Hello! I’m Minseo from Seoul, South Korea. Today, I’m gonna talk about South Korea’s democratic uprising. Recently, the president of the Republic of Korea declared martial law. Because of it, citizens were so confused and anger. Why citizen got upset? It’s because we have memories of anti-democratic politics in the past. There have been several pro-democracy movements against anti-democratic governments. Today, I'm going to talk about the first of them.
March 15, 1960, The then government leaders rigged elections for their power.Even on Sunday, they also sent students to school, for example, to disrupt other candidates' campaigns. They also employed expedients such as public voting.
When the citizens found out about this, they became angry. As a result, *Masan held protests against fraudulent elections from the day of the election. However, many casualties occurred because police suppressed the protesters by shooting.
On April 18 of the same year, a college student who was returning from a peaceful protest in front of the National Assembly was injured by thugs hired by politicians. Upon hearing this news, students and citizens protested on April 19. This is called the 4.19 Revolution. Police indiscriminately fired at the protesters, killing more than 100 people on that day alone. Large-scale protests also took place in large cities such as Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, and Daejeon, and resistance to the anti-democratic regime spread throughout the country.
*Masan:Masan is located in the south-central region of South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea
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Young students also took part in the protest. |
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| soldiers and police who tried to suppress the protest |
The government imposed emergency martial law and even mobilized military forces to suppress the protests. It also tried to appease the public by resigning from the vice president.
However, the citizens continued to protest, wanting the government leader to step down. Eventually, the leader resigned from the presidency on Apr. 26.
Next time, I'll write about the pro-democracy movement after the April 19 Revolution. Byeee!
