Tag: south korea

Crackdown on Individual Freedoms Continues in South Korea Under Communist Chinese Pressure

Our contact in South Korea sent The Gateway Pundit an update on the suppression of speech and loss of individual rights under the current pro-Chinese regime.

It is hard to believe that South Korea, a country that fought a bloody war against the communists 70 years ago, is now sliding under communist control.

The alarming suppression of freedom of expression currently taking place in South Korea:

In recent months, conservative civic groups and organizations supporting former President Yoon Suk-yeol have been systematically targeted by investigations. What makes this situation particularly serious is that these crackdowns are happening under clear pressure from China, with the current administration’s cooperation.

Key Cases

1. Banners Against Messenger/SNS Censorship (Prosecuted under Election Law)
A civic group hung banners calling for the protection of students’ freedom of expression. Just before the election, police raided the home and office of the group’s leader, claiming this violated the Public Official Election Act.
However, the banners simply said “No censorship” and did not name or support any candidate or party. This represents a dangerous misuse of election law to criminalize basic social criticism.

2. Welcome Event for U.S. Ambassador Mors H. Tan (July 18, 2025)
Citizens gathered at Incheon Airport to welcome U.S. human rights lawyer and former Ambassador-at-Large Mors H. Tan. Police classified this voluntary gathering as an “illegal assembly” and placed about 600 people under investigation.
Such treatment is in sharp contrast to how fan gatherings for celebrities or athletes at airports are tolerated without issue.

3. Protest in Front of the Chinese Embassy (Reported Aug 19, 2025)
During a rally condemning election fraud, members of a student group supporting former President Yoon tore a banner depicting Xi Jinping and the Chinese Ambassador. Police charged them under “insulting foreign envoys,” a criminal offense.
This shows how political protest is being suppressed through criminal prosecution.

4. China’s Direct Interference and Korean Government’s Compliance

Former Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming openly demanded that the Korean government “crack down on anti-China forces.”

Chinese state media Global Times warned South Korea against cooperating with the U.S. in shipbuilding, even suggesting that Korea “could face risks” if integrated into the U.S. defense system.

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An Unprecedented Crackdown in South Korea: Former President and First Lady Jailed, 5 Million Party Members Targeted

Can you imagine a former president and first lady jailed at the same time — and the personal data of 5 million citizens seized by the regime?

In 2025, this nightmare has become my reality. This is not justice.

It is a planned political purge that should alarm everyone who values freedom, the rule of law, and the U.S.-Korea alliance.

A First in History — and a Dangerous Precedent

On January 19, 2025, former President Yoon Suk-yeol was arrested on vague “evidence tampering” charges.

Prosecutors alleged he tried to conceal certain records, yet presented no clear evidence or case outline.

He was detained for 52 days until March 8, when a court ruled his detention had “seriously violated his right to legal defense” and ordered his release.

But the authorities ignored this ruling. On July 10, Yoon was arrested again on nearly identical charges. The court rejected his appeal and sent him back to prison — raising serious concerns of double jeopardy and judicial abuse.

Then, on August 12, something never before seen in South Korea’s democracy occurred. Former First Lady Kim Keon-hee was immediately jailed on the order of the Seoul Southern District Court.

The warrant was issued without sufficient investigation or evidence — based solely on a claim of “possible evidence destruction.” Legal experts inside and outside Korea agree this decision fails to meet both domestic and international standards of justice.

The simultaneous jailing of a former president and first lady is no coincidence. It is a political move to eliminate all opposition.

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Why is South Korea retrying a spy chief who assassinated a president?

Two gunshots.

That is how Yoo Seok-sul begins recounting the night of Friday, 26 October, 1979.

A former security guard in the Korea Central Intelligence Agency, or KCIA, as the South’s spy division was known, Yoo has many stories to tell. But this is perhaps the most infamous.

He remembers the time – nearly 19:40 – and where he had been sitting – in the break room. He was resting after his shift guarding the entrance to the low-rise compound where President Park Chung-hee entertained his most trusted lieutenants. They called it the “safe house”.

In his 70s now, wiry with sharp eyes, Yoo speaks hesitantly at first – but it comes back to him quickly. After the first shots, more gunfire followed, he says. The guards were on high alert but they waited outside for orders. The president’s security detail was inside, along with the KCIA’s top agents.

Then Yoo’s boss, a KCIA officer who oversaw security for the safe house, stepped outside. “He came over and asked me to bury something in the garden.” It was two guns, bullets and a pair of shoes. Flustered, Yoo followed orders, he says.

He did not know who had been shot, and he didn’t ask.

“I never imagined that it was the president.”

The guns Yoo buried were used to assassinate Park Chung-hee, who had ruled South Korea for the previous 18 years, longer than any president before or since. The man who shot him was his long-time friend Kim Jae-gyu, who ran the much-feared KCIA, a pillar of Park’s dictatorship.

That Friday shook South Korea, ending Park Chung-hee’s stifling rule and ushering in another decade under the military. Kim was executed for insurrection, along with five others.

Now, 46 years later, that night is back in the spotlight as a court retries Kim Jae-gyu to determine if his actions amounted to treason. He has remained a deeply polarising figure – some see him as a killer blinded by power and ambition, others as a patriot who sacrificed himself to set South Korea on the path to democracy. The president he killed is no less divisive, lauded for his country’s economic rise and reviled for his authoritarian rule.

Kim’s family fought for the retrial, arguing that he cannot be remembered as a traitor. They will now have their day in the Seoul High Court – hearings began on Wednesday – just as impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol goes on trial for the same charge that sent Kim to the gallows.

Yoon’s martial law order last December was short-lived but it threw up questions about South Korean democracy – and that may influence how the country sees a man who shot dead a dictator he claimed was on the brink of unleashing carnage.

Was Kim trying to seize power for himself or to spark a revolution, as he claimed in court?

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South Korean YouTube and “X” aggressively block access to alternative views on South Korean Election

While “X” has been largely liberated by Elon Musk inside the United States and Mark Zuckerberg has lifted his totalitarian thumb on YouTube inside of America a bit, South Korean variants have missed the memo on this topic.  The “Fact Checkers” and Global Elite Dis-Information cult is alive and well in South Korea – largely funded and directed by the Chinese Communist Party.

On June 24, 2025, a Press Conference was held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. while tens of thousands of South Koreans gathered in Seoul and other locations in South Korea at midnight Korea Standard Time to publicly watch the simulcast.

South Korean YouTube and “X” have blocked and removed replays of this Press Conference, while key persons like rising star and former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn has had his “X” account shut down.

Even the display of South Korea’s flag – well known throughout the world is being censored.  Just like the American Democrat Party, the South Korean Democrat Party despises their own National Flag.

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South Korea Lab Makes Bird Flu 100% Lethal in Mammals: ‘Virology Journal’

South Korean scientists have conducted a lab experiment that made a purported wild avian influenza “bird flu” virus 100% lethal in mammals, achieving total death in infected mice by enabling the virus to adapt inside their bodies and spread to others.

The dangerous move comes as the U.S. develops a “next-generation” universal vaccine platform called ‘Generation Gold Standard’ that will focus on avian influenza jab creation, signaling a coordinated international push to engineer and preemptively vaccinate against lab-enhanced bird flu strains with pandemic potential—despite worldwide fallout from similar COVID-era strategies.

Published June 2025 in Virology Journal, the study describes how researchers at Konkuk University infected mice with a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza strain—one that already contained a small percentage (4%) of a mammalian-adaptive mutation known as PB2-E627K.

That tiny minority of mutant virus was enough to take over and kill every infected host.

“All challenged mice died by 8 dpc. Transmission through direct-contact occurred in 100% of cases, and all contact mice died within 12 days.”

This was not an accidental discovery.

Researchers intentionally infected mammals with a virus they knew contained a mutation that helps bird flu spread and replicate more effectively in mammals, including humans.

Once inside the mice, the mutation exploded to near-total dominance—not just in the lungs, but in the brain, where it caused seizures, ataxia, and fatal neurological damage.

“The PB2-E627K variant, initially present at 4% in the virus stock, was selected and reached near-fixation (~ 100%) in the lungs and brains by 6 days post-challenge and was subsequently transmitted.”

“In dead direct-contact mice, the E627K mutation in PB2 was found at a proportion of 99.8–100% in both the lungs and brains.”

The virus became neurotropic—targeting the brain—and caused seizures and other neurological symptoms before death.

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A Disappointing Finish – Three Groups Worked Hard to Throw the South Korean Presidential Election

The outcome of the election in South Korea on June 3, 2025, was disappointing but pre-determined.  The reason for the election was routinely misreported in Western Media.

The BBC, a cauldron of left leaning drivel said, “It (South Korea) is still recovering from the martial law crisis last December, when the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, tried to orchestrate a military takeover.”

Fact Check:  False.  The purpose of the six-hour declaration of Martial Law by former President Yoon Suk Yeol was to raid the National Election Commission (NEC) to retrieve evidence of election fraud.

No one was harmed, disappeared, or arrested during the six-hour period last December when President Yoon used his Constitutional authority to declare this period.  There was not even a hint of a military takeover.

Lee Jae-myung, is the Democrat Candidate who is now the South Korean President after the June 3 election.

The Korean election made Fulton County, GA look trustworthy.  Lee performed first class street theater wearing a visible bullet proof vest and often appearing behind bullet proof glass while denouncing the “Yoon Insurrectionists” and vowing to imprison all of them.

Lee’s theatrics eerily resembled the same script of Biden and Harris after the stolen 2020 election and their creation of a fortress around the U.S. Capitol to add drama to their sparsely attended inauguration.

Lee Jae-myung’s inauguration had a very small gathering on the lawn of the National Assembly which was outnumbered by the media on the inauguration platform.  Stunning for someone who supposedly won the election by 6%.

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South Korea Gets Its Fourth President in Five Months

Education Minister Lee Ju-ho became the fourth president of South Korea since December on Friday after a turbulent 2025 that began with protests for and against the arrest of ousted former President Yoon Suk-yeol.

The South Korean government baffled international partners in the past 24 hours after acting President Han Duck-soo resigned on Thursday to prepare for a campaign in the June 3 special election to replace Yoon. Officials announced that Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, who had already been president after Han was impeached in December, would replace Han temporarily, but Choi abruptly resigned, as well, leaving Lee as the chief executive of the country.

The wave of resignations and questions from international observers made for a confusing first day in office for Lee, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported, noting that the day began with an emergency cabinet meeting that participants were initially unsure was even legal. The various resignations meant the cabinet was too small to make quorum, raising legal questions that Seoul ultimately decided had been decided in favor of a meeting by past precedent.

The current chaos began when Yoon, elected in a deeply bitter election in 2022, announced on the night of December 3 that he would abruptly impose martial law on the country in response to the left-wing Democratic Party obstructing his agenda at the National Assembly, the federal lawmaking body. Yoon accused the Democrats of working with “North Korean communist forces” and attempting to overthrow the “constitutional order.”

The martial law decree lasted mere hours as National Assembly lawmakers stormed legislative chambers to organize an emergency vote against military rule. While lawmakers can legally vote down martial law, the martial law decree also meant that political activity, including legislative votes, was not legal, so lawmakers had to elbow past rows of heavily armed soldiers to organize the vote, the latter whom did not take much action to prevent the political figures from achieving their goal.

Following the end of martial law less than 24 hours after it was implemented, Yoon apologized, but the National Assembly voted to impeach him regardless. Han Duck-soo became acting president and was immediately impeached for allegedly taking too long to expedite Yoon’s impeachment case, leaving Choi as the acting president.

While Han defeated the case for his impeachment, Yoon did not, and was removed from the presidency. South Koreans will vote for his replacement on June 3.

Han resigned on Thursday to prepare a campaign to run in that election.

“Thinking of the weight of the responsibility I carry at this grave time, after thinking long and carefully about whether such a decision is in fact right and inevitable,” he declared on Thursday, “I decided that if this is the only way, I must take it.”

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South Korea to launch fourth military spy satellite this week

South Korea plans to launch its fourth military reconnaissance satellite from a U.S. space base this week, the Ministry of National Defense said Monday, as the country seeks to better monitor North Korean threats with independent surveillance capabilities.
 
The military plans to launch the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 8:48 p.m. on Monday, according to the ministry.
 
The launch will be part of South Korea’s plan to deploy five satellites by the end of this year to enhance surveillance of North Korean military activities and help reduce its reliance on U.S. satellite imagery.

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Why some US elites want South Korea to be a ‘dictatorship for democracy’

Morse Tan, a high-ranking former US State Department official, let the cat out of the bag on the US ruling elite position on South Korea’s martial law.

He declared that President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law to “preserve democracy”. At a rally in South Korea, Tan said:

President Yoon declared martial law, and it is to preserve your democracy, that this country was made, and exists, by you, and for you, that President Yoon stuck out his neck, in a heroic way, and stood up to awaken this country, to the realities of what are going on in this country.

Having previously labeled South Korea a model democracy, this is a No-Scotsman-move taken to absurdity.

Tan also openly threatened South Korea’s government against upholding Yoon’s impeachment. Writing for the global news agency UPI on March 18, he warned:

Removing Yoon may trigger Section 7008 punishments from the United States government, which can include the elimination of: Bilateral Economic Assistance (III), International Security Assistance (IV), Multilateral Assistance (V), and Export and Investment Assistance (VI).

The US applies Section 7008 when a country is deemed to have undergone a military coup, or a coup d’etat “where the military has played a significant role”. Under those circumstances, critical aid is withdrawn from the country. It is an extreme measure — the political equivalent of banishment and excommunication — exercised against a state.

If Tan’s threats are material, South Korea risks being grouped with Myanmar, Gabon, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Sudan — other countries currently under section 7008 listing. Notice the explicit use of the word “punishment”.

Now Tan is not a current US government official, buthe is an indicator of what the US national security state is thinking, in particular, what its neoconservative wing is thinking. Tan also recently claimed that “the impeachment against Yoon is an insurrection” led by opposition party leader Lee Jae Myung, “who wants to turn the country over to the Chinese communists”.

As absurd and conspiratorial as these allegations sound, these are actually finely tuned and well-honed Washington-CPAC talking points about Chinese threats and interference in Korea, and they are echoed endlessly, if histrionically, by US flag-waving foot soldiers at South Korean protests and on YouTube.

These anti-China messages were also repeated in German State TV ARD’s documentary “Staatskrise im Schatten von China und Nordkorea” (State Crisis in the Shadow of China and North Korea), released to its German public television website on February 25. The documentary claimed that China had hacked South Korea’s legislative election to put the opposition DP party into power, which is now taking orders from North Korea and China to impeach Yoon.

There is clearly a highly convergent and disciplined campaign of anti-China propaganda around the impeachment. ARD removed its documentary, but the damage has clearly been done.

It’s impossible not to highlight the absurdity of Tan’s statement that “Yoon declared martial law (i.e. military dictatorship) to preserve democracy”. And, as a foreign national, Tan is breaking South Korean law by directly participating in domestic Korean politics. But the free rein he is given, and the lack of disavowal or reprimand from the State Department – if only for his own safety – is very revealing.

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British influencer, 29, is fighting for her life in South Korea after mysteriously being found unconscious with organ failure

A British influencer is fighting for life in a South Korean hospital after mysteriously being found unconscious in her apartment with a black eye and severe dehydration.

Content creator Ashley Surcombe, 29, was found by police who broke in, after her worried parents Nigel and Karen contacted them via a friend, when she failed to reply to messages and calls.

Paramedics rushed her to hospital, and she is currently in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Seoul suffering from severe dehydration and multiple organ failure.

Ashley – who has been living in South Korea for five years – is originally from Evesham and her distraught father has flown out to be by her bedside.

She was found on Monday after a friend of the family contacted police on their behalf, and officers entered her apartment and found her on the bathroom floor.

There were no signs of a forced entry and Ashley lived on her own.

Worried sister Kat Surcombe, 33, an aerospace engineer said: ‘We just don’t know what happened and we are trying to find out exactly, but it’s been difficult, and we have had to rely on contacts out there.

‘She was found unresponsive and unconscious on the floor; she didn’t have any broken bones, but she was severely dehydrated and has major organ failure.

‘About a week ago she told us she she hit her head against the door and got a nasty bruise on her eye.

‘Her blood sugar levels are very low and when we spoke with her on Saturday, she seemed confused, and you could barely see her lips she was so dehydrated.

‘We were supposed to speak with her at 8pm on Sunday (Korean time) but she never answered, and we didn’t get any response from messages so that’s when we called police through a friend of my dad who has contacts out there.

‘When they heard back that she was in hospital it was just horrible as we felt so helpless and so far away.’

Ashley is well known as a content creator in the UK and has over a million followers across her social media pages.

Ashley – who is fluent in Korean – had been planning to travel across the country and Southeast Asia and write up her experiences for her social media.

But the plan has now been put on hold as there is no indication as to when she may be released, and her family are now having to deal with spiralling hospital bills as Ashley’s insurance had expired.

Kat explained that an ICU stay is £1,500 a day and once stabilised that will drop to £500 plus tests including X rays, blood tests and scans have cost £100,00.

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