SEOUL, South Korea — On Dec. 3, 2025, South Koreans marked the first anniversary of the martial law crisis that occurred on Dec. 3, 2024. President Lee Jae Myung pledged to “finish the work of justice” left from last year’s failed attempt at martial law, which led to the ousting of former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his trial on charges including insurrection. Lee described the anniversary as proof that today, citizens—not generals—shape the nation’s destiny.
Outside the National Assembly, Lee said that “the cleanup after martial law is not yet finished” and pledged to hold accountable those who ordered troops into parliament and tried to silence broadcasters during the South Korean martial law decree. In comments reported by a Reuters dispatch, he endorsed calls to declare Dec. 3 a national day of popular sovereignty and lauded the multitudes who turned out and forced soldiers to retreat.
Anniversary of S. Korea’s martial law extends political reckoning.
Lee’s speech combined brash talk about prosecutions with calls for reconciliation in a country that remains divided by the South Korean martial law crisis. He thanked conservative lawmakers who had broken ranks with Yoon to vote down the decree, but urged his own supporters to refrain from “revenge,” arguing that responsibility lay with those who had designed a plan to suspend parliament and stifle critics.
Defiant Yoon fights insurrection charges.
Yoon, who is currently detained at a Seoul jail, faces charges of insurrection, abuse of power, and election law violations relating to his Dec. 3, 2024, martial law declaration. Parliament forced him to revoke martial law within hours due to massive protests. In a recent television appearance, he insisted his actions were not a betrayal, stating that running for president again held no meaning if he lacked public support. The Constitutional Court upheld his impeachment in April 2025 with an 8-0 ruling, paving the way for his criminal trial and a possible life sentence or execution, although South Korea has not executed a prisoner since 1997.
In an announcement that came in a late-night TV address, Yoon accused “pro-North anti-state forces” of electoral fraud, putting the nation at risk by demanding emergency rule, investigators say. South Korea’s martial law deterrence. In response to your South Korea martial law order, troops arrived in helicopters at the National Assembly building within hours of the order and even attempted to block members from entering, actions captured in a minute-by-minute account published by Reuters and in Al Jazeera’s live reports on the approach of South Korea’s martial law.
Yoon’s martial law move on December 3, 2024, quickly backfired as opposition and some of his own party members voted to end martial law hours later, then began an impeachment push. Protests in support of democracy—dubbed the “revolution of light”—gained momentum. In January 2025, a special panel recommended Yoon’s indictment for insurrection and abuse of power for his use of troops against lawmakers and raids on the National Election Commission, as reported by France 24.
Prosecutors have arrested several former ministers and security chiefs, questioned scores of officers in connection with the crackdown, and a court earlier this week turned down an application to detain former finance minister Choo Kyung-ho, illustrating how deeply the South Korean martial law probe now runs into the old administration. Yoon has responded with defiance, describing the martial law order in South Korea as an “act of governance” designed to safeguard democracy from a hostile opposition, and his supporters accuse Lee of launching a political witch hunt.
Lee, hemmed in by pressures from both left and right, has sought to cast his push for South Korean martial law justice as one facet of an overall reset of security policy. In an Associated Press dispatch, he has indicated a willingness to ease some military tensions with North Korea and to consider a limited apology for alleged provocations by Yoon’s government, even as rights advocates caution that new surveillance powers and civil-service purges should not echo the abuses they aim to correct.
For now, there seems to be a lot of South Koreans who are willing to draw the line at Yoon and his cronies being prosecuted while still moving on from a traumatic year.” Whether Lee can mete out justice over the South Korean martial law chapter without digging new fissures into his country’s politics may determine the remainder of his presidency — and how the world recalls the night their democracy stared down tanks with candles and phone lights.
