The statement accused the Japanese reactionaries of having openly barred the visit to homeland by vice-chairmen of Chongryon, excluded the Korean schools from the tuition-waiver program for senior high schools and refused to subsidize the Korean schools in Kanagawa and Saitama prefectures.

The Japanese authorities' hostility towards Chongryon and Koreans in Japan amounts to abuses of human rights and violation of sovereignty that can never be justified in any case, said the statement, adding:

The Koreans residing in Japan are off-springs of those who were forcibly taken to Japan as draftees during the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule over Korea.

Therefore, Japan is under legal and moral obligation to ensure the activities of Chongryon and the democratic national rights of the Koreans in Japan.

However, it prohibited the visit to homeland by Chongryon's vice- chairmen and violated the children of Koreans' rights to national education, a move that can never be tolerated.

The statement strongly urged the Japanese authorities to refrain from violating the rights of Chongryon and the Koreans in Japan and roll back their policy of national discrimination at once.