Russian Koreans On Sakhalin Request Compensation From Japan

The ethnic Koreans living on the Sakhalin Island have requested that the Japanese government pay them compensation. The request was issued by participants in the rally in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the administrative centre of the Sakhalin and Kuril Islands in eastern Russia. The rally took place in front of the building of the Japanese Consulate General on Friday. Over 300 ethnic Koreans came to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk from all over the island to participate in it. In the opinion of the meeting organisers, members of the organisation called the Sakhalin Koreans, the Japanese government has to pay the Sakhalin Koreans compensation, because during the Second World War Japan brought Koreans to Southern Sakhalin as its forced labour. Sakhalin's Japanese Consulate General refused to accept the resolution of the rally participants, in which Koreans requested that the Japanese government pay them compensation and finance apartment purchases for 2,500 Korean families living in the island. The document calls on the Japanese to also provide for the construction of housing in South Korea for those Koreans who would choose to return to their historic motherland.