Students rose for instance against the South Korea's government of Syngman Rhee after the allegedly rigged elections in March 1960.
The first incentive for the student movement was the oppressive rule of Japan over Korea and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's call for the 'Self determination of Nations' following World War I.
[1] The protest spread from Namdaemun Square in Seoul, and Pyeongyang and Gwangju, to rural areas, through people going to the funeral of Gojong (高宗, the 26th Joseon king).
[3] On 11 April 1960 nearly a month after the demonstrations against the rigged elections on 15 March, the body of a high school boy with a police tear-gas grenade lodged into his skull was pulled out of a river in Masan.
They didn't get a response however and the next day, 19 April, approximately 50,000 students forced their way past the police and met in front of the principal government buildings in the centre of Seoul.
[5] Besides this violent oppression of political dissidence, South Korea also underwent rapid state-led capitalist reform and industrialization.
[5] All civil liberty restrictions were justified under the Yushin system supposedly to discipline the workforce in the face of the threat of North Korea.
[5] The Yushin system led to great discontent among intellectuals and students in the 1970s and made campuses around South Korea spaces for antigovernment activism.
[5] Dissidence was practiced through small reading groups and educational activities provided by religious human rights organizations to escape governmental scrutiny.
[5] In the so-called 'Great June Democratic Struggle' in 1987, over a million people attended an illegal street riot that led to a sweeping political change including a direct presidential election.
[6] Although the police announced that this affair was simply a shock death, they later officially admitted to torturing Jong-Chul with water after an autopsy was done on the body.
[6] After part of the affair's truth was revealed, the opposition party launched a new offense against the Chun Doo Hwan administration.
[7] During the protest, Yonsei student Lee Han-yeol was seriously injured when a tear gas grenade penetrated his skull and he died on July 5.
[7] Through these affairs, citizens became distrustful towards the Chun Doo Hwan administration and democratic resistance was extended, with the June Democracy Movement established at the peak.
[7] Park Mi wrote that "the student generation of the 1980s played a pivotal role in the democratization of South Korean society".
[14] Eunhye Choi, president of the student body of Ewha Womans University, declared "The voice of the victims was excluded" and "There wasn't an apology from Japan.
Comfort women victims desired to be made clear about responsibility for forced mobilized labour at national level, formal apology, legal compensation, recording on textbook and punishment.