{"id":76443,"date":"2026-02-21T09:10:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/21\/south-korea-anger-yoon-suk-yeol-life-sentence"},"modified":"2026-02-21T09:10:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:10:53","slug":"why-is-south-korea-angry-that-yoon-suk-yeol-wasnt-sentenced-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76443","title":{"rendered":"Why is South Korea angry that Yoon Suk Yeol wasn\u2019t sentenced to death?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The former president was found guilty of leading an insurrection and sentenced to life imprisonment with labour, a punishment that some have called a \u2018failure\u2019  <\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, former president Yoon Suk Yeol was found guilty of leading an insurrection and sentenced to life imprisonment with labour over his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/dec\/03\/south-korean-president-declares-emergency-martial-law\">failed martial law declaration<\/a> in December 2024.<\/p>\n<p>When he received his sentence, hundreds of his opponents cheered outside the court. But the mood quickly shifted to disappointment and anger.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/21\/south-korea-anger-yoon-suk-yeol-life-sentence\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former president was found guilty of leading an insurrection and sentenced to life imprisonment with labour, a punishment that some have called a \u2018failure\u2019  On Thursday, former president Yoon Suk Yeol was found guilty of leading an insurrection and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2929,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,222,3218],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-south-korea","category-yoon-suk-yeol"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2929"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76444,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76443\/revisions\/76444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}