North Korea’s Kim Jong-un summoned to appear in Japanese court

The North Korean leader is not expected to appear at the hearing into demands for compensation over a resettlement programme

But the judge’s decision to summon him represents a rare instance in which a foreign leader was not granted sovereign immunity

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Photo: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP

Published: 6:19am, 8 Sep 2021

A Japanese court has summoned Kim Jong-un to face demands for compensation by several ethnic Korean residents of Japan who say they suffered human rights abuses in North Korea after joining a resettlement programme in the hermit state that promised a “paradise on Earth”, a lawyer and plaintiff said on Tuesday.

The North Korean leader is not expected to appear in court for the October 14 hearing, but the judge’s decision to summon him is a rare instance in which a foreign leader was not granted sovereign immunity, said Kenji Fukuda, a lawyer representing the five plaintiffs.

They are demanding 100 million yen (US$900,000) each in compensation from North Korea for human rights violations they say they suffered under the resettlement programme.

The first of two ships carrying 975 people depart for North Korea from the port of Niigata, Japan, in 1959. Photo: Kyodo News via AP

About 93,000 ethnic Korean residents of Japan and their family members went to North Korea decades ago because of promises of a better life. Many had faced discrimination in Japan.

Eiko Kawasaki, 79, a Korean who was born and raised in Japan, was 17 when she left in 1960, a year after North Korea began the massive repatriation programme to make up for workers killed in the Korean war and bring overseas Koreans back home. The programme continued to seek recruits, many of them originally from South Korea, until 1984.