Abductions of Japanese citizens from Japan by agents of the North Korean government took place during a period of six years from 1977 to 1983. Although only 17 Japanese are officially recognized by the Japanese government as having been abducted, there may have been hundreds of others. The North Korean government has officially admitted to abducting 13 Japanese citizens.
Kim Jong-nam was the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. From roughly 1994 to 2001, he was considered the heir apparent to his father. He was thought to have fallen out of favour after embarrassing the regime in 2001 with a failed attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland with a false passport, although Kim himself said his loss of favour had been due to advocating reform.
Kim Jong-chul, sometimes spelled Kim Jong Chol, is a son of former North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Il. His younger brother is currently the North Korean Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. His older half-brother Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in February 2017.
An estimated 84,532 South Koreans were taken to North Korea during the Korean War. In addition, South Korean statistics claim that, since the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953, about 3,800 people have been abducted by North Korea, 489 of whom were still being held in 2006.
An enforced disappearance is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state, political organization, or by a third party, with the authorization of another state, political organization, or a third party, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate and whereabouts, with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law.
The human rights record of North Korea is often considered to be the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations, the European Union and groups such as Human Rights Watch all critical of it. Most international human rights organizations consider North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty.
Megumi Yokota is a Japanese citizen who was abducted by a North Korean agent in 1977 when she was a thirteen-year-old junior high school student. She was one of at least seventeen Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The North Korean government has admitted to kidnapping Yokota, but has said that she died in captivity. Yokota's parents and others in Japan have publicly expressed the belief that she is still alive in North Korea and have waged a public campaign seeking her return to Japan.
Shin Sang-ok was a South Korean filmmaker with more than 100 producer and 70 director credits to his name. His best-known films were made in the 1950s and 60s, many of them collaborations with his wife Choi Eun-hee, when he was known as "The Prince of South Korean Cinema". He received posthumously the Gold Crown Cultural Medal, the country's top honor for an artist.
In the North Korean government, the Cabinet is the administrative and executive body. The North Korean government consists of three branches: administrative, legislative, and judicial. However, they are not independent of each other, but all branches are under the exclusive political leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).
The Japan–North Korea Pyongyang Declaration was signed in 2002, and was the result of a systematic Japan–North Korea summit meeting. The aim of the declaration was to provide low-interest long term loans to North Korea as well as economic assistance, including humanitarian aid, in accordance with the moratorium of nuclear missile development which has been in place since 1999. The Japanese government hoped to learn the fate of Japanese citizens by North Korea which, prior to the declaration, was unacknowledged.
Kim Jong Un is a North Korean politician who has been Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011 and the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since 2012. He is the third son of Kim Jong Il, who was North Korea's second supreme leader from 1994 to 2011, and Ko Yong-hui. He is a grandson of Kim Il Sung, who was the founder and first supreme leader of North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. Kim Jong Un is the first leader of North Korea to have been born in the country after its establishment.
Kim Han-sol is the eldest son of Kim Jong-nam and a grandson of the former North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il. His father was the unofficial heir apparent until 2001, when he fell out of favor with the regime after a failed attempt to secretly visit Tokyo Disneyland in May 2001.
Ri Sol-ju is the current First Lady of North Korea as the wife of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
In the year 2016, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests: one in January and the other in September. Additionally, the country conducted several missile tests. As consequence, the United Nations Security Council adopted three resolutions against North Korea.
The 7th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), the ruling party of North Korea, was held on 6–9 May 2016.
The abduction of Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee occurred in North Korea between 1978 and 1986. Shin Sang-ok was a famous South Korean film director who had been married to actress Choi Eun-hee. Together, they established Shin Film and made many films through the 1960s which garnered recognition for South Korea at various film festivals. In 1978, Choi was abducted in Hong Kong and taken to North Korea to the country's future supreme leader Kim Jong Il. The abduction of Shin followed six months later.
Anna Fifield is the Asia-Pacific editor at The Washington Post. Previously she was the editor of The Dominion Post based in Wellington, New Zealand and the Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post where she focused her attention on news and issues of Japan, North Korea, and South Korea. She has been to North Korea a dozen times.
Kim Dong-shik was a Korean-American Protestant minister who went missing in China in January 2000. His missionary and humanitarian work in China had involved aiding North Korean defectors there, and evidence eventually emerged that the North Korean regime was responsible for his disappearance. In 2015, a U.S. federal court awarded damages to his family after determining that Kim had likely died in a North Korean prison camp after being abducted from China by North Korean operatives who regarded Kim's activities as a threat to the regime.
An Myeong-jin is a former North Korean agent and a defector.
