Parallel protest Has Seouljust witnessed its own January 6 moment?

They arrived intent on causing mayhem. The political figurehead they supported had, they said, been the victim of a grave injustice at the hands of the establishment.

- Raphael Rashid SEOUL and Justin McCurry TOKYO

The ringleaders had soon broken through security cordons, armed with fire extinguishers, steel pipes and police shields, smashing windows and gaining entry to a government building, leaving destruction worth an estimated $500,000 in their wake.

The scene was not the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021, and the mobs attempting to overturn the rule of law had swapped animal skins and bald eagle masks for hooded down jackets and face masks. But the similarities between Maga ideologues' attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, and the farright protesters who stormed the Seoul western district court building last weekend in support of the impeached South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, are hard to ignore.