Supporters of arrested and impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol wave the national flags as they gather outside the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, South Korea, on March 7, 2025. Photo: VCG

Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was released from custody on Friday after a court accepted his request to cancel his arrest over his short-lived imposition of martial law, the Yonhap News Agency reported. But vastly different reactions in South Korea to Yoon's release highlighted heightened political tension in the country, a Chinese observer said.

Yoon filed the request with the Seoul Central District Court last month, claiming his indictment over the December 3 martial law declaration was illegal, according to the Yonhap report. 

"This means that the court has approved Yoon to stand trial without physical detention. The final decision on Yoon's fate will come in a ruling by the Constitutional Court," Lü Chao, an expert on the Korean Peninsula issue at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.

At this stage, the likelihood of the Constitutional Court passing the impeachment motion is high, Lü said, citing multiple public opinion polls that have shown the number of people supporting the impeachment exceeds those opposing it.

The Constitutional Court is deliberating on the impeachment of President Yoon after both sides concluded their arguments. It is poised to decide whether to remove Yoon from office as early as next week, according to South Korean media outlet The Hankyoreh on Friday.

While Yoon's release on Friday is more of a technical issue and won't necessarily affect the ongoing process of the Constitutional Court's review and ruling in the impeachment case, it does highlight the heightened political tension between the ruling and opposition parties, Xiang Haoyu, a research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times.

The Seoul Central District Court accepted Yoon's request to cancel his arrest, which was made by Yoon's legal team during a relevant hearing on February 20. The Yoon side argued that the impeached leader was indicted under detention after the expiration of the arrest warrant period, while the prosecution claimed that it was a legitimate indictment, according to Xinhua. 

Different political parties in South Korea had vastly different reactions to Yoon's release on Friday. The presidential office on Friday issued a statement saying it "welcomes the decision to revoke the president's arrest." Kwon Young-se, chairman of Yoon's ruling People Power Party, also welcomed the court's decision, saying that he hopes the Constitutional Court "will make a fair and just ruling based solely on constitutional values" during the impeachment trial, CNN reported. 

In stark contrast, South Korea's main opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung said that "just because the prosecutors made a rudimentary calculation mistake does not eliminate the clear fact that President Yoon Suk Yeol destroyed the constitutional order through an unconstitutional military coup," according to the CNN report.  

Given the heightened political division and social tension, Xiang said that there could be some "subtle variables" that could affect the case going forward.   

Even before Yoon's release on Friday, South Korea has been on the edge with growing concerns of unrest. South Korea police will deploy all available resources to prevent any potential civil unrest on the day of the Constitutional Court's ruling on the impeachment of Yoon, the Korea Times reported on Thursday.