Hate remarks and other acts of discrimination against the Korean residents in Japan are going from bad to worse in Japan with each passing day.

In the middle of December, the Osaka city authorities announced the name of the person who is the representative of the organization called the “Association Aspiring for Japan without Koreans” which scattered leaflets, after having admitted that the leaflet incident that happened in the living quarters of the Korean residents in Japan in 2018 is an act of xenophobia.

This association, whose name is steeped in human hatred and national chauvinism, had once stirred up gruesome atmosphere in Japanese society by distributing leaflets which said that “Koreans commit crimes”, “Koreans, leave Japan” and others.

This year alone, persecution of Korean residents in Japan has continued. The CEO of a cosmetics conglomerate openly posted on the company’s website a document instigating discrimination against the Korean residents in Japan. And a “consultation centre for multicultural coexistence” warned the Korean residents in Japan of “obliteration” and “murder”.

In retrospect, history shows that discrimination against the Korean residents in Japan became more blatant whenever the country suffered such national disasters as the natural one.

It is well-known to the world that the Japanese authorities, in order to divert criticism against it at home when an earthquake struck the Kanto area in 1923, drove the Japanese to commit unimaginably brutal genocide against the Koreans while spreading false rumours that the Koreans poisoned wells, raised a riot and committed mass arson.

When earthquakes hit Kumamoto and Fukushima prefectures in 2016 and 2021 respectively following the 2011 earthquake in eastern Japan, the far right conservative forces also let loose reckless remarks and false rumours that “crimes by foreigners are prevalent”, “we should watch out for riots by the Koreans”, “Koreans poisoned wells in Fukushima”. This only reminds us of the time when there was incitement to massacre of the Korean residents in Japan during the earthquake in Kanto. The Japanese authorities, however, did not enforce any legal measures.

In Japan, street demonstration, posting of slogans, distribution of propaganda literature, graffiti, hate remarks and acts of intimidation--which are all aimed at slandering and defiling other nations--have become a commonplace. And the social network service that should contribute to the promotion of coexistence, co-prosperity and public interests in human society is being misused as a medium for amplifying and disseminating violent discrimination.

Such an anachronistic trend prevailing in Japan is a typical expression that Japanese society is deviating to the Right and growing fanatic.

This is clearly an inevitable result of the deep-rooted policy of national chauvinism the Japanese government has pursued for centuries.

The Korean residents in Japan are the victims, who were taken to Japan due to the unethical crime of forced drafting by the Japanese imperialists and subjected to forced labour, and their descendants. Therefore, they deserve to receive legal protection and preferential social treatment from the Japanese authorities.

The Japanese authorities would be well-advised to immediately make amends for its chronic human rights ills before talking about human rights issue of other country while clamouring about deceptive “democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law” and even setting up a new post for the human rights adviser to the prime minister.