They filed a symbolic lawsuit against Kim Jong Un

North Korean defectors in Japan demand compensation from the Pyongyang government

• A prosecutor speaks at a press conference in Tokyo.

  AFP

• The North Korean president is "on trial" in his capacity as Pyongyang's prime minister.

  AFP

picture

North Korean defectors in Tokyo filed a symbolic lawsuit against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, demanding compensation for a program to repatriate North Korean citizens from Japan, describing it as a state kidnapping.

This unusual judicial measure aims to hold the Pyongyang government responsible for a controversial program that saw more than 90,000 North Koreans leave Japan for North Korea between 1959 and 1984.

This program was aimed primarily at Koreans residing in the Japanese archipelago, and attracted them to propaganda promising heaven on earth, in communist North Korea.

Five participants in the repatriation program who later fled from the north are seeking compensation of 100 million yen (762,000 euros) each in damages and damages, and presented their arguments yesterday in a court in Tokyo.

They accuse Pyongyang of deceiving the plaintiffs with false advertisements to transport them to North Korea, forcing them to live in conditions in which enjoyment of human rights was generally impossible.

Since there are no diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea, Kim Jong Un is being tried symbolically as Pyongyang's prime minister. We do not expect North Korea to accept a decision, nor to pay damages, but we hope that the Japanese government can negotiate with Korea, and a total of 93,340 people participated in the repatriation program to the plaintiffs, Kenji Fukuda, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said in a press statement last month. Homeland funded by Pyongyang, and carried out by Red Cross societies in Japan and North Korea. The Japanese government also supported this plan, which its opponents denounced, as a way for Tokyo to reduce the number of Koreans residing in Japan.

Fukuda announced that prosecutors consider the North Korean government the most responsible entity for the organization. Part of the defectors' lawsuit deals with separation from their families who are still in North Korea. "I don't know what happened to my family," Iko Kawasaki, one of the plaintiffs, said in September. "They may have contracted coronavirus, or they may have starved to death. Hiroaki Saeki, head of a group supporting defectors who took part in the programme, told AFP that prosecutors wanted to save those still living and suffering in North Korea. During the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945, millions of Koreans left for Japan either voluntarily or against their will. When Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, hundreds of thousands of indigenous Koreans remained reluctant to return to their devastated country. They were stripped of their Japanese citizenship and rendered stateless.Many of them believed propaganda films depicting a typical life in North Korea, with free health and education systems and guaranteed jobs and housing. But the real situation was completely different, dominated by poverty and famine. Prosecutors began their proceedings in 2018, and a sentencing date will be set.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news