High security ahead of ruling in Yoon’s case

South Korea’s air traffic authorities will ban drones from flying around the Constitutional Court in Seoul from Thursday ahead of the ruling on the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.

The measure will take effect from Thursday to Wednesday next week, according to a notice to airmen issued on the transport ministry’s aeronautical information system on Wednesday.

The court is widely expected to rule on Yoon’s impeachment in the coming days though it has yet to announce the date.

Police earlier announced in a statement it had asked the ministry to set up a temporary ban on drones around the court and adjacent areas spanning 1.85 km until the end of this month.

Police are expected to be out in force and subway stations and nearby schools are set to be closed on the day of the ruling that will decide Yoon’s political future over his short-lived imposition of martial law on Dec.3.

On Sunday, a day after Yoon returned home, thousands of Yoon supporters gathered around the residence to protest the impeachment, surrounded by beefed-up police security.

Meanwhile, a firebrand pastor has said that he is ready for “revolution,” iIf South Korea formally impeaches its suspended president over his martial law debacle,

Evangelical preacher Jun Kwang-hoon is one of Yoon Suk Yeol’s most fervent defenders, calling Yoon’s Dec.3 martial law declaration a “gift from God.”

He has been prepping his followers to take action for weeks, and Yoon’s release from detention over the weekend on procedural grounds has turbo-charged 68-year-old Jun’s sermons.

“If the Constitutional Court decides (to impeach him), we will mobilise the people’s right to resist and blow them away with one blade swoop,” Jun told hundreds of supporters during a service held Sunday outside Yoon’s residence.

Authorities are so worried about the potential for violence when the Constitutional Court issues its ruling on Yoon this month that police have been granted special permission to use pepper spray and collapsible batons if his supporters get unruly.

They have cause for concern.

The pastor - long a fringe character on the extreme right edge of South Korean politics - has moved into the mainstream in recent weeks by taking to the streets as the disgraced president’s chief apologist.

Agencies