Pyongyang, September 7 (KCNA) -- A memorial service for Koreans killed during the great Kanto quake was held in front of the monument to them in Tokyo on September 1 in connection with the lapse of 88 years since the massacre of Koreans committed by the Japanese imperialists after the disaster.

Present there were Pak Ku Ho, vice-chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) who doubles as chairman of the Committee for Rights and Welfare, Hwang Myong, chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Headquarters of Chongryon, and other officials and Koreans and students in Japan.

The participants paid silent tribute to the dead.

Hwang Myong read out a memorial address at the meeting.

He said with indignation that many Koreans were massacred for the mere reason that they were Koreans after the earthquake.

He underscored the need to let posterity know about this tragedy, not forgetting the past when Koreans were killed with their grudge unsettled.

He condemned the Japanese authorities for refusing to probe the truth about the massacre, far from making any apology and reparation for the past atrocities, preventing Koreans in Japan from visiting their homeland and enforcing the policy of national discrimination.

He called for opposing Japan's national discrimination and human rights abuses in order to settle the grudge of those slain Koreans and working for having the DPRK-Japan relations normalized on the basis of Japan's redemption of its past crimes.

Speeches were made by Japanese figures.

Similar memorial services took place in various parts of Saitama and Chiba prefectures on the same day.