hankyoreh

or Chongryon

“It looks like a bullet struck the door and sent some splinters flying,” said Jo Son-o, as he stood in front of the main entrance to the headquarters of the North Korea-affiliated General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon for short, located in the Chiyoda Ward of Tokyo, on the afternoon of Feb. 23. Cho, the director of Chongryon’s bureau of international affairs and unification, was pointing to some marks on the ground near the main entrance.

Around 3:50 am on Feb. 23, two men got out of a vehicle in front of the Chongryon headquarters and fired several rounds from a handgun at the building. No one was hurt, but there were some Chongryon executives in the building at the time. The men were arrested for property damage by police who were on the lookout nearby. They are residents of Yokohama, 46 and 56 years old, and one of them drove while the other fired the gun from the passenger’s seat. The driver was reportedly active with a right-wing organization until last year.

Police gather outside the main entrance of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan

“Right-wing activists frequently assemble to scream slogans like, ‘Go back to Korea,’ but firing a gun is a nasty act of terrorism that’s on a completely different level from what has come before,” said Nam Sung-u, vice chairman of Chongryon, in a press conference that afternoon. Nam explained that right-wing activists often assemble in front of the Chongryon headquarters to hurl vile epithets not only at Chongryon but at everyone from the Korean Peninsula. Chongryon has been shot at once before, in 1983, when its headquarters was in a different building. The perpetrator of that incident was not apprehended. During the 35 years since then, no firearms have been used in an attack until now.

The reason that Chongryon is taking this incident seriously is that it detects a tolerance in society for such attacks on Chongryon, given the Japanese government’s emphasis on the North Korean threat and the increasing chauvinism in Japanese society. People posted numerous comments along the lines of “I get how they feel” and “I bet they staged it” on articles about the incident.

“Behind this incident is the Japanese government’s hostile policy toward Chongryon,” Nam said.

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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