‘It has to be a deepfake’: South Korean opposition leader on martial law announcement
CNN | Published December 5, 2024
Seoul, South Korea
CNN — The leader of South Korea’s main opposition party thought the president’s late night martial law announcement was a deepfake when he first saw it, he told CNN on Thursday as his party now seeks to impeach the country’s leader.
President Yoon Suk Yeol announced the decree – which only lasted a few hours before being struck down by lawmakers who forced their way past soldiers into parliament – in an extraordinary late-night television address late Tuesday night.
“That night, after I got off work, I was lying in bed with my wife in our home … when my wife suddenly showed me a YouTube video and said, ‘The president is declaring martial law,’” Lee Jae-myung, leader of the liberal Democratic Party (DP), told CNN.
“I replied, ‘That’s a deepfake. It has to be a deepfake. There’s no way that’s real,’” he said, referring to the term for fake audio and video created with artificial intelligence.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.cnn.com
RELATED: South Korea martial law lifted, but democracy tarnished as President Yoon Suk Yeol faces likely impeachment
CBS NEWS | Published December 5, 2024
Seoul — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol seemed to treat a declaration of martial law as if it were a light switch, flipping it on at 11 p.m. Tuesday night, only to be unanimously rebuked in an emergency session of the country’s parliament just two hours later. It took him about three hours from that point to accept defeat and announce that he was lifting the martial law order.
The martial law declaration and revocation within six hours was the fiercest whiplash between military control and democracy that South Korea has endured since it became a democracy in 1987. It appears highly likely to bring a swift end to Yoon’s two-year tenure as the country’s elected leader.
The president’s gamble seemed rooted primarily in his own domestic political isolation and, while short-lived, it was sure to have major ramifications both for Yoon as a politician, and for South Korea as a nation.
Below is a look at what Yoon did, why he did it, and what it could mean for one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies and biggest economies.
What is martial law?
A declaration of martial law is typically used by political or military leaders in a country facing a purported immediate threat to stability or security. It is ostensibly intended to protect the rule of law and citizens by putting military forces in immediate control of a country, suspending the authority of a civilian government and legal system.
Yoon’s order immediately put South Korea’s military in charge of security across the country, froze virtually all existing laws and granted the forces extraordinary powers to detain people without charge and to censor the media.
READ FULL ARTICLE
SOURCE: www.cbsnews.com
Be the first to comment