By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

NEW YORK, United States – Several nongovernmental organizations have submitted a letter to the prime minister of Japan asking the new Japanese government to take leadership in help improving human rights in North Korea.

Prime Minister of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama.  Courtesy of Reuters.

These organizations have also urged Japan to focus on North Korean refugees and the fate of Japanese who migrated to North Korea between 1959 and 1984.

Although Japan has previously raised awareness regarding North Korea’s human rights abuses, for example, the plight of Japanese abductees, the letter to the prime minister encouraged Japan to “play a stronger and more proactive role in promoting and protecting the human rights situations in North Korea.”

To do so, the organizations provided suggestions, such as raising human rights issues with North Korea in the future, pressuring China to protect North Korean refugees, accepting North Korea refugees who have no ties to Japan, and continuing to accept former migrants who return to Japan from North Korea.

Tokyo director of Human Rights Watch Kanae Doi said, “Abuses against North Korea take place right on Japan’s doorstep, but Japan has been largely silent on human rights issues except for abductions of Japanese citizens.” 

Doi added “The new Japanese government should lead the way in raising wider human rights issues with North Korea.”

Between 1950s and 1980s, more than 93,000 Japanese migrated to North Korea as a result of a campaign by pro-North Korean groups which labeled North Korea as “heaven on earth.” 

However, according to North Korean defectors, the North Korean government sent some of those migrants to labor camps where they died of starvation, lack of medical care and physical abuse.  Some migrants who escaped North Korea have resettled in Japan, but the Japanese government does not have a clear policy on their resettlement.

Just last month, Japan, along with the European Union, submitted a resolution to the UN General Assembly in efforts to bring more awareness to the human rights conditions in North Korea.

“Improving human rights conditions in a country such as North Korea is a daunting task, but Japan should not waste this opportunity to help North Koreans both in and outside the country,” said Doi.

The letter to the prime minster also included topics such as offering food aid to North Korea and including human rights in bilateral and multilateral talks with the North.

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Japan: Press North Korea on Human Rights – 19 November 2009

Human Rights Watch – Joint letter to Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on North Korea – 19 November 2009

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan – Japan-North Korea Relations – May 2004