Skip to main content

Families of missing Japanese to urge prosecution of North Korean leader at Hague court

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (File/AP Photo)
The families of Japanese abducted by North Korea, and those believed to have been taken, will urge the International Criminal Court to prosecute the North’s leader, saying the lack of information about their loved ones is a human rights abuse.
North Korea admitted in 2002 it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train spies, and five of them returned to Japan. Tokyo suspects that hundreds more may have been taken.
Eight people, including Teruaki Masumoto, whose sister Rumiko is said by North Korea to have died, will travel to The Hague to urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses because of his refusal to provide information about their family members.
The group will present a petition requesting investigation into the disappearances as a case of crimes against humanity to raise international attention about the issue, said Kazuhiro Araki, who heads a support group for families of the missing.
“Right now, with the Olympics, South Korea is really making a connection with the North, which we did not expect,” Araki said, referring to talks between the two Koreas over the winter Olympics starting next month that have led to a thaw in cross-border ties. “So we believe this will bring a lot of attention to Japan’s different situation,” he said.
North Korea has repeatedly pledged to reopen investigations into the fate of all missing Japanese, only to backtrack on those promises later.
Araki acknowledged that the move would be mostly symbolic but said it was still valuable. “Arresting Kim Jong Un and bringing him in would be rather difficult, but it’s extremely important to show that there are human rights abuses taking place,” he said.
One of those traveling to The Hague is Misa Morimoto, whose identical twin sister – so alike that they could swap classrooms and fool their high school teachers – vanished when they were 20 and is believed to have been abducted by Pyongyang.
“As her family member, I want to do everything I possibly can,” Morimoto said in an email.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As many as 12 killed in New York’s deadliest fire in decades

More than 160 firefighters helped bring the blaze under control. (Source: Fire Department New York/Twitter) A massive fire ignited accidentally by a three-year-old boy swept through a five-story apartment building in New York, killing at least 12 people including a toddler and injuring four others in the deadliest blaze to hit the city in decades. The fire broke out around 6:50 pm (local time) yesterday on the first floor of the Prospect Avenue apartment in the Bronx borough of the city and spread quickly, officials said, adding that the cause of the blaze is under investigation. “We found that this fire started in a kitchen on the first floor,” fire commissioner Daniel Nigro said. “It started from a young boy, three and a half years old, playing with the burners on the stove. The fire got started, the mother was not aware of it – she was alerted by the young man screaming.” The boy’s mother fled with her two children, leaving the door to the apartment open – allowing t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ukraine crisis: Exchange of hundreds of prisoners takes place

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attends a ceremony to welcome prisoners of war (POWs), released after the exchange with pro-Russian separatists, upon their arrival at an airport in Kharkiv, Ukraine December 27, 2017. (Source: Reuters)  Ukraine and separatist rebels in the east of the country have exchanged hundreds of prisoners, in one of the biggest swaps since the conflict began in 2014. Around 230 people were sent to rebel-held areas in return for 74 prisoners who had been held by pro-Russia rebels in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, BBC reported on Wednesday. It was the first swap in 15 months. The release and exchange of prisoners was one of the points in the Minsk peace agreement, signed in 2015. The deal has stalled since and analysts say the swap does not signify wider progress. Both sides continue to hold other prisoners. The number of prisoners swapped was lower than initially announced after dozens of people who were meant to be returned to rebel-held terr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nepal declares ban on solo, blind and double amputee climbers from Everest

This ban is likely to irk solo mountaineers, who enjoy the challenge of climbing alone. In a bid to prevent accidents, Nepal has banned solo climbers from climbing its mountains, including Mount Everest, reported news agency AFP. Earlier on Friday, the cabinet declared revised regulations of the Himalayan nation’s mountaineering, where banning solo climbers from scaling its mountains was one of the key measures being flagged ahead of the 2018 spring climbing season. The cabinet also declared a ban on double amputee and blind climbers, even though Everest has drawn multitudes of mountaineers wanting to overcome their disabilities and achieve the formidable feat. “The changes have barred solo expeditions, which were allowed before,” Maheshwor Neupane, secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, told AFP. Neupane added that the law was revised to make mountaineering safer and decrease deaths. Earlier in April this year, an experienced...
Post a Comment
Read more