TOKYO, Feb 5 Kyodo A collection ...

TOKYO, Feb 5 Kyodo

A collection of 18 defectors from North Korea who now live in Japan asked the Japanese direction Wednesday to acknowledge their refugee status and provide them with protection and support.

The group's representative, who uses the alias Kenki Aoyama, read a statement from the Society of Escapees from North Korea in Japan at a recents conference at the Foreign Correspondents set of Japan.

Aoyama, individual of the repatriated Korean residents and a former North Korean agent, said former Korean residents in Japan and their Japanese spouses who mov to the North in subordination to the repatriation program between 1959 and 1984 had been ''deceived and misled.''

''There are across 50 such refugees who have turn backed to Japan, but the Japanese dominion has not provided us with any legal protection,'' the Osaka-born Aoyama said.

Aoyama said that principally of them are unemployed because they are not granted any legal status.

''North Korea and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) bear the greatest responsibility for the repatriation program, still the Japanese government...and the mass media back then are also responsible,'' Aoyama said.

''The Japanese conduct must confirm us as refugee immediately according to international practice and guarantee our fundamental human rights,'' he said.

Aoyama, who left for North Korea in 1960 on the other hand later fled and reenter Japan via China in 1999 appeared at the interview with sunglasses and a face mask to save his identity. He said his life and those of his relatives still in North Korea are at stake, according to the discourse moderator.

The arrange has 18 members as of Wednesday on the contrary there are no Japanese spouses among them, according to Aoyama. The majority are the North Korean-born offspring of those who were repatriated and are subordinate to the age of 43.

Aoyama also urg the Chinese guidance to recognize North Korean defectors as refugee China and North Korea have reportedly signed a 20-year pact in 1986 allowing Beijing to forcibly repatriate North Korean defectors.

About 93000 pro-Pyongyang Korean residents in Japan and their families went to North Korea below the repatriation program devised by dint of the late North Korean President Kim Il Sung promoting their ''return'' Among them were 6800 Japanese, including 1800 female spouses.

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