N. Korea Incited Anti-Japan Sentiment in South

Seoul, Jan. 14 (Jiji Press)--North Korea sent directives to a secret organization including a former executive of South Korea's largest labor union, ordering it to incite anti-Japanese sentiment, according to sources at Suwon District Court near Seoul.

The directives sought to fan the flames of anti-Japanese sentiment over the issue of wartime labor and the discharge of treated radioactive water from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s meltdown-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant into the sea. They were adopted as evidence in the ruling against the ex-union executive and two others charged with espionage in 2023.

The court sentenced the three people, including the former executive of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, who was in his 50s, to five to 15 years in prison last November for gathering information about U.S. bases in South Korea on orders from a North Korean spy agency.

Between 2018 and 2022, 89 directives were sent from North Korea including by email, while 13 reports were sent by the South Korean secret organization to Pyongyang, according to the ruling obtained by Jiji Press.

In a directive sent in July 2019, when Japan-South Korea ties were going sour under the administration of then President Moon Jae-in and Tokyo decided to tighten controls on exports to South Korea, the secret group was ordered to have the people display their anti-Japanese sentiment as much as possible through large-scale rallies and link class struggles with the anti-Japanese struggle.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]