Lawmakers and members of the South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party (DP) demonstrate against the country’s president at the National Assembly on Wednesday in Seoul, South Korea.
Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
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Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
SEOUL, South Korea — Calls are growing for South Korea’s president to resign or face impeachment, after he briefly imposed martial law over the country.
Opposition parties filed a motion on Wednesday to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol, signed by every one of their lawmakers.
Civic groups in most major cities are planning to hold large-scale rallies urging Yoon’s ouster.
President Yoon lifted emergency martial law at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, just six hours after he declared it in a surprise televised address.
In the speech, he accused the opposition-controlled parliament of “paralyzing” and “attempting to overthrow the liberal democratic system through legislative dictatorship.” Yoon said that by imposing martial law, his aim was “to crush North Korea-sympathizing anti-state forces and to preserve the free constitutional order.”
A martial-law command soon issued a decree suspending the legislature, blocking all political activities and putting the media under its control. The command threatened violators will be arrested without warrant.
Leaders of the ruling conservative People Power Party and the main liberal opposition Democratic Party both immediately decried Yoon’s action as unconstitutional and illegal.
Two and a half hours after the announcement, 190 lawmakers gathered at the National Assembly amid armed soldiers swarming onto the…