SEOUL -- When Min Kyung-wook thinks back to his days as a student activist in the late 1980s, he remembers the fear he felt walking past clusters of gun-toting soldiers near the campus of Seoul National University.
Min was the student council president of his university's College of Humanities. He knew students had been beaten by police at protests, and one who was tortured to death while under interrogation. He knew his activism could cost him his life, but he stayed on the streets until the government agreed to hold democratic elections.