South Korea’s Yoon Suk Yeol backs down after declaring martial law
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Wednesday he would lift a martial law declaration he had imposed just hours earlier.
The claim: Image shows protesters in South Korea marching toward presidential palace in December 2024
A Dec. 4 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) includes an aerial image that shows a mass of demonstrators in a city.
“Today on the streets of South Korea as they marched the streets toward the presidential palace to demand the resignation of President Yoon Suk-yeol,” the post’s caption reads in part.
The post was shared more than 100 times in a day. A similar post on X was reposted more than 7,000 times before it was deleted.
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Our rating: False
The image in the posts is from December 2016. It shows protesters rallying in Seoul against then-President Park Geun-hye. It does not show a protest against President Yoon Suk Yeol in December 2024.
Image predates protests against Yoon by eight years
Protesters triggered by Yoon’s surprise move to establish martial law on Dec. 3 tried to march to the presidential palace in Seoul to demand his resignation but were stopped by South Korean police, according to footage posted by The Guardian on Dec. 4. Yoon, facing political backlash and widespread protests, reversed course on the martial law declaration and has since faced calls from the opposition Democratic Party to resign or face impeachment.
However, the image in the Facebook post does not show protesters rallying against Yoon in December 2024. The photo was taken eight years prior, on Dec. 3, 2016. It shows demonstrators occupying Seoul’s city center to rally against Park, the president at the time, over a government-influence scandal involving her friend, according to the photo’s caption on Getty Images.
Fact check: Military convoy photo predates South Korean martial law declaration
The same photo was included in media reports published in 2016 describing ongoing protests against Park. She was later convicted on corruption charges and served nearly five years in prison before returning home with a pardon in March 2022, Reuters reported.
USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
AAP also debunked the claim.
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