Going "home": why 87,000 Zainichi Koreans moved from Japan to North Korea | NK News
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February 01, 2025

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Going “home”: why 87,000 Zainichi Koreans moved from Japan to North Korea

From 1959 to 1984, thousands of Koreans in Japan were promised a better life in the DPRK, only to be met with suffering

The last ten years have seen unprecedented pressure put on North Korea for alleged human rights abuses, from the international community, civic groups, and from individual North Koreans to have escaped the DPRK.

But condemnation of one of the world’s most closed countries, and the international mobilization of activist groups demanding justice for ordinary North Koreans, has precedent in the early years of the DPRK’s existence.  

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