In 1973, when Shin Jae-hyung was a teenager, he was out in the streets being teargassed, fighting against South Korea's then-military dictator Park Chung-hee. He never thought he would have to do it again in 2024.

But when he heard the country's current president, Yoon Suk Yeol, had declared martial law this week -- the first time democratic South Korea had experienced it in 40 years -- he raced to the National Assembly thinking: "We must stop this."

"I thought we must define this as an act of insurrection," the 66-year-old told AFP at his home in northern Seoul.

Shin was convinced that Yoon, who made the stunning announcement on Tuesday night, "must be punished" for his attempt to drag South Korea back to the dark days.

For years, Shin has fought for democracy and against the successive military-led regimes of the 1970s and 1980s, having endured arrest and torture at the hands of authorities.

After South Korea became a democracy in 1987, with voters directly electing the president, Shin assumed the country's days of martial law were over.

So this week, as soon as he got to the National Assembly -- by that point surrounded by soldiers and police -- he stood on a fence to shout to fellow protesters, determined to help his........

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