Japanese liberator Fumiaki Yamada, held by Red Chinese authorities after being captured in Shanghai, has put the conscience of Japan on trial with a weighty petition:
The leader of a Japanese nongovernmental organization being held by Chinese authorities in Shanghai called on Japanese Consulate officials Tuesday to urge Beijing not to repatriate the North Koreans who were detained with him, Japanese officials said.[...]
According to Foreign Ministry officials, Yamada told the consulate staff that the North Koreans who were detained with him were all relatives of North Koreans who left Japan under a 1959-1984 repatriation program, and that they could be executed if they are repatriated. He asked the officials to work with the South Korean government to call on China to consider the matter from a humanitarian viewpoint, they said.
[...]
The NGO's members visited the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, urging it to demand that China release the detainees and allow the North Korean escapees to depart for their desired destination. The North Koreans all want to go to South Korea, according to the group.
It's difficult not to have seen a tearjerker story in the last few years about Korean families separated since the early '50s, particularly with well-publicized familial exchanges between the two Koreas. Those are, unfortunately, photo-op high points from the otherwise feckless Sunshine policies of Kim Dae Jung; North Korea remains a gigantic prison run by a Stalinist lunatic. Escape from the DPRK nightmare is all but impossible for millions of people. South Korea and Japan are generally timid and ambivalent on the increasingly pressing issue of refugees when they're not downright xenophobic - South Korea particularly - so the task inevitably falls to activists like Mr. Yamada.
Since this story broke on Monday, Mr. Yamada hasn't been touched by the Chinese and the momentum of the exchange - as described by reports - seems to be moving towards the release of Yamada and his NGO partners. Japanese authorities could nevertheless make a silent tragedy out of this by turning their back on the ill-represented, detained North Koreans.