Tokyo, Japan:
North Korean defectors in Tokyo symbolically summoned Kim Jong Un to court on Thursday more than a repatriation programme they describe as “state kidnapping”.
The uncommon case is a bid to hold Pyongyang accountable for a scheme that saw more than 90,000 men and women move to North Korea from Japan among 1959 and 1984.
The programme mostly targeted ethnic Koreans but also their Japanese spouses, lured by fantastical propaganda promising a “paradise on Earth”.
Five participants in the repatriation scheme who later escaped from North Korea are demanding one hundred million yen ($880,000) each and every in damages as they make their case in the Tokyo District Court.
They have accused Pyongyang of “deceiving plaintiffs by false advertising to relocate to North Korea”, exactly where “the enjoyment of human rights was generally impossible”.
As there are no diplomatic relations among Japan and North Korea, Kim has been summoned as the head of the North’s government.
“We don’t expect North Korea to accept a decision nor pay the damages,” Kenji Fukuda, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, mentioned at a briefing last month.
“But we hope that the Japanese government would be able to negotiate with North Korea” if the court guidelines in the plaintiffs’ favour, he added.
In all, 93,340 men and women took aspect in the repatriation programme carried out by the Red Cross Societies in Japan and North Korea, and paid for by Pyongyang.
The Japanese government also backed the scheme, with media touting it as a humanitarian campaign for Koreans struggling to develop a life in Japan.
During Tokyo’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, millions of Koreans moved to Japan, either voluntarily or against their will.
When Japan surrendered, hundreds of thousands remained, reluctant to return to their devastated homeland.
They have been stripped of their Japanese nationality and became stateless, and several believed propaganda films portraying an idyllic life in North Korea.
Part of the defectors’ complaint issues separation from their households nonetheless trapped in the isolated nation.
“I don’t know what happened to my family. Maybe the coronavirus has hit them, maybe some of them have died of hunger,” Eiko Kawasaki, one of the 5 plaintiffs, mentioned last month.
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