Parliamentary Panel Condemns Anti-Korean Hate Speech in Japan: Reports

A resolution requests from Tokyo to qualify anti-Korean hate speech as criminal acts that endanger Koreans residing in Japan. Japanese protesters want their government to abolish privileges given to Koreans.

MOSCOW, December 1 (Sputnik) – A resolution urging specific measures against anti-Korean hate speech by Japanese rightist groups was adopted by South Korea's parliamentary committee for foreign affairs, Yonhap News Agency reported Monday.

The South Korean social-liberal political party New Politics Alliance for Democracy submitted a resolution that requested from the Japanese government a documented qualification of hate speech as "violence and murderous criminal acts" that put the livelihoods and security of Koreans residing in Japan under risk, the agency stated.

The document also requested that Japanese authorities undertake specific steps to censure anti-Korean rallies.

The Japanese National Police Agency first acknowledged the problem of street protests against foreign residents in Japan in a 2009 report regarding public security in Japan and abroad.

Anti-Korean sentiment was more recently voiced during a demonstration in late July in Kawasaki, Japan. Among the slogans were: "To all you ugly Koreans, please get on the train and return to North Korea" and "The Japanese government must end all special privileges given to South Koreans living in Japan," as cited by the Japanese Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

A group called Zainichi Tokken wo Yurusanai Shimin no Kai (Citizens who do not tolerate privileges for ethnic Korean residents in Japan), hosted the event. The radical group advocates elimination of prerequisites granted to foreign citizens living in Japan who have Special Foreign Resident status. Many foreign citizens who hold this status in Japan are Zainichi Koreans, ethnic Korean residents of Japan, who constitute the second largest ethnic minority in Japan and can hold citizenship in either South or North Korea.