Japanese court orders Pyongyang to pay damages to survivors of deceptive repatriation program

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese court on Monday held North Korea responsible for the human rights violation of four plaintiffs lured to the North by Pyongyang's postwar false promise of living in “paradise on Earth,” ordering its government to pay them 22 million yen ($143,000) each, a decision welcomed by the survivors and their supporters as groundbreaking.

Kenji Fukuda, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said it was significant to win a court decision acknowledging North Korea’s human rights violations. However, "the ruling is just a piece of paper and getting the compensation money is a challenge,” he said.

The Tokyo District Court ruled that the plaintiffs, both ethnic Koreans and Japanese, were forced into decades of harsh conditions without freedom to return home after moving to North Korea with tens of thousands of others under a 1959-1984 repatriation program, in which the North gave them false promises of free health care, education, jobs and other benefits.

Judge Taiichi Kamino said the plaintiffs lived under severe conditions and without freedom of choosing a residence, school or jobs, for decades.

“It's not an overstatement to say most of their lives were ruined by North Korea," he said, ordering the North's government to pay damages totaling 88 million yen ($572,000) to the plaintiffs.

Originally, five plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 2018 with the Tokyo District Court seeking 100 million yen ($650,000) each in compensation for “illegal solicitation and detainment." Two of those have since died, but one's case was taken up by his son, so there are now four plaintiffs.

In a 2022 ruling, the court acknowledged that the plaintiffs moved to North Korea because of false information given by the North and pro-North organization in Japan called Chongryon, but rejected their compensation claims on grounds of a lack of Japanese jurisdiction and expiration of the statute of limitations.

On appeal, the Tokyo High Court ruled in 2023 that the North Korean government violated the plaintiffs' fundamental rights and acknowledged Japan's jurisdiction over the case, sending it back to the lower court and ordering it to review damages.

Japan and North Korea have no diplomatic relations and the North has not responded to the lawsuit or sent representatives to court.

One of the four plaintiffs, Eiko Kawasaki, 83, a second-generation Korean born in Kyoto, boarded a ship to North Korea in 1960 after Chongryong's repeated promotion of the “paradise on Earth." She was stuck in that country for 43 years until 2003, when she defected to Japan via China, leaving behind her grown children.

Kawasaki said the “ruling is just a start.”

“I think North Korea will ignore the ruling ... I don't think Kim Jong Un would react or comment," Kawasaki said.

Fukuda, the lawyer, said the seizure of possible North Korean assets in Japan could be a way to get damages, though he did not elaborate.

Kawasaki said she hoped to also seek the responsibility of the Chongryon, and get apology from the Japanese government over the repatriation deal signed between the Japanese and North Korean Red Cross societies, even though Japan was not actively promoting the program.

She urged the Japanese government to provide support for the repatriation victims stuck in the North, saying they have suffered just like the Japanese abducted to North Korea in the 1970-80s.

Kane Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch, urged the Japanese government to build on the ruling and press North Korea to take responsibility so that other victims and their families can resettle in Japan.

About half a million ethnic Koreans live in Japan and still often face discrimination. Many are descendants of Koreans put to work for forced labor at mines and factories during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, a past that has repeatedly strained ties between Japan and the Koreas.

In 1959, North Korea began a resettlement program to bring overseas Koreans to the North to make up for workers killed during the Korean War. The Japanese government viewed ethnic Koreans as outsiders and welcomed the program, helping arrange for people to travel to North Korea. More than 93,000 ethnic Korean residents of Japan, their Japanese spouses and relatives moved to the North.

About 150 have made it back to Japan, according to a group supporting defectors from North Korea.