Present there were Ho Jong Man, chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), Hwang Myong, chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Headquarters and other leading officials of organizations and enterprises of Chongryon, Chongryon officials and Korean compatriots in Kanto area. The representative of Tokyo Ward Assemblymen's Liaison Society for the Promotion of Japan-Korea Friendship and other Japanese attended.

The participants observed a moment's silence in memory of the victims.

Hwang Myong made a memorial address.

He said in September 1923 when a disastrous earthquake hit Kanto, the then Japanese government declared the emergency martial law and put the army, police and other forces in motion to commit the state-sponsored crime of massacring Koreans. He expressed deep condolences to the compatriots who met grievous deaths due to the atrocities committed by the Japanese.

Decades have passed since then but the Japanese authorities have not yet opted for probing the truth, to say nothing of making apology and reparation for the crime. They are concealing and shunning the historical fact of the massacre of Koreans and are antagonizing the DPRK and Chongryon, persistently committing suppression and human rights abuses.

This year in which falls the 65th anniversary of the DPRK, the Koreans in Japan will spur the endeavors to defend the national rights and the happy future of Koreans in Japan, looking up to the motherland led by Marshal Kim Jong Un.

He vowed to continue to strive to urge Japan to abolish at an early date the inglorious past with the DPRK, normalize the bilateral relations and build friendship with the broad range of Japanese in the spirit of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration, rallied close around the Marshal, true to the last instructions of the great Generalissimo Kim Jong Il.

Messages sent from regional committees including the North Side Committee for Implementing the June 15 Joint Declaration was read out at the service.

There were speeches.