A Korean woman born in Japan who spent most of her life in North Korea plans to sue Pyongyang’s de facto embassy in Tokyo over a program that repatriated thousands to the communist state, a report said yesterday.
Koreans form Japan’s largest minority group, with their ancestors brought to the country, often forcibly, during Tokyo’s 1910 to 1945 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.
A total of 93,340 people — mostly Koreans, but also their spouses and children with Japanese nationality — moved to North Korea between 1959 and 1984 in a deal between the countries’ Red Cross societies aimed at settling the legacy of the past.
One woman who was repatriated as a child in 1963 is suing the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, which represents North Koreans in the country and serves as Pyongyang’s de facto embassy in the absence of diplomatic ties, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.
She says she suffered poverty and later torture in North Korea and accuses the group, better known as Chongryon, of lying to her by portraying the communist state as a “paradise on earth,” the newspaper said.
“Chongryon should have explained the miserable reality of the situation in North Korea, but in fact it painted a totally false picture. As a result, my life was ruined,” the woman was quoted as saying.
The woman, who was not named, is the first person to sue Chongryon over the repatriations and is seeking ¥11 million (US$105,000) in compensation, the report said.
Chongryon is already heavily in debt amid a series of criminal allegations made by authorities in Japan, which has tense relations with North Korea.
The woman defected in July 2005 with her two children and now lives in Osaka with South Korean nationality, the Yomiuri said.
She had attempted to escape in 2000 but was caught and sent to a camp where she says she was tortured, it said.
Her father and brother were also sent to a camp and her brother eventually disappeared, the report said.
Chongryon could not immediately be reached for comment.
The group has previously said Tokyo and Red Cross were primarily behind the repatriations.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS