Silence fell over thousands of supporters of South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, as the country’s Constitutional Court announced it was removing her from office on Friday. The unanimous ruling capped months of turmoil for a country that has been gripped by the corruption scandal that brought down Ms. Park.
Since November, the center of Seoul, the capital, has been the site of weekly demonstrations, some of them enormous, demanding Ms. Park’s ouster. Her powers were suspended in December, after a legislative impeachment vote.
Her opponents were in the streets on Friday for the ruling, cheering as the court verdict was read.
Supporters of Ms. Park tried to pass a barricade of police buses protecting the Constitutional Court, which ruled that Ms. Park had “betrayed the trust of the people.” Some of the demonstrators called for “destroying” the court.
Some of Ms. Park’s supporters, most of them older South Koreans, attacked the police with flagpoles. As Ms. Park’s standing plummeted in recent months, her remaining backers tended to be people who fondly remembered her father, the Cold War dictator Park Chung-hee.
Other protesters threw water bottles and pieces of pavement. The acting president, Hwang Kyo-ahn, called for national unity and urged Ms. Park’s supporters to accept the court’s ruling.
Three demonstrators, ages 60, 72 and 74, died during the unrest. One had fallen from the top of a police bus, a hospital official told The Associated Press. An additional 30 protesters and police officers were injured in the clashes, The A.P. said.
