being above the law. » This extreme attitude could be largely explained by a specific political experience. The oldest experienced the political violence of the 1980s in the face of the bloody repression of dictator Chun Doo-hwan. A traumatic episode that the younger generations have not experienced. Appearance of the “white skulls” A symbol of this generational gap, certain young supporters of President Yoon have reformed a small group well known to South Koreans, the “white skulls”. Recognizable by their white construction helmets, this ultraviolent branch of the police active under military regimes chased demonstrators with bats. A militia with which Kim Min-jeon, deputy of the presidential party, appeared at a press conference. “Politicians, and in particular President Yoon Suk-yeol, are responsible for this violence,” analyzes Cho Kyung-hee. By indirectly approving this violence in their speeches, they once again authorized violence as a political method. »
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Author : News7
Publish date : 2025-01-22 15:39:52
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