ASIA – Nepalese and South Korean activists and Korean activists in Japan continued to protest alleged Japanese violations of the civil rights and liberties of members of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), an organization for Koreans in Japan who claim North Korean citizenship, and of Koreans in Japan in general, according to a series of releases from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea’s official news service.
On March 3, in the latest action as of this writing, Koreans in Japan met in Tokyo to denounce the Japanese government’s alleged political suppression of Chongryon. Several Chongryon leaders, including Chairman So Man Sul, Chief Vice-Chairman Ho Jong Man and other vice-chairmen, as well as the Secretary General and advisers to the Chongryon Central Standing Committee. Vice-Chairman Nam Sang U referenced the 88th anniversary of Korea’s March 1st Popular Uprising against Japanese colonial rule in his report. In the past month, Japanese officials have allegedly conducted illegal searches of Chongryon offices, homes of Koreans in Japan, and an elementary school, as well as arresting a Chongryon official and a businessman. It is not clear whether or not the businessman was affiliated with Chongryon. Recently, Japanese authorities also prevented a North Korean ship, the Mangyongbong-92, from entering a Japanese port. The issue is particularly sensitive because Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, and many Koreans took up arms against Japan from the 1920s through World War II. Due to Japan’s mainly bloodline-based citizenship rules, Koreans in Japan, while having rights to permanent residence, generally lack Japanese citizenship. Today, most Koreans in Japan claim Republic of Korea (ROK), or South Korean, citizenship. Since Japan still does not have normal relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a.k.a. North Korea, this is the only legally recognized form of Korean citizenship for its Korean residents. Nevertheless, a number of Koreans in Japan claim DPRK citizenship. Aside from the recent issues surrounding Chongryon, Koreans in Japan have a long history of being relegated to second-class status.
Nam demanded that the Japanese government drop its opposition to the DPRK and cease all suppression of Chongryon in particular and of Koreans in Japan in general. Other speakers at the March 3 meeting included Pak Chang Gil, Chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Headquarters of Chongryon, O Jae Se, Director-General of the Korean Federation of Workers in Commerce in Japan, Ryang Ok Chul, Vice-Chairwoman of the Korean Democratic Women’s Union in Japan, and Kim Cha Dol, Director of the General Affairs Department of the Korean Youth League in Japan. In addition, Sumiko Shimizu of the Japanese Women’s Society for Solidarity with Korean Women, Professor Kenichi Asano, attorney Shigeru Tokoi, and Song Se Il, Secretary General of the Alliance of South Koreans in Japan for Democracy and National Unification, also spoke during the meeting.
Attendees read messages of support from 54 organizations in the ROK, six organizations of overseas Koreans, and from various Japanese allies. So Chung On, Director of the International Department of the Chongryon Central Standing Committee, briefed the attendees on the “information meeting and seminar on the human rights abuses against Korean students in Japan” held in the ROK on February 28. Attendees also presented placards from four South Korean organizations, including Reunification Solidarity and the Democratic Labor Party, reading “The Japanese authorities, lift the sanctions against the DPRK and repeal the hostile policy towards it!” and “Immediately stop national discrimination and persecution against the Koreans in Japan!” The meeting was followed by a protest march.
The Tokyo meeting and march came on the heels of two other pro-Chongryon protests. In a March 1 statement, the Youth and Students Solidarity (committee) to Implement the June 15 Joint Declaration in South Korea apparently pledged to fight the Japanese government’s suppression of Koreans in Japan with the March 1st Popular Uprising as its model and called on all Koreans to work for re-unification of the Korean peninsula.
In Nepal on February 26, the Nepal-Korea Friendship Association, the Institute for Juche Studies, the Association for Supporting Songun Politics, the Journalist Association, the Peace Action Committee, the National Press Club, the Study Forum for Self-Reliance, the Baktapur Society for Korea, and the Nepal Committee for Supporting the Reunification of Korea issued a joint statement denouncing the suppression of Chongryon.
“We regard such brutal suppression as an intolerable infringement upon the sovereignty of the DPRK, a dignified socialist country, and an unprecedented crime,” the statement read, according to a March 5 KCNA report.
