A South Korean politician who grappled with an armed soldier in a show of defiance outside the country\u2019s National Assembly on Tuesday night said she felt like the \u201clast line\u201d of defense in preventing security forces from entering parliament. <\/p>\n
One of the most defining scenes to come out of South Korea\u2019s political chaos this week was video of An Gwi-ryeong grabbing a soldier\u2019s gun as lawmakers faced off against troops who had blocked their way into the building. <\/p>\n
It came hours after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in a shocking televised announcement that surprised even those within his own party and plunged the country into uncertainty. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven if they were following orders, armed soldiers pointing guns at citizens in the National Assembly and interfering with lawmakers\u2019 proceedings is undeniably illegal.\u201d <\/p>\n
The footage, which has since been viewed more than 7 million times on social platform X, shows security forces tussling with a crowd. An, wearing a dark jacket, can be seen grabbing a soldier\u2019s rifle, with the two struggling for the weapon for several seconds. <\/p>\n
At one point the soldier points his rifle at An. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet go of me,\u201d she shouts at him, before bystanders separate the pair. <\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the physical confrontation, I tried to block them with my body. As they grabbed my arm and pushed, I resisted being pushed back, and I think I ended up pushing the gun away in the process,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
An said she had never held a gun before and felt \u201cscared and intimidated.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cBut at that moment, the thought of needing to stop them was much stronger,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
Lawmakers had gathered in the middle of the night, preparing to vote down Yoon\u2019s martial law order in the main assembly hall. An said party staff and protesters had piled furniture and heavy objects against the revolving entrance door to block soldiers from accessing the building. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf the troops had entered and disrupted the vote, we wouldn\u2019t have been able to lift martial law, and we wouldn\u2019t be here today,\u201d An said. \u201cAll I could think was that I must stop them. I felt like I was the last line standing in their way.\u201d <\/p>\n
Inside, 190 lawmakers succeeded in voting against the decree and Yoon was forced to lift martial law just six hours after announcing it, amid widespread condemnation. <\/p>\n
South Korea has spent the last four decades shaping itself into a vibrant democracy with frequent protests and protected freedoms \u2013 a hard-won victory after a long history of bloody authoritarian rule. <\/p>\n
An, a former anchor on South Korean news channel YTN, said that the country\u2019s democratic success was built through \u201cthe power of its citizens\u201d but she\u2019s concerned that democracy there \u201cis now crumbling and regressing.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lawmakers are expected to vote on an impeachment motion against Yoon as soon as Saturday, and police have launched an investigation into the president and other top officials on treason allegations. <\/p>\n
Until then, lawmakers from the Democratic Party refuse to let the assembly hall room remain empty overnight. <\/p>\n
They are sleeping in shifts either in the hall itself or in their offices to protect their constitutional right to vote against martial law, if Yoon decides to reinstate it. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf he makes it again, we will try to lift it as soon as possible by vote.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A South Korean politician who grappled with an armed soldier in a show of defiance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}