• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

KCNA Assails Anti-Chongryon Campaign

KCNA

    Pyongyang, September 17 (KCNA) -- The Japanese reactionaries are viciously cracking down on the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) and Koreans in Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Administration recently imposed taxes on the facilities of the central headquarters of Chongryon including the property tax and has gone through the procedures to seize them on charge of non-payment. Such threatening telephone calls as "explosives have been laid at organs of Chongryon" in Tokyo Metropolis frequently came to the head office of the newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
    This was part of the dastardly terrorism committed against the backdrop of the mounting atmosphere hostile to the DPRK and Chongryon and criminal acts to block the patriotic activities of the officials of Chongryon and Koreans in Japan and stamp out their democratic rights.
    As already known, there were frequent acts against Chongryon such as laying of explosives and firing bullets at organs of Chongryon, mud-slinging and violence against officials of Chongryon and children of Koreans in Japan and unjust economic measures against the Chongryon-related facilities even after the adoption of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration in September last year in which both sides promised each other not to do any actions threatening each other's security.
    July and August alone witnessed hideous terrorism in which explosives were laid and shots were fired at organs of Chongryon and national financial institutions of Koreans in Japan in different parts of Japan including Niigata, Fukuoka and Okayama, and different local self-government bodies reexamined or revoked the measure of exempting Chongryon-related facilities from paying property taxes.
    These acts, a product of Japan's anti-DPRK and anti-Chongryon hostile policy, perpetrated in different parts of Japan clearly indicate that the Japanese reactionaries' moves to destroy Chongryon by all means and methods have been carried into extremes.
    Explicitly speaking, there is neither reason nor pretext for the Japanese reactionaries to persecute and suppress Chongryon and the Koreans in Japan as it is a dignified overseas compatriots organization of the DPRK and they are its proud citizens.
    In the light of the historical background against which many Koreans were forcibly taken to Japan during the Japanese imperialists' military occupation of Korea and in view of the present situation where the Koreans in Japan are subject to all sorts of national insult and discriminations they should be duly protected by law and accorded special treatment by the Japanese government.
    Nevertheless, the Japanese reactionaries' reckless suppression of Koreans in Japan are getting more and more undisguised under the tacit protection, connivance and encouragement of the Japanese authorities. This arouses the DPRK's serious concern.
    The DPRK will never forgive the Japanese authorities, who have not taken any measures or legal steps to prevent the anti-DPRK and anti-Chongryon acts of the right-wing reactionaries, talking about what they called "people's feelings".
    The Japanese authorities should drop its hostile policy toward the DPRK and immediately take relevant measures to prevent the recurrence of hostile acts against Chongryon.