Raw Moo-hyun

Roh Moo-hyun (2004)
Korean spelling
Hangeul	노무현
Hanja	盧武鉉
Revised Romanization	No mu-hyeon
McCune- Reischauer	No Muhyŏn
See also : Korean name

Roh Moo-hyun (born September 1, 1946 in Gimhae , Gyeongsangnam Province , † May 23, 2009 in Busan , Gyeongsangnam Province) was a South Korean politician . He was President of the Republic of Korea from February 25, 2003 to February 25, 2008 . Before entering politics, he was a human rights advocate . He was considered a champion for democratization , human rights and the country's poor. Roh had come to work for reconciliation with North Korea .

Life

Roh was born in Gimhae near Busan in southeast South Korea in 1946. In 1960 he led a protest at his school against the mandatory essays with which the then president had to be praised. Upon successful completion of high school and completion of military service in the army he worked in various odd jobs, preparing the self-study prior to the legal state exams, which he successfully completed the 1975th

In 1977 he became a district judge in Daejeon and was a tax lawyer from 1978 . In 1981 he defended students who had been arrested and tortured by the military government without a warrant for possession of banned literature . In early 2003 he was quoted as saying, "When I saw her horrified eyes and missing toenails, my comfortable life as a lawyer was over."

He campaigned against the then autocratic regime in South Korea. In September 1987 he was imprisoned for three weeks as the leader of the pro-democracy movement “ Juni-Kampf ”.

Roh Moo-hyun was married to Kwon Yang-sook ( Hangeul : 권양숙 , Hanja : 權 良 淑 ). The marriage resulted in two children, his son Geon-ho ( 건호 , * 1973) and his daughter Jeong-yeon ( 정연 , * 1975).

On May 23, 2009, Roh Moo-hyun fell to his death near his home. According to a suicide note, he drew the consequences of a bribery proceeding against him . It is a scandal in his family, among other things, his wife is said to have received a million US dollars from a businessman. Before he committed suicide, Roh claimed not to have known about it. The amount of the bribe is controversial. His older brother was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

Political career

In 1988, Roh Moo-hyon went into politics, where he made serious allegations against the government, most of which he accused of corruption and the Gwangju massacre in 1980. In the same year he was elected for the Democratic Union Party ( kor. 통일 민주당 ) in the Gukhoe , the South Korean parliament, to which he belonged for six years. After running unsuccessfully for the Gukhoe in 2000, he was Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries until 2001 . As a presidential candidate for the then ruling Sae-cheonnyeon-minju-dang ( 새천년 민주당 , Democratic Party of the New Millennium), he won the election on December 19, 2002 and succeeded his political foster father Kim Dae-jung ( 김대중 ) on February 25, 2003 the office of president. Soon after, he resigned from his party and founded the Yeollin-uri party ( 열린 우리당 , Yeollin-uri-dang, Our Open Party) with his supporters .

Presidency

On March 12, 2004, impeachment proceedings for violation of the duty of neutrality in the office were initiated against Roh, which was overturned on May 14 by the South Korean Constitutional Court. The reasoning for the judgment stated that the reasons put forward in parliament were insufficient for impeachment. The then Prime Minister Goh Kun served as interim president .

As the second South Korean President after Kim Dae-jung, Roh traveled to Pyongyang in October 2007 for a summit meeting with North Korean President Kim Jong-il , where the two politicians signed a "declaration of peace".

Web links

Commons : Raw Moo-hyun  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Roh Moo-hyun in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage (English)
• TIME biography
• CNN biography

Individual evidence

1. ^ Former S. Korean President Roh dead: police . Yonhap News Agency as of May 23, 2009.
2. ^ Mourning in South Korea: Ex-President jumps to his death . t-online.de from May 23, 2009.
3. ↑ Ex-President Roh Moo Hyun throws himself to his death . Badische Zeitung from May 23, 2009.
4. ↑ Former S. Korean President Roh commits suicide CNN of May 22, 2009 (English)
5. ↑ South Korea's former President Roh falls to his death . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 13, 2009.
6. ↑ According to recent reports, the sum is said to be 6.4 million US dollars. YTN dated April 14, 2017.

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Roh is the family name here, Moo-hyun is the first name.