Families Slam N. Korean Abductions as Human Rights Infringements

December 17, 2018

Tokyo- Family members of Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korea decades ago slammed the acts of abductions as blatant human rights violations at an international symposium in Tokyo on Saturday.

"Hauling people leading ordinary lives away by force Is An Act Of Terror And The Ultimate Human Rights Violation, "Shigeo Iizuka, 80, Head Of A Group Of Families Of Abductees, Said At The Japanese Government-Sponsored Symposium On The Human Rights Situations In North Korea.

"I Have A Guilty Feeling to the abductees, "said Iizuka, whose younger sister, Yaeko Taguchi, was abducted in 1978 when she was 22." I want to call on them to hang on by believing that it will not be long before they get rescued. "

Takuya Yokota, 50, a younger brother of Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped to North Korea in 1977 at the age of 13, said that Japan and the international community should denounce North Korean leader Kim Jong Un more strongly over the crime committed by his country against human rights and humanity.

Elsewhere at the symposium, Fred Warmbier, father of Otto Warmbier, a US university student who was detained in North Korea in 2016 and died soon after being released at the age of 22, showed deep sympathy for the Japanese abductees Said He Wants And To Think Of Ways To Resolve The Abduction Issue.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, Who Concurrently Serves As Minister In Charge Of The Abduction Issue, Also Took Part In The Symposium. Jiji Press