In the early morning of Dec. 19, the Japanese authorities let gangs of the police joint investigation team in Kyoto, Kanagawa, Yamaguchi and Shimane prefectures forcefully search private houses of Chongryon officials and compatriots and offices of companies run by them under the pretence of violation of the "law on foreign exchange".

They abruptly thronged into the house of the chairman of the Shibuse, Tokyo Metropolis, branch of Chongryon, inquiring if he had something to do with its Central Standing Committee. When they failed to find any evidence, they took away documents on the company's business for no ground.

Timing to coincide with this attack, another gangs of the police joint investigation team searched the homes of the chairman and the director of international department of the Football Association of Koreans in Japan and their company for two days, forcefully linking them to the Japanese company "Emu Create's" violation of the "law on foreign exchange".

The statement branded their searches as one more grave provocation to Chongryon and Korean residents in Japan and an intolerable challenge and hideous crime against the DPRK and Chongryon.

The recent searches by the Japanese reactionaries are aimed to damage the international prestige of the DPRK and Chongryon by labeling Chongryon an organization engaged in illegal activities, and further incite the anti-DPRK and anti-Chongryon climate all over Japan in order to invent a pretext for checking the just action of Chongryon and Japan-resident Koreans and kicking off a wholesale crackdown on Chongryon, the statement pointed out, saying:

Chongryon is a precious part of the DPRK; Koreans in Japan are the flesh and blood of our country and people.

It is the consistent stand and fixed will of the DPRK to decisively react to any slight persecution or suppression of Chongryon and Korean residents in Japan, regarding it as a blatant encroachment upon the sovereignty of the DPRK.

The Japanese authorities' desperate efforts to repress Chongryon, a dignified overseas citizens organization of Juche Korea, despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK, will fan up its army and people's hostility toward Japan, and Japan will have to bear full responsibility for all the consequences.