hankyoreh

"An anti-Korean sentiment is rising in Japanese society, and traditional Korean clothes make you the target of attack," said Han Hyeon-ju, a second-year high school student at Joseon Middle and High School in Tokyo.

Han’s school, like others affiliated with the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), has its students wear traditional Korean dress.

The problem was raised when a group of six Korean residents in Japan paid a visit to South Korea this week to mark the March 1919 independence movement. The group, including an executive of Chongryon-affiliated schools as well as teachers, students, and parents, on February 28 met the South Korean civic activists who had invited them to Seoul and told of the current tense situation at such schools.

Koreans have lived in Japan in large numbers since the 1910-45 colonial period and World War II. Some of them belong to the pro-Pyongyang Chongryon, others affiliate with the pro-Seoul Korean Residents’ Union in Japan (Mindan). Rising anti-North Korean public sentiment in Japan has been fueled by the country’s current conservative political stance, including that of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who first came to the public’s attention by calling for justice in the kidnappings of Japanese citizens by North Korea. In the recent accord reached at the six-party talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear program, a special clause had to be added to note that Japan would be the only country opting out of paying for fuel aid to the North until Tokyo and Pyongyang work out disagreements on several sensitive issues.

The group of those affiliated with the Chongryon schools visiting Seoul said their schools have also been the object of human rights violations from the Japanese authorities as well as hate attacks by rightist groups in the country.

According to Oh Haeng-deok, a teacher at Joseon Middle and High School in Tokyo, a survey showed 522 out of 2,700 students there have been harassed by Japanese rightists at least once since 2003. The situation worsened considerably around July and October last year, when North Korea conducted missile test-launches and a nuclear test, respectively. Up to 176 cases of verbal and physical threats occurred during this period.

The offenders included not only members of rightist organizations, but also ordinary citizens both young and old, added Oh.

Han Hyeon-ju, the high-schooler, said that her parents received threatening phone calls daily, saying things such as, "I placed explosives at your daughter’s school" or "I will kill five high school students within a week." She also said that extreme right wing groups were disturbing school lessons by staging noisy demonstrations around the school.

Gong Ryeong-sun, a parent representative of Kanagawa Korean School, expressed her deep sorrow upon seeing a female student’s skirt ripped by an attacker’s knife. "Such an incident is an expression of deep-rooted exclusivism in Japanese society against Koreans and a challenge to the dignity of Koreans," Gong said.

According to Hwang Ui-jung, a leading activist of a movement to support Chongryon-affiliated Korean students in Japan, the oppression against Chongryon-affiliated Korean residents and schools in Japan should be tackled as an international matter because it is linked with Japan’s history of expansionism. He urged the Korean government and Korean citizens to recognize responsibility for "neglected" Koreans residing in Japan and to hold a continuous interest in the matter.

The civic organizations that invited the group representing the Chongyron schools issued a statement on February 28 warning about Japan’s leaning toward a hard-line rightist ideology. They urged the Japanese government to stop suppressing the Korean people living in Japan, and asked them not to distort the historical reality of the situation.

They also demanded the Korean government to prepare policies to protect Korean residents in Japan, regardless of whether they are Chongryeon affiliates or Mindan affiliates. Koreans residing in Japan hold no right to citizenship, despite the fact that many Korean families have lived there for generations and many were moved there forcibly.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]