On anniversary of June Struggle, Korean students condemn violations of political rights

On Wednesday, the 39th anniversary of the June Democratic Struggle — a nationwide pro-democracy movement that forced Korea’s authoritarian government to hold direct presidential elections — students at 18 universities across the country simultaneously issued declarations condemning the ballot shortage in the June 3 local elections.

After the initial protest at Seoul’s Olympic Park was quickly co-opted by election fraud conspiracy theorists, young Koreans are now voicing their frustrations over the ballot fiasco on university campuses.

“Thirty-nine years have passed, but we find ourselves here again, shouting about our right to vote. This is shameful,” read the statement put out in the name of Yonsei University’s student council.

Korea University’s student council called for pledges to “restore our democracy through discourse and deliberation through public debate, instead of resorting to physical conflict.”

Led by a forum of South Korean university student bodies, the student councils of 18 universities — Yonsei University, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea University, Sogang University, Chonnam National University, Seoul National University, Hongik University, Sungkyunkwan University, Chonbuk National University, and others — carried out relay protests on their respective campuses at 6 pm on Wednesday, each accompanied by a formal declaration condemning the incident.

While the content of the declarations was not identical, as each student council drafted its own statement, they shared the same underlying message: this crisis is a “violation of voting rights by the state,” and that the focus should not be on “stoking political strife,” but on how “basic mechanisms of democracy have broken down.”

The students specifically demanded a thorough investigation into the situation through parliamentary inquiries and a special counsel probe, the establishment of practical countermeasures for violations of fundamental rights by the state, a structural reform of the National Election Commission, and the creation of an independent body overseeing reform involving ordinary citizens, including young people and university students.

At the main gate of Sogang University, students arranged 20-odd varsity jackets around a large print out of their declaration, which began with the words: “Why are we living in an era where we cannot speak up for what is right?”

A mock polling booth was set up in front of Yonsei University’s student union building, with students writing what they thought of this situation on polling ballots: “The electoral system is the hea