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.
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