JAPAN-NORTH KOREA/ANNIVERSARY Pro-North Korea organization in Japan celebrates 60th founding anniversary

Record ID: 149633

  • Title: JAPAN-NORTH KOREA/ANNIVERSARY Pro-North Korea organization in Japan celebrates 60th founding anniversary
  • Date: 31st May 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF CHILDREN PLAYING KOREAN TRADITIONAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENT VARIOUS OF CHILDREN CHOIR SINGING NORTH KOREAN FLAG CHILDREN CHOIR SINGING
  • Embargoed: 15th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABSNL2ADQRTKE81MUKPYEZN77G
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A pro-Pyongyang organization for North Korean residents in Japan celebrated its 60th founding anniversary on Sunday (May 31).
    Organizers said more than 20,000 people participated in the event held in Tokyo Chosun High School where giant portraits of North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung and his son, late leader Kim Jung Il took the center of the stage.
    About one-eighth of the estimated 600,000 ethnic Koreans living in Japan are pro-North, and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon, functions as their de facto embassy because Japan and North Korea have no diplomatic ties.
    "I deeply thank all of you who have been walking through a turbulent path in this foreign land as pioneers devoted to your country and your people by revering our great former leaders and the admirable head of the state, Kim Jong Un, with pure loyalty under the name of Chonryon," said chairman of the organization Ho Jong Man.
    Chongryon has been under the close watch of the Japanese government and some of its members have been harassed by Japanese right-wing activists especially after North Korea admitted in 2002 that its agents had abducted Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.
    Japan is likely to extend its trade embargo on North Korea, a ban on North Korea charter flights and a prohibition on North Korean ships entering Japanese ports, the Nikkei newspaper said recently, in response to Pyongyang's delay in reporting into its abductions of Japanese citizens decades ago.
    "I felt all the more strongly today the sacrifice our fathers and mothers have made to protect this school and our community," a 23-year-old teacher at the Tokyo Chosun High School, Lim Seol Joo said.
    "No matter how tough the situation is, we North Korean residents in Japan will be unchanged in our determination to protect our ethnic identity. We will not surrender," 68-year-old North Korean residents in Japan, Park Jung Seok said.
    Outside the anniversary event venue, a group from a right-wing organization "Patriot Party" blared anti-North Korea slogans from speakers mounted on vehicles.
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