Japanese Regime Is Legally and Morally Obliged to Protect Koreans in Japan: KCNA Commentary

Pyongyang, August 12 (KCNA) -- Shortly ago, the commission for erudite examination in Osaka City of Japan investigated a leaflet-scattering incident that had happened in a Koreans' residential area in Japan in 2018 and recognized it as an act prompted by xenophobia.

At that time leaflets carrying the contents that the Koreans commit crimes and they should leave Japan were scattered over the area to create a terrible atmosphere.

The incident is reminiscent of the genocide propaganda staged by the Japanese imperialists on the eve of their perpetration of the unheard-of massacre of Koreans in Japan in the past century.

When a great earthquake broke out in the area of Kanto in 1923, the Japanese authorities, in a bid to distract public criticism on their incompetence, incited the Japanese to bloody Korean "hunting", spreading a false story that Koreans poisoned wells, launched a rebellion and committed massive arson.

This heinous massacre committed by the Japanese imperialists was the genocide committed in an organized manner with the backing of the Japanese regime, out of national chauvinism. And the leaflet-scattering that occurred three years ago was the extension of the Japanese authorities' hostile moves against the DPRK and policy of discrimination against the Korean nation.

In 2018 when the leaflet-scattering incident happened, the Japanese authorities got desperate in a crackdown upon the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) and in a discrimination against Koreans, displeased with the ever-growing national power and international prestige of the DPRK.

In February, 2018 when Japanese right-wing gangsters sprayed the Central Hall of Chongryon with bullets, the Japanese authorities unhesitatingly committed an unreasonable act of dealing those criminals as suspected destroyers of an ordinary building, far from sternly punishing them.

The Japanese authorities seized the souvenirs, sportswear and daily necessities emblazoned with letters "Joson (Korea)" and the national flag of the DPRK from young Korean students who came back after visiting their motherland. Worse still, they excluded the Korean high schools from the tuition-free program for senior high schools.

Such inveterate hostility and hatred towards the DPRK caused the leaflet-scattering for insulting and threatening the Koreans in Japan.

Although the above-said commission in Osaka City branded it as xenophobia, there is no guarantee that the second and third genocide propaganda will never break out as long as the Japanese government remains unchanged in its deep-rooted hostile policy towards the DPRK and Chongryon.

As a matter of fact, demonstrations under such slogans as "Beat down Koreans in Japan" have been openly staged from long ago. Moreover, whenever an incident occurs, articles terming it a "deed by Koreans in Japan" are massively posted on websites for social networking service.

Such reality clearly proves the extreme tendency toward the rightist idea and lack of enlightenment in Japanese society.

Koreans in Japan are the victims of slave labor forcibly brought to Japan during the period of the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule over Korea, and their descendants.

So Japan is obliged to protect Koreans in Japan, the greatest victims of its colonial rule.

To shun the obligation is little short of the declaration of its will to commit crimes against humanity again.

The Japanese government should fulfill its legal responsibility and moral obligation to protect the Koreans in Japan, properly understanding the catastrophic results to be entailed by its wrong behavior. -0-