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Protestors held a press conference at Sejong Park in Gwanghwamun on July 12 to demand that Chosen-seki Koreans living in Japan be given permission to travel to the country freely.

President Moon Jae-in referred to the plight of overseas Koreans maintaining Chosen-seki status and announced plans to allow them to freely visit their home country in his National Liberation Day celebratory address on Aug. 15.

The term “Chosen-seki” refers to Zainichi Koreans who have lived in Japan since Liberation without adopting South Korean citizenship or naturalizing. “Many of our fellow Koreans have been unable to return even after Liberation,” noted Moon.

“In the case of Zainichi Koreans, we will normalize visits to their homeland regardless of nationality as a humanitarian gesture,” he continued. Moon’s remarks are being interpreted as signaling a full-scale overhaul of the immigration policies of his conservative predecessors – which restricted entry by Zainichi Koreans holding Chosen-seki status – to allow them full permission to visit South Korea.

Treated as stateless in Japan, Chosen-seki Koreans are Zainichi Koreans who remain listed as being of “Chosen” nationality according to Japanese immigration law, having neither acquired South Korean citizenship or naturalized as Japanese after having their Japanese citizenship removed when the Treaty of San Francisco went into effect in Apr. 1952. While they were able to enter South Korea relatively freely under the Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) and Roh Moo-hyun (2003-08) administrations, the subsequent Lee Myung-bak (2008-13) and Park Geun-hye (2013-16) administrations barred them from visiting their homeland, citing potential negative effects on South Korean national security. Some of those holding Chosen-seki status have ideological ties with the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon).

According to the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act, Zainichi Koreans with Chosen-seki status must have a travel certificate issued by the South Korean government to visit South Korea. Conservative administrations blocked holders from visiting by refusing to issue travel permits. In 2008, Meiji Gakuin University associate professor Chong Yong-hwan filed an administrative suit against the South Korean government in protest, but the Supreme Court finally ruled against him in Dec. 2013, declaring that the denial of travel permits was “not outside the scope of the South Korean government’s discretionary powers.”

Ministry of Foreign Affairs data released by the office of lawmaker Kang Chang-il during a parliamentary audit last year showed a 100% issuance rate for travel certificates (3,358) to Chosen-seki Koreans under the Roh administration in 2005. Under the Lee administration five years later in 2010, applications had dropped by seven-eighths to 401, with an issuance rate of just 43%. By 2015, travel certificate applications fell to 45, with many Chosen-seki Koreans opting not to try visiting South Korea.

Chosen-seki Koreans have incessantly demanded to be allowed to visit South Korea freely, arguing that their ability to travel to the country where they or their parents were born is a matter of human rights. According to 2005 data from the Japanese Ministry of Justice, the number of Zainichi Koreans with Chosen-seki status had fallen to around 33,900 from a one-time peak of some 350,000.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

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