Funeral of Lee Han-yeol, 1987.7.9, Seoul, South Korea

 On June 9, 1987, Yonsei University student Lee Han-yeol participated in demonstrations against the Chun Doo-hwan dictatorship in South Korea. A tear gas canister fired by riot police penetrated his skull. His fellow students rushed him to Yonsei's Severance Hospital, where he remained in critical condition. On July 5, Lee Han-yeol died of his wounds. The resulting public outcry was an essential part of the June Democracy Movement that brought down the Chun regime and helped establish democracy in South Korea.

On July 9, 1987, over one million people participated in Lee Han-yeol's funeral, one of the most important events in South Korea's political history.

I took pictures of the event and present them here. The service and procession started at the Yonsei campus, went through the Yonsei main gate, proceeded through Sinchon Rotary, and ended at City Hall.  All of the images below are clickable, yielding larger versions and in some cases Gigapan panoramas. The pictures were taken on 35mm print film (Kodak Gold 100) with an Olympus OM-1 with a 50mm lens, and the negatives were digitally scanned at 3088 x 2048. All 138 original files are available here, and please feel free to use them under the following license.

If you would like to comment or respond (which would be very much appreciated), I have included the pictures in a Flickr set, where comments can be left on individual pictures.

Michael Chwe
August 2011
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Yonsei University






Student groups gathering



Rallying at Yonsei University main gate


Assembling the procession




Heading toward the main gate of Yonsei University

Outside the main gate

Walking toward Sinchon Rotary




Sinchon Rotary

Toward City Hall


Approaching City Hall


City Hall