The Japanese authorities suspended the procedures for applying the program to the Korean schools in Japan at the end of last year under the pretext of Yonphyong Island shelling. They are still not retracting such unwarranted measure.

The issue of the above-said program is one of the election commitments made by the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009. The Koreans schools in Japan should be included in the program in light of the bill worked out by the government and the purpose of the program. A high-ranking official of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology once said that students of foreign schools are included in the program.

Nevertheless, the Japanese reactionaries excluded only the Korean schools from the program which took effect from April 1 last year, claiming that "they are not pure educational establishments but schools putting main emphasis on the ideology to support the system in the north and organs for operations against Japan." This is a despicable measure.

The Korean schools in Japan are the institutions where the descendants of the Koreans who were forcibly drafted by the Japanese imperialists in the past study and legitimate national education organs operating with the approval of the Japanese government. Had the Japanese imperialists not invaded Korea and enforced a harsh colonial rule over it, the children of the Koreans in Japan would have not been born in the alien country and subject to such miserable fate as being exposed to discrimination in education.

The Japanese government is suppressing even the schools and students of the Koreans in Japan under the pretext of military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, while persistently imposing unreasonable sanctions against the DPRK. This is absolutely intolerable even in the light of historical and moral obligation Japan assumed before the Korean people.

The government's mean behavior is stirring up the atmosphere of discriminating against and rejecting Koreans in the Japanese society.

The Japanese reactionaries should stop at once the discrimination against the Korean schools in Japan, a part of their moves against the DPRK and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.