The regime is now contemplating deleting article 3 of the law enforcement regulations which provides for application of the tuition-free program for senior high schools to Korean schools.

This discloses its intention to completely exclude Korean schools from the tuition-free program for senior high schools, an undisguised discrimination against Koreans and a manifestation of the Japanese government's heinous hostile policy toward the DPRK.

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is zealously conspiring with such scheme.

The new minister lost no time to clarify the policy on not applying the tuition-free program to Korean schools, on the ground that "this has an impact on educational contents, personal affairs and finance as no progress has been made in the settlement of the abduction issue and it is closely linked with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan".

The Japan-DPRK Association, an organization of Japanese citizens active for the DPRK-Japan friendship and common prosperity, bitterly denounced the minister's remarks, saying it is contrary to the idea of the program for supporting senior high schools. It demanded an immediate application of the tuition-free program to the Korean schools.

Labor Net Japan, an information Network of the labor movement, said: "Korean schools have nothing to do with the abduction case" and "Is it the real intention of the present regime to distort and attack the law".