At the press conference Sin Kil Ung, principal of Tokyo Korean Senior High School, Choe In Thae, principal of Ibaragi Korean Junior High School, and other speakers referred to the fact that the draft bill on supporting high schools, which essentially excludes the Korean schools only from tuition-free program for senior high schools, was passed at the full-dress session of Japan's House of Councilors on Mar. 31 and came into force on April 1.

They said that this unreasonable action of the Japanese government is touching off the resentment of the Korean students, their parents and all other Korean residents in Japan.

Lurking behind the action is the Japanese authorities' politically motivated intention, they pointed out, stressing that such unjust discriminative behavior can never be pardoned.

Japanese personages also made speeches at the conference.

Mamoru Sonobe, secretary general of the Association for Supporting Korean Academy in Kanagawa, said that it is very regrettable that only the Korean schools were excluded from the said program, which is as good as an act of making distinction among the foreign schools.

Kiyoshi Nisijawa, vice-chairperson of the Japan-Korea Society for Scientific and Educational Interchange, contended that the Japanese government should apologize for exposing the students of Korean schools to distress and include those schools in the program.

In the meantime Kim Sun On, managing director of Tokyo Korean Academy, issued a statement demanding the withdrawal of the Japanese authorities' unreasonable discriminative step on the same day.