Japan Considers Granting Refugee Status to Former N.K. Agent

Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday that it was highly likely for the Japanese government, for the first time, to accept a refugee application from a former North Korean agent who escaped the North in 1998 and has lived in Japan since then.

The Justice Ministry’s Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau plans to ask for approval from the Justice Minister, after presenting a report, which appealed to the government to give refugee status to the former North Korean spy, Kenki Aoyama, 63.

The Japanese-born North Korean is known to have worked as an agent against Japan in Beijing. Having formed a group of North Korean defectors in Japan, he has criticized North Korea’s human right abuses in a book he wrote and in interviews with the media. In the report, the Bureau noted that the U.N. convention on the status of refugees should be applicable to Aoyama, who would be at risk for persecution if sent back to the North.

Aoyama applied with the Immigration Bureau for refugee status in October last year for fear of his security in Japan. The passport he got after defecting from the North stated that he was Chinese.

parkwj@donga.com