Such shameless remarks are an act of rubbing salt into the wound of the victim who had to undergo all sorts of physical and mental sufferings by the Japanese imperialists in the last century, and it makes one recall the heinous human rights abuses committed by them.

The Japanese imperialists had cruelly violated the Korean people's rights through requisition, maltreatment and massacres.

After their occupation of Korea, they conducted a criminal requisition of workforce under various pretexts from 1910 to 1945 to replenish the manpower for aggressive wars.

With the approach of their defeat in the Pacific War, they took away Koreans at random to such slave labor sites as construction sites of underground munitions plants, special attack bases, power stations and railways, collieries and mines while preparing their "decisive battle in the proper".

They regarded Koreans as no more than a "working tool" and a "living body" that can be handled at will.

The number of Koreans, killed in collieries of Japan including Hokkaido from 1940 to 1944 alone, reached to over 60 000.

Many young and middle-aged Koreans met a miserable death in the construction of "three-major tunnels" of which Japan is proud still now.

The Japanese imperialists also committed maltreatment and massacre of Korean workers at their occupation areas of Southeast Asia. Most of the workers lost their lives in the course of construction works.

Indeed, their human rights abuses against the Korean people are a hideous crime without precedent in the world.