Pyongyang, July 28 (KCNA) -- The Korean Jurists Committee, the Korean Bar Association, the Korean Democratic Lawyers Association and the Korean Jurists Institute Saturday issued a joint statement in connection with the fact that prevailing in Japan today is a terror-ridden atmosphere reminiscent of the campaign of hunting Koreans during the Kanto great quake. It said:

The Abe group"s suppression of Koreans in Japan is a violation of the universally accepted provisions of international law which call on each country to provide the same legal protection to all foreigners permanently residing in it and guarantee them the same civil rights as its own citizens.

The human rights abuses being committed by the Japanese authorities against the Koreans in Japan are nothing but a challenge to the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and major international human rights conventions which call for respecting the rights and fundamental freedom of all people and banning all forms of racial discriminations irrespective of race, sex, language and religious belief.

The legal action taken by the Japanese authorities against the premises and land of the headquarters of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) is a breach of the universally accepted principle of international law which calls upon each country for granting foreigners the same civil rights and according the same treatment to them as to its own people at a trial.

Their suppression of Koreans in Japan is not only a crime against humanity whose perpetrator should own criminal responsibility for "racial discrimination" as stipulated in Article 7 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court but a violation of the Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism which calls for considering it as an attempt to create a politically motivated terror-ridden atmosphere against a certain group.

The Abe group is hell-bent on suppressing Chongryon and Koreans in Japan, not away from the ultra-nationalist and national chauvinistic habit inherited from its ancestors. They should be aware of the fact that they are following in the footsteps of the war criminals who had met judgment of history and been executed at the Tokyo Military Tribunal for Far East for the aggression and human rights abuses committed by Japan during World War II.

It is a perfidy to the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration that the group is evading its responsibility to compensate for Japan"s past crimes and protect the Koreans in Japan.

If the Japanese authorities do not immediately stop such suppression of Chongryon, they will face strong legal counter-measures under international law concerning state responsibility and diplomatic protection.

The Abe group will never be able to evade the legal responsibility for all the consequences to be entailed by the suppression of the Korean nationals in Japan and the moves to destroy Chongryon.

Full text of the joint statement in Korean