Arab News Japan

TOKYO: North Korea has denounced Japan for restricting education opportunities for Koreans in Japan.

A statement issued by a spokesman for the Korean Lawyers’ Committee on Wednesday said, “No one can infringe on the sacred democratic ethnic education rights of Koreans in Japan.”

Korean schools – almost exclusively associated with North Korea – have long existed in Japan despite what the North terms Japan’s “assimilation education.” The North says Japan is trying to force Koreans to attend Japanese schools as a result of the “extreme ethnic exclusionism and anti-human discrimination policies of the Japanese authorities that try to erase the ethnic education of Koreans in Japan.”

The North has accused Japan of discrimination in areas such as nursery schools and childcare facilities. “The Japanese authorities are foolishly trying to interpret the Convention on the Rights of the Child in accordance with their own laws stained with xenophobia,” it said, adding that the discriminationamounts to a human rights violation.

The statement points out, “The implementation of democratic ethnic education for Koreans in Japan is fully consistent with many international laws accepted by Japan, such as the International Human Rights Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UNESCO Convention on the Prohibition of Discrimination in Education, as well as domestic laws such as the Japanese Constitution and the Basic Law on Education.”

It adds that Koreans in Japan are “direct victims of Japanese colonial rule over Korea. The right to ethnic education of Koreans in Japan cannot be denied under any circumstances.”

Japan colonized Korea from 1910 to 1945.