Abductions of Japanese Citizens by North Korea
Abductions of Japanese Citizens by North Korea
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Headquarters for the Abduction Issue, Government of Japan
Top page > Abduction of Japanese Citizens by North Korea > More on the Abduction Issue
August 2009 / Headquarters for the Abduction Issue
After denying all allegations for many years, North Korea admitted for the first time on September 17, 2002 at the Japan-North Korea Summit Meeting in Pyongyang that they had in fact abducted Japanese citizens. At the meeting, North Korea apologized and promised to not conduct any more abductions in the future. At present, the GoJ has identified 17 citizens as having been abducted by North Korea (see Individual Cases for more details). Of these 17, five were permitted to return to Japan on October 15, 2002, some 24 years after they were abducted from Japan. (Their families arrived in Japan in May and July 2004.) For many years, the North Korean authorities failed to provide credible accounts of the whereabouts of the remaining abductees, whose status is still unknown despite a promise made by North Korea at the Second Japan-North Korea Summit Meeting held on May 22, 2004 to immediately reopen a thorough investigation to uncover the facts of these cases.
During Japan-North Korea Working-Level Consultations in June 2008, North Korea pledged it would carry out a new investigation into the abduction of Japanese citizens. At consultations in August of the same year, the two parties reached agreement on the purpose the investigation would serve and its specific terms. In this investigation, North Korea was to take concrete action that would lead to a resolution of the abduction issue. In other words, a thorough investigation would be conducted to uncover the whereabouts of the survivors and bring about their safe return to Japan.
The abduction of Japanese citizens is a matter of grave concern that affects the national sovereignty of Japan and the lives and safety of the Japanese people. Until this issue is resolved, there can be no normalization of relations with North Korea. Given that North Korea has presented no credible explanation or evidence to suggest otherwise, the GoJ believes that all the abductees who have not yet been accounted for are still alive and has consistently demanded that all of the remaining abductees be safely returned to Japan, that a full and accurate accounting be provided for each case, and that the perpetrators of the abductions be handed over to Japanese authorities. The GoJ remains committed to this position and intends to continue negotiating with North Korea. A comprehensive new investigation must be launched immediately, and significant progress needs to be made to bring back the survivors.
North Korea, however, has repeatedly asserted that Japan is using the abduction issue to avoid resolving other past disputes between the two countries. As the GoJ has made clear many times in the past, Japan is committed to working in good faith to settle past issues, as agreed in the Pyongyang Declaration, and cannot accept the assertions by North Korea. Japan therefore continues to demand that North Korea take concrete action as quickly as possible to bring the abduction issue to a resolution.
Given the possibility that there are abductees other than the 17 people who have been identified, the GoJ is conducting investigations and inquiries. If there are additional cases identified as involving acts of abduction, the GoJ will raise them with the North Korean government.
During the 1970s and 1980s, there were a string of incidents in which Japanese citizens disappeared in unnatural circumstances. Investigations by the Japanese authorities and testimony from exiled North Korean agents revealed that many of these incidents were highly likely to be abductions by North Korea. Since 1991, the GoJ has taken every opportunity to raise the abduction issue with North Korea, which had persistently denied their involvement. However, at the September 2002 Japan-North Korea Summit Meeting, North Korea admitted for the first time that it had abducted Japanese citizens.
There are a number of possible motives for this unprecedented act of state-sponsored crime by North Korea: to conceal the identities of North Korean agents; to use abductees to train North Korean agents to blend into Japanese society; and to recruit for the Yodo-go Group (see note below), which North Korea still harbors to this day. In addition to the 17 Japanese citizens already identified as abductees, there may be other people who have been abducted by North Korea, and the GoJ is conducting the necessary investigations and inquiries. These measures have so far revealed additional suspected cases of abductions in Japan of non-Japanese citizens (North Korean nationals living in Japan) and of individuals in other countries. [See 3.1 (c) and 4.1 (a) below for more details.]
In Japan, concerned citizens are actively engaged in a campaign to push for the safe return of the abductees; for example, the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea (known as the Association of Families) was formed in 1997. Petitions including more than six million signatures have been presented to the Prime Minister of Japan.
Note: The Yodo-go Group refers to a group of hijackers who took control of Japan Airlines Flight 351 (known as Yodo-go) and illegally flew it to North Korea on March 31, 1970, as well as to their families.
(a) After persistently denying all allegations for many years, the North Korean leader, Chairman Kim Jong-Il, admitted for the first time on September 17, 2002 at a Japan-North Korea Summit Meeting that North Korea had in fact abducted Japanese citizens, and apologized for these incidents. At that time, the GoJ was demanding investigations into the cases of 13 individuals identified as abductees. Of these, North Korea claimed that four were alive, that eight had died, and that there was no evidence that the remaining individual had ever entered North Korea. The North Korean delegation also admitted to the abduction of another person the Japanese government had not inquired about, and confirmed that this person was still alive. (As for this abductee's mother, however, who went missing at the same time, North Korea claimed that further investigation found no evidence that she ever entered its territory.) At this same meeting, North Korea pledged to punish those involved in the abductions and that these crimes would not be repeated. It also made commitments to allow the abductees to meet with their families and to return to Japan.
Then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi lodged a strong protest to Chairman Kim Jong-Il, urging further investigations, return of the surviving abductees, and an end to such abductions.
(b) In a public statement released on the day of the meeting, a spokesperson for the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that North Korea was ready to take the steps necessary for the abductees to return to Japan.
The GoJ dispatched an Investigation Team to North Korea from September 28 to October 1, 2002 to meet with abductees and to collect information on the abductees whose condition was still unknown. North Korea, however, provided only a limited amount of information to the team, much of it inconsistent and of questionable credibility. In one specific case, forensic testing of "remains" handed over and identified by North Korea as those of Mr. Kaoru Matsuki indicated that the "remains" belonged, in fact, to someone else. At the 12th round of Japan-North Korea Normalization Talks held in Kuala Lumpur on October 29-30, 2002, the GoJ pointed out 150 inconsistencies in the information North Korea had provided and requested further details on these items. North Korea, however, has yet to provide an adequate response to this request.
(a) In response to demands by the GoJ, North Korea released five abductees (Yasushi and Fukie Chimura, Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike, and Ms. Hitomi Soga). They arrived in Japan and were reunited with their families on October 15, 2002.
(b) As a result of a decision that the abductees needed to be in an environment where they were free to determine their own future and that of their families who were still in North Korea, the GoJ announced on October 24 that the abductees would remain in Japan. The GoJ also called on North Korea to ensure the safety of the abductees' family members still in North Korea and to immediately set a date for them to travel to Japan.
Securing the return of these family members and obtaining a full account of the whereabouts of abductees whose fates remain unknown then became serious points of contention and negotiation between Japan and North Korea.
To confirm the will to implement the points agreed to in the Pyongyang Declaration at the First Japan-North Korea Summit Meeting and to restore trust between Japan and North Korea, then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi traveled to North Korea on May 22, 2004. Discussions focused on the abduction issue and other points of contention between Japan and North Korea, as well as on issues affecting peace and security in Northeast Asia, such as nuclear arms and ballistic missiles. During these discussions, Prime Minister Koizumi and Chairman Kim Jong-Il agreed to the following points regarding the abduction issue.
(a) Japan-North Korea Working-Level Consultations were held in Beijing later that year, the first meeting on August 11-12 and the second meeting on September 25-26. The North Korean side presented the preliminary results of its ongoing investigation into the abductees whose condition was still unknown. North Korea, however, did not provide adequate evidence or sufficient documentation to back up the information it presented.
(b) To build on the steps taken in the first two meetings, a third round of Japan-North Korea Working-Level Consultations took place in Pyongyang from November 9 to 14, 2004. These discussions lasted more than 50 hours. In addition to a question-and-answer session with the Investigation Committee, direct hearings were held with a total of 16 "witnesses," and on-site inspections of facilities and other locations relevant to the abduction cases were conducted.
The third round of consultations also addressed cases of missing persons not yet identified as abductees by the GoJ, but in which the possibility of abduction by North Korea could not be ruled out. The GoJ presented the North Korean side with the names of five such missing persons and requested information on their situations. The GoJ again demanded that further information on the abduction of any and all Japanese citizens be immediately provided, whether or not they had been specifically identified by the GoJ. In response, North Korea asserted that there was no evidence that any of these five individuals had ever entered North Korea.
(c)The GoJ immediately reviewed the information and examined the physical evidence presented by North Korea at the third Working-Level Consultations. On December 24, the GoJ released its findings to the public. The following day, December 25, the GoJ presented the points outlined below to North Korea in both verbal and written form. The GoJ also took this opportunity to present North Korea with a summary of its findings and test results for remains North Korea claimed belonged to Ms. Megumi Yokota.
(d) On January 26, 2005, the North Korean side presented the GoJ with a Memorandum dated January 24 that outlined, among other matters, North Korea's stance on the results of DNA analysis by Japan on the "remains" claimed to be those of Megumi Yokota. In presenting the Memorandum, North Korea also demanded that Japan return the remains. On February 10, the GoJ countered the North Korean arguments in the Memorandum, demanding once again that all surviving abductees be allowed to immediately return to Japan and that a full accounting be given on the facts of these cases. On February 24 and April 13, North Korea repeated its objections to Japan's stance, which the GoJ countered by referring once again to the objective and scientific results of its analysis.
Japan-North Korea Comprehensive Talks were held on February 4-8, 2006 in Beijing to facilitate across-the-board talks on the abduction and nuclear and ballistic missile issues, as well as on the normalization of relations. Consultations on the abduction issue lasted a total of 11 hours. During these meetings, the GoJ again demanded that all survivors be allowed to return to Japan, that North Korea pledge to reopen investigations in order to provide a full accounting of the unresolved cases, and that those responsible for carrying out the abductions be turned over to Japanese authorities.
In response to Japan's demands, the North Korean side repeated its past assertions that every survivor had already been returned to Japan. North Korea insisted it had already investigated the cases in good faith, declared that it stood by the results of its past investigations, and refused to promise further investigations into cases in which the abductees' conditions were still unknown. North Korea also charged that Japan's demand that those responsible for the abductions be extradited was simply political maneuvering, and refused to comply.
It is clear that North Korea showed no willingness to make concrete progress toward a resolution of the abduction issue. Instead, the North Korean side demanded that seven Japanese nationals involved in aiding North Korean defectors be extradited to North Korea for violations of North Korean laws.
(a) On July 5, 2006, North Korea launched seven ballistic missiles in the direction of Japan. The GoJ responded the same day by implementing nine measures against North Korea, including banning the North Korean ferry Mangyongbong-92 from entering its ports. The Government strongly condemned the North Korean actions when it announced the details of these sanctions.
North Korea furthermore blatantly defied the frequent warnings of the international community, announcing on October 9 of the same year that they had conducted nuclear testing. Strongly condemning North Korea and expressing resolute opposition to such testing, the GoJ responded on October 11 with four measures against North Korea, which included bans on the entry into Japanese harbors of all North Korean-flagged vessels and on the import of all North Korean goods.
(b) This series of measures against North Korea was taken in consideration of the international political climate and the varying complex factors that made up the larger picture. One of the factors that influenced the decision to implement these measures was the fact that North Korea had not acted in good faith to resolve the abduction issue. In light of the larger picture, which included a lack of concrete progress on the abduction issue, the GoJ took the step of implementing two of these measures - the bans on the entry into Japanese harbors of all North Korean-flagged vessels and on the import of all North Korean goods - for four six-month periods commencing on April 10 and October 9, 2007, and April 11 and October 10, 2008. However, on April 5, 2009 North Korea again launched missiles. In light of these further launches and the lack of concrete action by North Korea to resolve the abduction issue, on April 10 the GoJ extended these measures by one year and implemented two new measures aimed at gaining a more detailed grasp of the situation regarding flows of money to North Korea. (On June 16, in response to an underground nuclear test by North Korea in May, the GoJ added two further measures, including a ban on the export of all goods to North Korea.) [See (10) below for more details.]
At the Six-Party Talks in February 2007, the parties agreed to establish a Task Force for the Normalization of Japan-North Korea Ties. The first task force meeting was held in Hanoi on March 7-8, 2007. At this meeting, the GoJ repeated its demands that North Korea guarantee the safety of all of the abductees and their families, allow them to immediately return to Japan, provide a full accounting of their cases, and extradite to Japan those responsible for carrying out the abductions. The North Korean side, however, not only repeated their prior position that the abduction issue had already been resolved, but also called on Japan to lift "economic sanctions" against North Korea and otherwise demonstrated a lack of good faith toward resolving the abduction issue. The second task force meeting was held in Ulan Baatar on September 5-6. Japan and North Korea agreed that, based on the Pyongyang Declaration, the two parties would work together in good faith to hold active discussions that would result in progress through concrete actions designed to normalize relations as quickly as possible, would put the sad history between them in the past, and would settle unresolved issues. However, no progress was made at the task force meeting on the abduction issue.
On July 20, between the first and second task force meetings, North Korea presented a Memorandum from its Foreign Ministry stating that North Korea considered the abduction issue resolved and criticizing Japan's stance on the abduction issue. In response, the GoJ issued a statement at a Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference on July 25 explaining that the North Korean Memorandum was totally unacceptable.
Japan-North Korea Working-Level Consultations were held on June 11-12, 2008 in Beijing. At these talks, Japan and North Korea reiterated their respective positions on such issues as the abductions and the settling of past disputes, with the two parties engaging in serious and in-depth negotiations on the abduction issue.
As a result of these talks, the North Korean position shifted away from past assertions that the abduction issue had already been resolved. North Korea agreed to carry out a new investigation into the abduction cases and pledged to work with Japan to resolve issues involving Yodo-go Group members.
In light of North Korea's change in position, Japan agreed to lift certain measures previously taken against North Korea. Specifically, restrictions on travel to and from North Korea and chartered flights were to be removed, and North Korean vessels would be allowed to enter Japanese ports expressly for the purpose of transporting humanitarian aid.
At subsequent Working-Level Consultations in August 2008, Japan and North Korea reached agreement on the purpose the investigation would serve and the specific terms under which it would be carried out. Under this agreement, North Korea would take concrete action intended to resolve the abduction issue by launching a thorough investigation into the abduction issue meant to uncover the whereabouts of the survivors and ensure their safe return to Japan. The GoJ for its part announced that Japan was prepared to remove restrictions on travel to and from North Korea and chartered flights as soon as North Korea launched the investigation.
In September that year, however, North Korea informed the GoJ that, in view of the sudden change of administration in Japan, it would refrain from launching an investigation committee until it could discern the thinking of any new administration regarding the implementation of the measures agreed in the Working-Level Consultations. The agreed measures outlined above have still not been implemented. There has been no change in Japan's commitment to implementing the agreed measures, and the GoJ intends to continue demonstrating this stance to North Korea and to strongly demand that North Korea commence a comprehensive investigation into the abductees.
(a) On April 5, 2009 North Korea again launched missiles. In response, on April 10 the GoJ decided to extend by one year the measures it had been implementing against North Korea since North Korea's ballistic missile launches and nuclear testing in 2006 and to implement two new measures aimed at gaining a more detailed grasp of the situation regarding flows of money to North Korea.
Furthermore, North Korea announced on May 25 that it had conducted an underground nuclear test. In response to this, on June 16 the GoJ decided to add two further measures, including a ban on the export of all goods to North Korea.
(b) These additional measures were taken in view of the various circumstances surrounding North Korea, one of which is North Korea's failure to commence the comprehensive investigation it agreed to conduct in August 2008 or to take any other concrete action to address the abduction issue. [See (9) above.]
(a) The abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea is a grave and clear violation of human dignity, human rights and basic freedoms. Adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights three consecutive years beginning in 2003, the Resolution on the Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea calls for a swift settlement of the unresolved issues related to the abduction of foreign nationals. Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn, appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea under this resolution, has made a series of visits to Japan every year since 2005. Based partly on the results of these visits, Professor Muntarbhorn has presented reports to the UN Commission on Human Rights (since 2006 the UN Human Rights Council) and the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, in which he has mentioned the abduction issue and recommended that North Korea should cooperate in a transparent and accountable way to resolve the issue of abductions of foreign nationals.
(b) In addition to the resolution adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights, a resolution on the human rights situation in North Korea was also adopted by the plenary session of the UN General Assembly for the first time in December 2005. Since then it has been approved by a majority of member states for four consecutive years. This UN General Assembly resolution, submitted jointly by Japan and the European Union, expresses deep concern for the human rights situation in North Korea, including the issue of the abduction of foreign nationals, and strongly calls on the North Korean authorities to resolve this issue quickly and to ensure the swift and safe return of the abductees. (The resolution was proposed jointly by 51 countries in 2008, including the ROK for the first time.) Even many countries that did not cast a vote in favor of this resolution (such as India, Nepal, Vietnam, Malaysia and Laos) expressed concern regarding North Korea's handling of the abduction issue.
(c) Concern in Japan and overseas grew as testimony from the abductees who have returned to Japan indicated that there are people in North Korea from Thailand, Romania, Lebanon and other countries besides Japan who could also have been abducted. Japanese and Korean family members of abductees began traveling between Japan and the Republic of Korea to visit each other and strengthen ties and cooperation between the families in both countries when it was revealed in May 2006 that the man who was Megumi Yokota's husband was likely a citizen of the Republic of Korea who had also been abducted by North Korea.
(a) Taking every diplomatic opportunity at international conferences, G8 summits, and meetings between heads of state to raise the abduction issue, the GoJ has gained the understanding and support of countries around the world. At the L'Aquila Summit held in July 2009, for example, Japan raised the abduction issue, and the other G8 nations declared support for Japan's position. As a result, the Leaders Declaration included a statement urging North Korea to immediately address the human rights concerns of the international community, including the abduction issue. (This is the second time that the G8 Leaders Declaration has included an explicit reference to the abduction issue, the first having been at the Hokkaido Toyako Summit in 2008. The abduction issue has also been raised by the G8 continually since the Evian Summit in 2003 in the Chair's Summary and other documents.)
Support for the stance taken by Japan on the abduction issue has also been expressed at bilateral meetings between heads of state. For example, at the Japan-US Summit Meetings in November 2007 and July 2008, then President Bush vowed that the United States would not forget the abduction issue and reaffirmed US understanding of and cooperation with Japan's stance on the issue. In January 2009, shortly after the launch of the new administration in the United States, Prime Minister Taro Aso and US President Barak Obama held a telephonic conversation in which they agreed to work closely on North Korean problems, including the abduction issue. In February 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Japan and met with the families of the abductees, commenting, "The abductee issue is of grave concern. It is such a human tragedy."
Meanwhile, President Lee Myung-bak of the Republic of Korea has repeatedly declared that the ROK will provide the maximum possible cooperation and support on the abduction issue. At the Japan-ROK Summit Meeting in January 2009, President Lee stated, "There are also many victims of abduction in the ROK. North Korea must cooperate towards the resolution of this issue. The ROK shares Japan's views in this regard."
In addition, President Hu Jintao of China and President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia have both expressed understanding of Japan's stance on the abduction issue.
At an April 2006 meeting with Sakie Yokota, the mother of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by North Korea, then US President George Bush declared, "If North Korea expects to be respected in the world, that country must respect human rights and human dignity and must allow this mother to hug her child again."
(b) The Joint Statement adopted at the Six-Party Talks in September 2005 reflected Japan's basic policy that there can be no normalization of relations with North Korea until unresolved issues, which include the abduction issue, are settled. One of the objectives of these Six-Party Talks is to take steps to normalize relations by putting the sad history between Japan and North Korea in the past, and to settle unresolved issues such as the abductions of Japanese citizens. The Six-Party Talks held in February 2007 to move this process forward focused on negotiating denuclearization and establishing a task force for the normalization of Japan-North Korea ties. The Six-Party Talks held in September 2007 concluded with Japan and North Korea agreeing to take concrete steps toward building relations. A statement to this effect was released on October 3.
At the Six-Party Talks held in February, it was agreed that North Korea would receive economic and energy aid in return for taking steps toward denuclearization. The GoJ, however, took the position that Japan would not participate in the Six-Party Talks agreement to provide energy to North Korea unless progress was made on the abduction issue.
(c)As the statements above definitively illustrate, the international community clearly understands the importance of bringing the abduction issue to a resolution and supports the approach taken by the GoJ to facilitate this. The understanding and support of the international community is essential to putting pressure on North Korea to move decisively to resolve this issue, and the GoJ will continue to take every opportunity to work with the international community on this issue.
Since the Japan-North Korea Summit Meeting in September 2002, the GoJ has received continuous cooperation from the abductees who have returned to Japan and has continued to conduct investigations and inquiries into other cases of abduction by North Korea, as well as cases in which the possibility of abduction cannot be ruled out. As a result of these investigations and inquiries, the GoJ has identified new cases of abduction and people suspected of involvement in abductions as listed below. The GoJ is committed to ongoing investigations and inquiries and will raise any new cases identified as abductions with North Korea as they arise. At the same time, the Government will do all it can to obtain a full accounting of the known abductions, including the identification of those responsible for these crimes.
Investigations and inquiries by Japanese authorities have uncovered new evidence that leads the GoJ to suspect that a case involving the disappearance of a woman in Tottori Prefecture in October 1977 (Ms. Kyoko Matsumoto) and a case involving the disappearance of a man in Hyogo Prefecture in June 1978 (Mr. Minoru Tanaka) are also cases of abduction by North Korea. Based on this evidence, the GoJ added Minoru Tanaka on April 27, 2005 and Kyoko Matsumoto on November 20, 2006 to the list of Japanese citizens identified as abducted by North Korea. These two new cases put the number of cases identified by the GoJ as abductions by North Korea at 12 cases involving a total of 17 persons.
With regard to the case of two siblings of North Korean nationality revealed to have been abducted in Japan by North Korean authorities, the GoJ maintains that abduction is both a serious violation of human rights, regardless of nationality, and a violation of Japan's national sovereignty. For this reason, the GoJ demands that North Korea allow these two people to return to Japan, the place from which they were taken, and that a full accounting be given concerning this case.
On February 23, 2006, Japanese authorities identified North Korean agent Sin Kwang-Su as the person responsible for the abduction of Yasushi and Fukie Chimura, and a North Korean agent known as Choi Sun-Chol, who calls himself Kenzo Kosumi, as the person responsible for the abduction of Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike. On November 2, 2006, Japanese authorities identified a North Korean agent commonly known as Kim Myong-Suk as the person responsible for the abduction of Ms. Hitomi Soga and her mother Miyoshi. On February 22, 2007, Japanese authorities identified two individuals whose true names are still unconfirmed, a man calling himself Han Myeong-Il (a.k.a. Han Geum-Nyeong), who was then an advisor to the Japan division of the Foreign Information and Research Department of the Korean Labor Party, and a man calling himself Kim Nam-Jin as co-conspirators in the abduction of the Hasuikes. On June 13, 2007, Japanese authorities identified Junko Mori and Sakiko Wakabayashi (nee Kuroda), wives of Yodo-go members, as responsible for the abductions of Mr. Toru Ishioka and Mr. Kaoru Matsuki. Arrest warrants were issued for all of these suspects on these dates and their names were listed with Interpol. The GoJ demands that North Korea extradite these individuals to Japan.
Japanese authorities have long been working on cases of abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea. Since August 2002, arrest warrants have been issued for North Korean agent Sin Kwang-Su for the abduction of Mr. Tadaaki Hara (in the Sin Kwang-Su case); Yodo-go member Kimihiro Uomoto (formerly Kimihiro Abe) for the abduction of Ms. Keiko Arimoto; and North Korean agent Kim Se-Ho as the main suspect in the abduction of Mr. Yutaka Kume (in the Ushitsu case). These suspects have all been listed with Interpol, and the GoJ demands that North Korea extradite these individuals to Japan. An arrest warrant has also been issued for Kim Kil-Uk as a co-conspirator in the abduction of Mr. Tadaaki Hara, and Japanese authorities are in the process of having him listed with Interpol.
On April 26, 2007, Japanese authorities issued an arrest warrant for Yoko Kinoshita (a.k.a. Hong Su-Hye), as the main suspect in the case of the suspected abduction in Japan of siblings of North Korean nationality, and steps are being taken to list her with Interpol.
In April 2006, DNA analysis conducted by the GoJ revealed a high probability that Mr. Kim Young-Nam, a Korean citizen abducted from the Republic of Korea as a high school student in 1978, was married to Ms. Megumi Yokota. The GoJ presented the results of this analysis to North Korea and once again demanded a sincere response in moving toward the resolution of the abduction issue. The Government of the Republic of Korea conducted its own independent tests and came up with the same results in May 2006.
On March 11, 2009, members of the Iizuka family, relatives of Ms. Yaeko Taguchi, met with Kim Hyon-Hui (convicted bomber of a Korean Airlines airliner), an important witness in the case of Ms. Taguchi, in Busan, Republic of Korea. The meeting, which the Iizukas had long desired, was arranged by the GoJ in cooperation with the Government of the ROK. As important new information regarding Ms. Taguchi (see note) was gained from Kim through the meeting, the GoJ is currently working to confirm this information.
Note: Kim said: "After returning from Macau in January 1987, I heard from a driver in February or March that Ms. Taguchi had been taken to an unknown location. I'd heard that in 1986 an abductee living alone had been made to marry, so I thought that Ms. Taguchi must also have gone somewhere to get married."
The purpose of this law is to raise awareness among the Japanese public of the abduction issue and other human rights violations by the North Korean authorities, as well as to encourage cooperation with the international community to elicit a full accounting of the situation regarding the abduction issue and to prevent it from happening again in the future. The law was promulgated and put into effect on June 23, 2006.
In addition to laying out the responsibilities of the government in resolving the abduction issue and other matters of concern, the law also holds the national government and local governments responsible for raising awareness of the issue, establishes North Korean Human Rights Abuses Awareness Week (December 10-16), and calls on the government and local governments to hold educational events on the topic during that week. A new provision was added to the law on July 6, 2007 that requires measures taken by the GoJ to be carefully crafted to contribute to the resolution of the abduction issue.
The law also establishes North Korean Human Rights Abuses Awareness Week to be held each year in December. The GoJ marks this week by sponsoring PR events, lectures, symposia, and public forums for participants to gather and discuss the abduction issue, as well as by providing support for international conferences sponsored by citizens' groups and other private sector organizations.
In September 2006, the GoJ established the Headquarters for the Abduction Issue to be headed by the Prime Minister with the goal of moving forward on comprehensive measures to resolve the abduction issue. The Headquarters is made up of the entire Cabinet and is structured as a central body to provide a unified approach throughout the Government to the resolution of the abduction issue.
At its first meeting in October 2006, the Headquarters team drew up the "Policy on the Abduction Issue," which outlined six items as the focus of future Japanese policy: guaranteeing the safety and immediate return of all abductees to Japan; reviewing the future steps to be taken on this matter; continuing to pursue severe legal redress; collecting and analyzing information and raising public awareness of this issue; continuing investigations and inquiries into cases in which the possibility of abduction cannot be ruled out; and further strengthening international cooperation to bring the abduction issue to a final resolution.
At its second meeting in October 2008, the members of the Headquarters reiterated their understanding that there can be no normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea until the unresolved issue of the abductions is settled, and recognized this is the most important issue to Japan. The members reviewed the articles of the "Policy on the Abduction Issue" introduced in 2006 (see Appendix 2 for more details (PDF:14KB)
), and once again issued a statement demanding that North Korea move decisively to bring the abduction issue to a swift resolution.
Based on a consistent policy of "dialogue and pressure," the GoJ will continue to strengthen and make progress in the efforts outlined in the "Policy on the Abduction Issue" and taking every opportunity to press North Korea for a quick resolution to the abduction issue.
Understanding that interest among the public both in Japan and overseas in the cases of individuals abducted by North Korea is also a vital component of the effort to bring the abduction issue to resolution, the GoJ is undertaking a variety of activities designed to bring attention to the abduction issue. In addition to the North Korean Human Rights Abuses Awareness Week events described above, PR activities also include sponsoring local events, creating and distributing informational DVDs and pamphlets, and advising on the hosting of screenings and lectures on the topic, as well as providing speakers for these events.
The GoJ also focuses on broadcasting messages to the families of abducted Japanese citizens who remain in North Korea, as well as disseminating information in Japan and overseas on the developments regarding abductions and other issues. To facilitate these efforts, the GoJ introduced shortwave radio broadcasts to North Korea in July 2007 via two programs: Furusato no Kaze or Wind of Homeland (in Japanese) and Il Bon E Param or Wind of Japan (in Korean).
