[ Byun Hee-jae · CEO of MediaWatch ]

At 11 p.m. (KST) on December 3, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law nationwide. The military swiftly seized control of the National Assembly and the Election Commission. This marked the first time in 44 years that martial law had been imposed in South Korea, evoking memories of May 17, 1980, when the military regime orchestrated the country's deadliest crackdown during the Gwangju Movement.

According to Morning Consult, which tracks the approval ratings of global leaders, Yoon was already at the bottom of the list, with an approval rating hovering around 15%. In response to this plummeting popularity, Yoon attempted to neutralize the National Assembly, which had frequently introduced special counsel bills targeting him. He also conspired to manipulate data from the Election Commission to overturn the April 2024 general election results, in which his party suffered a crushing defeat.

The U.S. and the international community may struggle to comprehend how the president of South Korea—a country that has successfully achieved industrialization and democratization—could devise such a scheme. But one must understand that Yoon's rise to power was primarily facilitated by the backing of former President Moon Jae-in. As a prosecutor, Yoon, under Moon's administration, had employed a series of manipulative investigations to imprison conservative figures, including former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, as well as former chief justice Yang Seung-tae.

Yoon's anachronistic self-coup was quickly undone by widespread public resistance. Now, he is reportedly planning another political gambit—illegally transferring power to his closest confidant and former prosecutor, Han Dong-hoon, who currently heads the ruling People Power Party.

On May 27, 2018, I became the first journalist from a major OECD country to be detained pre-trial for defamation. This action was taken by Yoon Suk-yeol, then chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, and Han Dong-hoon, the third deputy chief prosecutor, during the Moon administration.

I was detained for asserting that a tablet device, widely touted as the “smoking gun” in Park Geun-hye's impeachment, did not belong to Choi Seo-won, Park's civilian confidant. Instead, I argued that it belonged to Kim Han-soo, then the head of the New Media Department in Park's administration.

A pivotal piece of evidence in Park's impeachment was a scoop by JTBC on October 24, 2016. The report alleged that Choi Seo-won, ‘a private citizen’, had illegally obtained over 200 confidential Blue House documents from Park using a tablet device. If, however, the tablet is proven to have belonged to Kim Han-soo, a Blue House official, the basis for Park’s impeachment would be invalidated.

I was released on bail on May 17, 2019, after spending approximately a year in prison. During my imprisonment and trial, I realized that JTBC's scoop report—that the tablet belonged to Choi Seo-won—was far more than a simple misreport. I began uncovering evidence that the special counsel investigation into Park administration for alleged manipulation of state affairs, led by Yoon Suk-yeol and Han Dong-hoon, had fabricated evidence to make it appear that the tablet belonged to Choi Seo-won.

In other words, Yoon and Han leveraged their position as chief prosecutor and third deputy chief prosecutor to imprison a journalist, myself, who was attempting to expose the crimes they had committed as part of the special counsel team. In December 2022, I obtained conclusive evidence of Yoon and Han’s tablet manipulation. I filed a complaint against them with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials, accusing them of evidence destruction.

By this time, however, Yoon and Han had ascended to the positions of President and Justice Minister, respectively. To this day, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials has yet to launch an official investigation into the case. Meanwhile, the appeals court handling my defamation trial—initiated by a complaint from JTBC that led to my pretrial detention—has indiscriminately dismissed critical witnesses and evidence since this year. The court has even begun pushing to detain me again.

On September 28, shortly after my wedding, I flew to Los Angeles for my honeymoon, fully anticipating that my second arrest would be used to completely bury the serious crimes committed by South Korea's sitting president and justice minister-turned-ruling party leader. At the time, my travel ban had been lifted. I later discovered that my travel ban lift was due to an administrative error by the Ministry of Justice, and the official responsible was reprimanded. Meanwhile, three other journalists standing trial alongside me from MediaWatch—the online news outlet I run—remain banned from leaving the country.

I am not alone in facing persecution under the Yoon-Han regime. Shin Hak-rim, a journalist from Newstapa, was preemptively detained after releasing recordings that exposed corruption during Yoon's tenure as a prosecutor. Similarly, prosecutors under the Yoon administration twice sought an arrest warrant for Kang Jin-gu, a journalist from Newtamsa, who reported on inappropriate late-night drinking sessions between Yoon and Han. Although Kang avoided arrest, he is on trial for several civil and criminal complaints filed against him by then-justice minister Han. The Voice of Seoul, a media outlet focused on exposing corruption allegations involving Yoon’s spouse, Kim Keon-hee, has been subjected to raids and relentless civil and criminal investigations by prosecutors aligned with Yoon’s administration. Since South Korea’s democratization in 1987, no government—whether liberal or conservative—has used the prosecutorial system to suppress the press to this degree.

The Democratic Party, the main opposition party tasked with holding the Yoon administration accountable, is facing a similar crackdown by Yoon’s prosecutors. Lee Jae-myung, the party leader and former presidential candidate who narrowly lost to Yoon by just 0.8%, has been subjected to over 500 raids and is entangled in five trials on 18 separate charges. Lee was recently convicted of violating the Public Offices Election Act and sentenced to one year in prison with probation. If the Supreme Court upholds this ruling, he will be barred from political activity for a decade. 

Song Young-gil, a former head of the Democratic Party and a prominent supporter of Lee Jae-myung during his presidential campaign, is being targeted in what many describe as a pretextual investigation by prosecutors. They accuse Song’s team of distributing campaign funds during the Democratic Party’s leadership race four years ago. Song, who insisted on having no knowledge of this incident, was preemptively detained and later released on bail. He is now awaiting sentencing, scheduled for January 8 next year. As many as 20 other Democratic Party lawmakers are awaiting sentencing in connection to Song’s case. All this marks an unprecedented crackdown in South Korean political history. Since the nation’s democratization in 1987, there has never been a case where the victor of a presidential election has so aggressively pursued and persecuted his/her opponent and allies.

Politico, a U.S.-based political media outlet, has drawn parallels between Yoon's crackdown on South Korea's opposition and the Biden administration's aggressive investigations and prosecutions of former President Donald Trump. Korean-American political and social organizations in the US speculate that Yoon, a former prosecutor, may have advised Biden to use the Justice Department to suppress his political rivals. Their argument is based on the lack of historical precedent in the US for a presidential election winner to launch such a comprehensive and heavy-handed investigation against their opponent.

Japan Forward, the English-language site of Sankei Newspaper, Shukan Post, Japan's leading weekly magazine, along with Hong Kong's Yazhou Zhoukan(Asia Weekly), Asia Times, and Canada's The Postil Magazine have all extensively reported on my investigation into Yoon and Han's evidence tampering, as well as my entry into the US to seek asylum. In contrast, major South Korean media outlets such as KBS, MBC, Chosun Ilbo, Dong-A Ilbo, and JoongAng Ilbo have remained silent on these stories. This is primarily due to their complicity in covering up Yoon and Han's rigged investigation, which began with the impeachment of Park Geun-hye. Other media outlets are too fearful to report on their crimes or my asylum case, wary of massive retaliation from the prosecution.

In December 2022, Lee Dong-hwan, Choi Seo-won's lawyer, held a press conference to reveal the results of a forensic evaluation conducted by the Korea Cyber Forensic Professional Association (KCFPA). The evaluation uncovered that Yoon and Han had fabricated a tablet to make it appear as though Choi Seo-won owned it, with the intent of impeaching Park Geun-hye. Despite the presence of reporters from more than 30 media outlets, including Yonhap News, SBS, YTN, and MBN, not a single one published the story.

Interestingly, Yoon and Han, who have silenced journalists by indiscriminately filing lawsuits against those who criticize them, are unable to take direct legal action against me for openly calling them criminals. Their criminal activities were exposed beyond a doubt, so I surmise publicizing it through a trial would be too risky for them. Instead, Yoon and Han sought to imprison me for a second time by having their accomplices in the tablet evidence tampering—JTBC and SK Telecom—file civil lawsuits and criminal complaints against me. 

Both the Yoon and Biden administrations have employed similar tactics to suppress opposition groups, leveraging legal and political power to target their critics. The Yoon administration appears strangely aligned with Biden’s administration, especially in his stance on the escalating war in Ukraine. Notably, Sambutogun, a company owned by Cho Nam-ho, who reportedly connected Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon-hee, has recently seen its stock price sharply increase since its involvement in Ukraine's postwar reconstruction efforts. In South Korea, there are rumors that Yoon and Kim are collaborating with the Zelensky regime on business interests in Ukraine. In fact, Kim has already been accused of manipulating stock prices back home and is implicated in a corruption scheme related to South Korea's highway business.

I am not seeking asylum in the United States to escape or out of fear of Yoon Suk-yeol and Han Dong-hoon. Rather, I am doing so to expose their crimes to the United States and the international community, as there is no way to halt their tyranny against me within South Korea. Despite being plunged into a political crisis following his failed self-coup, Yoon has unlawfully transferred his authority to his co-conspirator from the rigged tablet investigation, Han. Meanwhile, the network of prosecutors who collaborated with them in that investigation remains fully intact and operational.

The United States has held Fraser hearings to address human rights abuses and corruption under Park Chung-hee’s regime, calling witnesses such as Kim Hyung-wook, the former head of South Korea's Central Intelligence Agency. I request the U.S. government to grant me political asylum as soon as possible and call on the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to similarly investigate Yoon's crackdown on the media and opposition, as well as his attempts to extend his influence into Ukraine.

South Korea is a pivotal player in America’s Indo-Pacific and Northeast Asia policy. In particular, the incoming Trump administration emphasizes two core objectives: seeking an early resolution to the war between Russia and Ukraine and advancing the denuclearization and eventual opening of North Korea.

As a former prosecutor, Yoon was key in the investigation and impeachment of President Park Geun-hye by fabricating evidence. To conceal his actions, Yoon has aggressively suppressed the media and opposition voices. Moreover, Yoon is seeking to exploit the war in Ukraine for personal gain while escalating tensions with North Korea to secure support from his conservative constituents. As long as Yoon remains president of South Korea, the Trump administration's objectives of resolving the Ukraine conflict and advancing North Korea's denuclearization will remain unattainable. It is also uncertain when Yoon might attempt to declare a second or even third round of martial law to prolong his regime.

I served as a sergeant in KATUSA, supporting the U.S. Army's Second Infantry Division stationed in South Korea. As a conservative journalist, I have consistently highlighted the importance of the ROK-US alliance and have been a vocal supporter of President-elect Donald Trump since 2016. In recognition of my efforts, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward Royce presented me with the Young Leadership Award in 2018—the same year I was unjustly imprisoned by Yoon. My imprisonment garnered significant attention, leading more than 20 American conservative intellectuals, including Gordon Chang, Tara O, Susan Scholte, and Greg Scarlatoiu, to issue statements demanding my release.

I, therefore, urge the United States government to uphold my right to live in a free society and grant me the opportunity to present evidence of Yoon Suk-yeol's crimes, as well as the harsh realities of media repression and political oppression in South Korea, to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.