Name: South Korea's parliament votes to block martial law | BBC News
Uploaded: 2024-12-04T02:35:35.000Z
Duration: 7 min 44 s
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It is very fluid, we have different live pictures coming into the building, and just in the last few minutes, our BBC producer Jae Kwon, who's in Seoul, is in a position outside of the Parliament building, so I want to bring him into the conversation.

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Jae, just set the scene for us, tell me what it's been like since you've been there.

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Hi, so this place, there are dozens and dozens of police officers, protesters, I see dozens of riot police vans and buses, and you can hear probably behind me the chanting, and people are chanting, you know, bring down the dictatorship, stop the martial law, and arrest President Yoon.

These people are against this martial law being enacted.

I mean, this thing was a complete stunning moment.

I think the general mood here is one of incredulity.

And we've heard that from just about everybody who has joined us here in the last couple of hours as this news has emerged, and no one was anticipating.

Has the news filtered out to the people around you that actually we've had a vote inside of the Parliament itself, and they have voted that this move is invalid?

So a lot of people here were watching the vote happening in the Parliament live on their YouTube, and as soon as the motion was passed, you heard loud cheer among the crowd, and a lot of people were saying, open the door now, open the gate now, and people are ready to go into the National Assembly.

And in terms of the National Assembly, earlier we saw just scenes of jostling, we saw soldiers, we think there are special forces soldiers inside the building.

Are you seeing large numbers of security?

I mean, most of the police officers here, I see easily hundreds of police officers all in their high-vis jackets, but they are not carrying any batons, they're not carrying a riot shield.

I saw some people who are carrying those, but the mood is for now quite peaceful.

I think the public is still kind of standing by, waiting to see what is going to happen.

I spoke to a few experts today on what is going to happen, but none of them could really give an answer, because we are really in an uncharted territory.

Yes, a lot of people looking now at what the military will do.

If you have a stand-off between President and Parliament, the worry is that instructions will be given to the military to try to enforce his will.

But do we know, I was asking Sumin who is here with me in the studio, but you're there, do we know even the whereabouts, geographically, physically, of where the President actually is as we're talking now?

Well, the best guess is that he's at his Yongsan presidential office, which is right in the middle of Seoul City.

The thing is, a lot of people have to gather here because they wanted the police here, the military here, to let the lawmakers through, because the big fear was that the police will block the access of the National Assembly to prevent the motion to lift the announcement.

So we actually heard the stories of a single lawmaker who had to hop over this one and a half meter fence to get into the Assembly Hall to participate in the vote, and police were blocking anybody from going in and out.

Thankfully, the vote had taken place, but now the question is, will the President back down?

Going back to some of the politics, we were just talking to other contributors here who were talking about how politically his will was being thwarted.

Has that been evident that there was a standoff brewing?

I mean, the headline for the last week has been dominated by all the tit-for-tat between the presidential office and the National Assembly here.

The mood between those two institutions have been the worst in recent years.

And we saw the President escalating his rhetoric against the National Assembly, the National Assembly responding in kind, but no one could have predicted that President Moon would essentially go for the nuclear option.

And Jake, tell me more about whether those people who have gathered with you know about some of the restrictions that he brought in with martial law.

I mean, those restrictions even extend to the media.

Have those details actually filtered out?

I think the people who are gathered here are ones who are very much invested in the political news of the country.

Actually, when the news broke, a lot of people must have been in bed.

And then people I saw, you know, when I first arrived here, there were dozens of people at the gate.

So these people had been glued to their phone, looking at every single update, looking at the YouTube videos of the live streaming.

They are screaming for this martial law to be lifted.

And there's a there's a there had been a real fear amongst the main opposition party circles that this might come to pass and that, you know, you would essentially press the button.

And then I'm sure you have been talking about all these laws being suspended, like there's no technically there's no freedom of press.

As of now, there's no freedom in terms of the military can come and arrest you and search you without any warrants.

So there had been huge anxiety amongst the general public.

And secondly, there had been also fake news going around that there might be a curfew from 11 p.m.

A lot of people have been glued to their phone all night.

And you there outside of the parliament, you know, you look at the last time this was done, some sort of martial law, and it was back in 1979.

So in your lifetime, you won't have experienced anything like this.

Everything is new in terms of what they've tried here overnight.

This is the first time martial law was declared since the democratization of 1987, since the military dictatorship was brought down.

And like I said, the last time, 1979, it only happened because the president, the dictator at the time, was assassinated.

And then it allowed lasted for two years.

And then it was soon followed by a military coup.

So this thing happening in a democracy, in one of the few full democracies in Asia, it's incredible.

Jake, just in terms of those people shouting, what are they actually shouting?

 So you can see that a lot of these people are supporters of the main opposition party.