The chairman and the vice-chairman are deputies to the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK and leading officials of the dignified overseas Koreans' organization.

Japan is under legal and moral obligation to defend the rights and look after the life of the Koreans in Japan who are victims of its past crimes, and guarantee the activities of Chongryon as it enforced medieval colonial rule over Korea for over 40 years after illegally occupying Korea, the statement said, and went on:

The Japanese reactionaries, however, viciously committed anti-DPRK and anti-Chongryon acts, persistently evading the redemption of the past crimes although 70 years have passed since Japan's defeat. Their recent raid into the houses of the leading officials of Chongryon proves what extent their hostility toward the DPRK and the Korean nation has reached.

After the Japanese police authorities conducted the search while deliberately linking Chongryon with suspicious involvement in a case without any legal validity and scientific ground, not only the Japanese legal circle and media but also people of other social standings in Japan have denounced the recent action as an illegal investigation in violation of the Japan Constitution and the criminal procedure law, abuse of rights of Koreans in Japan and national discrimination.

The Korean Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries vehemently denounces the Japanese reactionaries' search as a wanton violation of the sovereignty of the DPRK, reckless politically-motivated suppression of Chongryon and Koreans in Japan and an anachronistic confrontational act of inciting hostility between the peoples of the DPRK and Japan.

The Society, availing itself of the opportunity, expressed the belief that Japanese from all walks of life and the broad masses of the world that value justice and human rights would become increasingly vocal in rejecting and denouncing the Japanese reactionaries' anachronistic anti-DPRK and anti-Chongryon acts of pushing the DPRK-Japan relations to rock bottom and fanning up mistrust and antagonism between the peoples of the two countries.