THE EMBASSY OF THE DEMOCRATIC
PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA TO SWITZERLAND
Pourtalésstrasse 43 Tel: +41-31 951 6621
3074 Muri/Bern Switzerland Fax: +41-31 951 5704
E-mail: dprk.embassy@bluewin.ch
No 35/23 April 24, 2023
1. Press Statement of DPRK Foreign Minister
2. Memorandum Exposing Japanese Reactionaries' Heinous Crime Published
3. Education Commission of the DPRK Urges Japanese Authorities to Stop All Acts of Discriminating and Persecuting National Education of Chongryon
4. Right to National Education by Koreans in Japan Is Legitimate and Inviolable: Spokesman for Democratic Lawyers Association of Korea
Press Statement of DPRK Foreign Minister
Pyongyang, April 21 (KCNA) -- Choe Son Hui, foreign minister of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea released a press statement on April 21.
It reads:
I clarify the following stand as regards the fact that G7 foreign ministers made public a "joint statement" full of extremely interventionist and improper contents, malignantly pulling up the DPRK over the legitimate exercise of its sovereignty.
G7 has neither authority nor qualification to say this or that about the DPRK's exercise of its sovereignty and its national status.
The measures the DPRK has so far taken to bolster up its military capabilities for self-defence constitute a just exercise of its sovereignty to deter threat from the unstable security environment caused by the reckless and provocative military maneuvers of the U.S. and its allies, defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and control and manage the situation on the Korean peninsula in a stable way.
We will continue to take action measures based on all legal rights granted to a sovereign state until the military threat posed by the U.S. and its allied forces hostile toward us is completely removed and the hostile surrounding environment harassing the independent existence and development of our country is put to a definite end.
The DPRK's position as a nuclear weapons state is not a thing granted or recognized by anyone but was established along with the existence of the actual nuclear deterrence and fixed by the law on the state nuclear force policy adopted to the unanimous will of all the Korean people.
G7 urges us to "completely and irreversibly dismantle our nukes", saying that the DPRK cannot have the status of a nuclear weapons state according to the NPT. This is just the most absurd and illegal interference in the internal affairs of the DPRK to force it into flouting its sacred state law.
Explicitly speaking, it is the essence of the DPRK's access to nuclear weapons that it was compelled to have access to nukes literally to defend itself from the U.S. threat, not to be recognized by others.
The position of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state will remain as an undeniable and stark reality - no matter that the U.S. and the West would not recognize it for a hundred or a thousand years.
It is anachronistic to think that the right to and capability for nuclear strike is exclusive to Washington.
We will never seek any recognition and approval from anyone as we are satisfied with our access to the strength for a tit-for-tat strike against the U.S. nuclear threat.
The U.S. and the West have no right to say this or that about the DPRK's position as a nuclear weapons state, and it will never change no matter what they say.
What should change now is not the DPRK but the U.S., and the U.S. should bear in mind that its security can be guaranteed only when it completely roots out its hostile policy toward the DPRK.
The position of the DPRK as a world-class nuclear power is final and irreversible.
G7, a closed group of a handful of egoistic countries, does not represent the just international community but serves as a political tool for ensuring the U.S. hegemony.
We make it clear that we don't have any interest in what G7 does but if it shows any behavioral attempt to infringe upon the sovereignty and fundamental interests of the DPRK, it will be completely deterred by strong counteraction.
Taking this opportunity, I courteously remind the G7 foreign ministers once again that the DPRK is free from any NPT obligations as it legally withdrew from the treaty 20 years ago in accordance with the withdrawal procedures specified in Article 10 of NPT.
Memorandum Exposing Japanese Reactionaries' Heinous Crime Published
Pyongyang, April 24 (KCNA) -- The Committee for Aiding Overseas Compatriots of the DPRK released a memorandum on April 24 to lay bare the Japanese reactionaries' hideous crimes of obliterating national education on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the April 24 education struggle of the Korean residents in Japan for defending their rights to national education.
According to the memorandum, the Japanese authorities have persistently and viciously pushed forward the obliteration of national education of Koreans in Japan, regarding it as a national policy, since their defeat.
Koreans, who crossed the Korean strait and lived in Japan under all forms of national humiliation and discrimination due to the Japanese imperialists' colonial obscurantist policy and "the policy for making Koreans Japanese subjects", built national language education centres in different parts of Japan by collecting hard-earned money from their own efforts in order to raise their sons and daughters into Koreans bearing the soul of the nation by teaching them the Korean language since liberation.
As time passed, the education centres gradually developed into schools, with the number of Korean schools counting over 500, students at least 60 000 and teachers more than 1 300, in early 1948.
The existence of Korean schools in Japan which increase day by day was a headache for the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries keen on the preparations for the Korean War.
On January 6, 1948, Royall, U.S. secretary of the Army, spat out that he was going to turn Japan into a protective barrier against communism and thus all anti-U.S. forces had to be thoroughly eliminated, turning towards oppressing the movement of Koreans in Japan.
The reactionary Japanese authorities, who received a tempting treat from their U.S. masters, issued an order "On the Treatment of Korean Schools" on January 24 of the same year to the governors in each prefecture under the name of the director for school education of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture.
The order issued on January 24, which did not recognize the establishment of independent schools by Koreans and contained the brigandish and mandatory demand requiring children of Koreans in Japan to enter Japanese schools, was a renewal of the notorious "Korean teaching ordinance" which forced assimilation education on the Korean people during the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule in Korea.
When the public feelings of Korean compatriots in Japan were leaning to Pyongyang with the foundation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries forcefully dissolved the Association of Koreans in Japan on September 8, 1949, under the absurd pretext of "violent organization" and "violation of occupation policy" and issued an order to disband the Korean schools again in October.
The memorandum specified in detail that the Japanese authorities used far-right gangsters steeped with national chauvinism to unhesitatingly commit murder, arson and mass violence against Korean schools and children of Koreans in Japan in a bid to stamp out national education of Koreans in Japan.
It said that these acts of murder, arson and group violence against Korean schools and students are an undisguised expression of the Japanese reactionaries' extreme national chauvinism and their discrimination policy against the national education of Koreans in Japan. This is an inhumane crime committed historically and systematically under the manipulation of the reactionary Japanese authorities, the memorandum said, and went on:
Thanks to the vigorous struggle of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) and Koreans in Japan to preserve the legal position of national education, the Korean schools were recognized as legitimate schools under the Japanese school law of education until the first half of the 1970s. But the Japanese authorities deliberately excluded Korean schools whenever they set up new institutional mechanisms regarding educational matters, thus revealing their immaturity before the world.
The Japanese authorities' discrimination against Korean schools and students became more vulgar and childish during the world public health crisis.
When the Japanese authorities executed the "emergency student aid payment" measure in regards to the spread of COVID-19 on May 2020, it excluded only Korean University of Chongryon.
To ensure the rights of foreigners to education equal to their own people is a main content of the international human rights convention. The UN declaration on children's rights also clearly states that every child has the right to receive education at the basic educational level, and this is the duty of all countries and states.
The Japanese authorities, too, loudly advertised that priority interest and financial support should be given to all children in their law on infant education and upbringing amended in May 2019. However, the Japanese authorities, not content with outrageously violating international law and self-centeredly interpreting the convention on the rights of children, which should be held sacred, in conformity with their own laws stained with national chauvinism, gave up their commitment to enforce the "Child Rearing Support Act" to all children equally and mercilessly crushed the juvenile hopes of the innocent children of Koreans in Japan.
This is the true colors of Japan styling itself a "law-governed state".
The former vice-minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan recently said "The state is taking the lead in letting loose a remark causing discrimination in Japan.", noting that "the person in power has discriminatory feelings against Korean schools and the conclusion that they are excluded from the system comes first and the reason for their exclusion is given afterwards", strongly criticizing the government for brandishing the law to be fair to all people as a weapon of discrimination.
The right to education of Koreans in Japan is an inviolable right that no one can deny or deprive and it should never be a political bargaining chip.
The democratic national rights and interests of Chongryon and Koreans in Japan are under the strong protection of the law on defending the rights and interests of overseas Koreans of the DPRK.
If the Japanese authorities try to obliterate the national education of Chongryon by wielding a rotten militarist "club", they will face divine punishment and be buried in history as a cold cube of ice with no future forever.
Education Commission of the DPRK Urges Japanese Authorities to Stop All Acts of Discriminating and Persecuting National Education of Chongryon
Pyongyang, April 24 (KCNA) -- A spokesperson for the Education Commission of the DPRK in a press statement Monday said the fierce April 24 education struggle waged in different parts of Japan in 1948 was the first united struggle of the Koreans in Japan against the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries' barbarous suppression of the right to national education.
Right after the liberation of Korea, the Koreans in Japan built over 500 Korean schools in different parts of Japan wherever Koreans lived, by dedicating strength, knowledge and money, proceeding from the single intention to retake spoken and written Korean languages and Korean history and culture that had been usurped by the Japanese imperialists, and instill the soul of the nation into their children, after receiving the speech of triumphal return made by President Kim Il Sung, the press statement said, and went on:
Considering the enforcement of national education by Koreans in Japan as a thorn in the flesh, the Japanese reactionary authorities announced "shutdown ordinance" of Korean schools in 1948, at the instigation of the U.S. imperialists. Enraged by this, Koreans in Japan formed the Measure Committee for Education of Koreans and turned out in the mass struggle to defend Korean schools.
The Japanese authorities can never get rid of the crimes of suppressing the sacred right to national education of Koreans in Japan after Japan's defeat in the war, instead of apologizing for their crimes to the Korean nation during the Japanese imperialist colonial rule.
Long time has passed since the April 24 education struggle, but the Japanese authorities remain unchanged in their hostile attitude to the democratic national education of Koreans in Japan, and have become all the more crafty and vicious than before.
No matter how frantic the Japanese authorities may go to scuttle the national education of Koreans in Japan, can they never stem nor stop the just struggle of Chongryon and Koreans in Japan who are tending the large flower garden of national education overflowing with virtue and feelings amid the special loving care shown by the socialist homeland and the active support by the people in the homeland.
Today the DPRK is demonstrating its might as a power, dignified with independence and self-respect, as it is led by the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, and the Koreans in Japan are the eternal family members with the blood of the socialist homeland.
The Education Commission strongly urges the U.S. and the Japanese authorities to repent of and apologize for their brutal suppression of the just April 24 education struggle of Koreans in Japan, and the Japanese authorities to immediately stop all sorts of mean acts of discriminating and persecuting the national education of Chongryon.
Right to National Education by Koreans in Japan Is Legitimate and Inviolable:
Spokesman for Democratic Lawyers Association of Korea
Pyongyang, April 24 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Democratic Lawyers Association of Korea released a press statement Monday, revealing and denouncing the unethical crimes committed by the Japanese authorities aimed at eliminating the national education of Koreans in Japan.
The fascist suppression of the national education of Koreans in Japan by the Japanese reactionaries was an illegal violence and outrageous challenge in contravention of international law and human ethics from A to Z, the press statement said, and went on:
Now the April 24 education struggle was an event in the past but the Japanese reactionaries steeped in morbid repugnancy and inveterate hostility against the DPRK and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) still engage in craftier and dirtier ways to eliminate the national education of Koreans in Japan.
Unethical crimes against Korean schools and children of Koreans in Japan are unabated at the tacit connivance of the Japanese authorities, and such "written sentences" fraught with national chauvinist ideas as "shutdown ordinance" are still sent to Chongryon schools at all levels nonstop.
The right to national education of Koreans in Japan is a legitimate and inalienable right specified even in international law including the UN convention on children's rights and the UNESCO convention on opposition of discrimination against education as well as basic law of Japan on education.
No matter how tricky the Japanese authorities may become to justify their moves on the international arena to eliminate national education of Koreans in Japan, can they never deny nor conceal the past and on-going unethical crimes against the Korean schools and Korean children.
The Koreans in Japan are under the strong protection of the law of the DPRK on defending the rights and interests of overseas Koreans.
The violation of the democratic national rights and interests of Koreans in Japan precisely means the violation of the sovereignty and national right of the dignified DPRK.
The DPRK already sounded a warning alarm to those countries that took the advantage of the U.S. alliance strategy and began to get inveigled in the act of depriving the DPRK of its sacred dignity and sovereignty.
The Japanese authorities will certainly get a big deal if they persist in the unethical crimes of eliminating the national education of Koreans in Japan while making mockery of international law and human rights, in defiance of our repeated warnings and the strong denunciation and rejection by the international community.
The Japanese authorities must face up to the trend of the times and stop at once the crackdown of the democratic national education of Chongryon, before it is too late.