Lee Han-yeol
South Korean student activist (1966–1987)
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Lee Han-yeol (Korean: 이한열; August 29, 1966 – July 5, 1987) was a South Korean student activist who became a central symbol of the June Democratic Struggle.[1] He was twenty years old and finishing his second year at Yonsei University when riot police shot him in the head with a tear gas canister during a campus demonstration on June 9, 1987.[2] He never regained consciousness and died twenty-six days later.[3][4]
Lee Han-yeol | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | August 29, 1966 Hwasun County, South Jeolla Province, South Korea |
| Died | July 5, 1987 (aged 20) Severance Hospital, Seoul, South Korea |
Resting place | May 18th National Cemetery, Gwangju, South Korea |
| Education | Yonsei University, Business Administration (enrolled 1986, did not graduate) |
| Known for | Symbol of the June Democratic Struggle, 1987 |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 이한열 |
| Hanja | 李韓烈 |
| RR | I Hanyeol |
| MR | I Hanyŏl |
Early life
Lee Han-yeol was born on August 29, 1966, in Namjeong-ri, Neungju-myeon, Hwasun County, South Jeolla Province, South Korea, the fourth of five children and the first son, born after three older sisters.[5] His father was Lee Byeong-seop (이병섭) and his mother was Bae Eun-sim (배은심).[5] He attended Gwangju Dongsan Elementary School, Gwangju Dongseong Middle School, and Gwangju Jinheung High School, graduating in February 1985.[6] After failing the university entrance exam on his first attempt and spending a year at a cram school, he enrolled in Yonsei's Department of Business Administration in March 1986.[6] At Yonsei he co-founded a student comics club called Manhwa Sarang (만화사랑); the club bridged student movement participants with students who simply loved comics, and he worked earnestly to honor both purposes, at one point arranging for a minjung art painter to come and teach drawing.[5] His personal diaries from his high school years, preserved by his family and later restored by the National Archives of Korea, reveal a young man preoccupied with questions of meaning and social responsibility alongside ordinary adolescent life.[7]
His school years in Gwangju placed him in the city during the May 18 Democratic Uprising of 1980.[8] His parents told him to stay home during the violence in the streets, and he complied, leaving him unaware at the time of the full scale of the military crackdown.[9] It was only at Yonsei, after encountering photographs and footage of the Gwangju killings, that their true nature became clear to him.[6] According to his mother's account, later broadcast by NHK, that was the moment he committed himself to the democracy movement.[8]
June 9, 1987
South Korea in early 1987 was already at a breaking point.[10] In January, a student named Park Jong-cheol had died under police torture, and the government had attempted to suppress the facts.[10] When the truth emerged in May, the fury that had been building quietly finally had a focal point.[10][11] Student groups across the country set June 10 as a nationwide protest date, with campuses holding their own rallies the day before.[10]
At Yonsei that afternoon, Lee participated in the "Yonsei Resolution Rally for the June 10 Struggle" (6·10대회 출정을 위한 연세인 결의대회), held in preparation for the following day's national demonstration demanding an end to constitutional entrenchment and accountability for the killing of Park Jong-cheol.[12] By early morning, hundreds of riot police had already been deployed around the Yonsei main gate and the Sinchon rotary.[13] The rally near the main gate turned into a confrontation between students and riot police.[2] Some officers fired SY-44 tear gas canisters horizontally into the crowd rather than upward, in violation of police regulations.[6][14] One canister struck Lee in the back of the head and he collapsed immediately.[2] While being carried toward Severance Hospital he had not yet lost full consciousness, and his last recorded words, spoken approximately an hour after the impact, were: "I have to go to City Hall tomorrow."[13] A fellow student named Lee Jong-chang, a second-year student in the library science department, had caught him as he fell.[13] Reuters photographer Jeong Tae-won (정태원) was present and captured the moment on film.[15] The photograph ran on the front pages of the Joongang Ilbo and The New York Times and became the defining image of the movement.[15][16] Lee was transferred to Severance Hospital, where he never regained consciousness.[3]
Death and funeral
On June 29, ruling party candidate Roh Tae-woo issued the June 29 Declaration, conceding to the protesters' demand for direct presidential elections while Lee remained unconscious in the intensive care unit.[17][18] Lee died on July 5, 1987, from cardiac and pulmonary failure caused by his brain injury, without ever learning that the government had conceded.[6] His shooting, occurring so soon after the revelation of Park Jong-cheol's torture death, drove nationwide anger to a level that proved decisive in forcing the regime's hand.[6] A post-mortem forensic report, later restored by the National Archives, confirmed that the cause of death was the tear gas canister strike to his head.[7]
His funeral on July 9 was held under the name the "Democratic People's National Funeral" (민주국민장).[5] The procession began at Yonsei University, passed through Sinchon Rotary, continued past Seoul City Hall and Gwanghwamun, then moved on to Gwangju.[5] An estimated one million people lined the streets of Seoul and around 500,000 gathered in Gwangju, for a total of approximately 1.6 million mourners nationwide.[5] He was buried at the May 18th National Cemetery in Gwangju, among others who had given their lives for the same cause.[5] The constitutional amendment establishing direct presidential elections passed by referendum on October 28 that year.[19]
Legacy
A commemorative anthology, Lee Han-yeol: Cry of the June Sky (이한열, 유월하늘의 함성이여), was published in November 1989, and a memorial association was formally established that same month.[5] Yonsei University posthumously awarded him an honorary bachelor's degree on February 29, 1992.[5] The Lee Han-yeol Memorial Museum (이한열기념관) opened in the Sinchon neighborhood of Seoul on June 9, 2005, funded by compensation money his mother received from the state and by public donations.[20] It holds the sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers Lee wore on June 9, along with other personal effects and documents from the June Struggle.[21][22] In 2021 the National Archives of Korea completed the restoration of 38 records from his life, including his high school diary, letters to his parents, search and seizure warrants issued after his death, and audio recordings of the funeral ceremony including the eulogy delivered by Pastor Moon Ik-hwan.[7][23] In November 2025, the Korea Heritage Service designated his clothing and shoes as part of South Korea's first-ever "preliminary cultural heritage" designation, placing them alongside Kim Dae-jung's Nobel Peace Prize medal.[15] The Yonsei University School of Business[24] has hosted annual academic seminars in his name since 2018, examining both his personal legacy and the broader significance of the 1987 movement.[25][26]
His mother, Bae Eun-sim,[27][28] became a human rights activist after his death.[8] She served as the head of a national association representing families who lost loved ones in the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s, and was awarded the Moran Medal, the second-highest Order of Civil Merit, in June 2020 for her contributions to democratization.[29] She died on January 9, 2022, at the age of 82.[8] Actor Kang Dong-won portrayed Lee in the 2017 film 1987: When the Day Comes[30] and donated 200 million won to the Lee Han-yeol Memorial Foundation after completing the role.[31][32]