http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/632419.html
One Zainichi Korean filed a lawsuit to renounce his South Korean nationality, was denied and is still trying
By Park Hyun-jung, Hankyoreh 21 staff reporter
His father had turned his back on the world. It all happened quite
suddenly. Then, on his way to file a death notice for that father, the
twelve-year-old boy found himself facing a situation he never saw
coming: he didn’t officially exist. There were no documents at all to
certify his parents’ marriage, or his own birth.
Where did his roots lie?
His grandfather was born over a century ago in Changwon, South
Gyeongsang Province. He traveled to Jiandao, Primorsky Krai, and
Sakhalin in search of work, before finally heading over to Hokkaido. His
long journey ended when he settled down in Japan’s Shimane Prefecture.
There, around 90 years ago, the father was born. The boy’s mother was
also a Korean, having made the voyage to Japan at a very young age. At
the time, Koreans were considered Japanese subjects. It was after World
War II that the country stripped the Koreans and Taiwanese living within
its boundaries of their Japanese citizenship. When filling out
foreigner registration documents, the father gave his nationality as
“Chosun,” or “Korean.” In the meantime, two governments, in South and
North, were established on the Korean Peninsula.
In 1965, the military government in Seoul normalized relations with
Tokyo. The boy turned eight that year. His father, now working for the
Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan), began listing his nationality
as “South Korean.”
It‘s impossible to raise a son without documents. It took two years, but
the mother finally got the documents in order. The three characters of
the boy’s name were spelled out on the father’s family register: “Ko
Kang-ho.” The boy then had South Korean nationality. He hadn’t wanted
the change; he hadn’t wanted to become Japanese either. When the family
decided to naturalize as Japanese citizens, he was the one who held them
back. Like other Koreans living in foreign lands, he suffered from
identity confusion. He thought that identity was something he recognized
in himself, not something he looked for from a country, be it the
Republic of Korea or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Nationality was just a “symbol.”
Fifty-four years old. Now middle-aged, the son still felt the same. He
decided to speak out about the thoughts he’d had over the years. His
mother was gone by then. In 2011, Kang-ho filed with the Ministry of
Justice to renounce his citizenship. He was forfeiting all rights and
responsibilities as a South Korean. But the government would not accept
the request. By the terms of the Nationality Act, the only people who
can renounce South Korean citizenship are people who have multiple
nationalities or have gained foreign citizenship. An attached
explanation said it was part of an effort to reduce the number of
stateless individuals.
Kang-ho currently lives in Japan as a “Special Permanent Resident”, as a
Zainichi Korean according to the terms of San Francisco Peace Treaty of
1951. If he gave up his South Korean citizenship, he would not be a
citizen of any country. But he was a man who would not back down. He
filed suit with Seoul Administrative Court, asking for the rejection to
be overturned. He argued that it was a violation of basic rights to
allow only people with multiple nationalities to renounce citizenship.
The lawsuit was completely without precedent. In March 2012, the court
in the first trial rejected it, ruling that a person had a right to a
nationality, but not to become stateless. The appeals court reached the
same conclusion. Attorney Lee Seok-tae, who filed the suit on Ko’s
behalf, continued to appeal to the Supreme Court, calling the measures
“a restriction on the freedom to abandon nationality without any
consideration of concrete circumstances, at a time when various basic
rights are being recognized in other countries without regard for
citizenship, such as freedom to relocate.”
According to the European Convention on Nationality, which went into
effect in 2001, people are allowed to renounce citizenship when “there
is a lack of a genuine link between the State Party and a national
habitually residing abroad (Article 7)”. Ko Kang-ho’s case is similar.
But in late 2012, the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal. He had taken
the fight to court and lost.
“Laws reflect the values of that society,” he said. “I didn’t really
expect to win the case.” Why, then? He had questions he wanted to pose
to the Republic of Korea: How did it treat Zainchi Koreans in Japan?
What kind of country is South Korea today? What is its dream for
unification?
[“Both the North and South Korean governments claim Zainichi
Koreans as their own nationals, but it’s only recently that they’ve been
pushing that policy seriously. When you consider that both have long
taken an approach of neglecting their own people, there’s no reason a
Zainichi Korean should belong to either system.” - from a statement by
Ko Kang-ho]
In the heart of Kyoto, Japan’s capital for a thousand years, many
traditional homes can still be found in the narrow alleys around Nijo
Castle, a World Heritage Site where Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa is believed
to have stayed. The house, bearing a nameplate reading “Ko Kang-ho/Lee
Mi-o,” was built about 90 years ago. On Feb. 11, a Hankyoreh reporter
pushed against the wooden slat gate. It let out a knocking sound as it
moved to the side. Beyond the roughly two-meter-wide doorway, a
third-story roof that had not been visible outside suddenly hove into
view. Sunlight shone down on the kitchen through a square hole at its
top: fermented soybean paste, green tea, safflower. On the refrigerator
and the wall by the sink were various pasted memos in Korean and
Japanese. The doorway to the left of the kitchen led up to another door.
In a bookcase next to the kitchen table was a complete collection of
all sixteen volumes in South Korean novelist Pak Kyung-ni’s “Land”
series. Familiar items, in an unfamiliar setting.
“Welcome.” The voice that rang out was high and gentle. This was
Kang-ho’s wife Ri Mi-oh, 55. A doctor of respiratory medicine, she
treats patients with terminal cancer at a hospital in Kobe, a city in
nearby Hyogo Prefecture. The date of the visit happened to be a national
holiday: National Foundation Day, commemorating the accession of
Japan’s first emperor Jimmu. Other holidays include Showa Day, which
honors the birthday of the late emperor Hirohito, and the Emperor’s
Birthday, for current emperor Akihito. Kang-ho, who has run a dental
clinic for over two decades in Otsu, a city in Shiga Prefecture, did not
take the day off for holidays connected with the Japanese imperial
family.
Similar round faces, similar friendly smiles - the couple even had
similar jobs. They almost looked like brother and sister. About ten
years ago, a swollen-faced Ri was recommended to Kang-ho’s clinic by a
friend after a bad tooth diagnosis. The treatment was good, but he
didn’t seem to know much about making money. He didn’t recommend
expensive treatments like implants that aren’t covered by insurance. He
didn’t accept payment from fellow Koreans, and he offered patients some
of his own homegrown vegetables. On Jan. 1 2000, just three months after
they met, they were married. It was a wedding between two foreigners
living in Japan.
Ko Kang-ho knows hardly any Korean. His father hadn’t wanted to send him
to one of the Chosun Korean schools operated by the General Association
of Korean Residents in Japan (pro-North Korea Chongryon). But the boy
with the Korean name didn’t spend much time with Japanese friends
either. Mostly, he just read books and newspapers. He considered going
to university in his father’s country, but the household wasn’t well-off
financially. In 1976, he enrolled in an engineering college to study
ship-making. His plan was to get a job at a South Korean shipyard after
graduating and join the organized labor movement. But caring for his
widowed mother and younger siblings left him unable to study for the six
years after he enrolled. He wondered if there was anything he could do
for the Zainichi Korean community. Finally, he changed course and went
to dental school.
Mi-oh does speak Korean well, as she attended a Chosun school. Her
father was a Korean from Jeju, while her mother was Japanese. Her mother
had been resolute enough to leave home where her father insisted,
“women don’t need to go to university.” Her fateful encounter happened
one day while she was studying at the house of her brother, an exchange
student in Tokyo. In the yard of a friend’s house, she saw a shabby
clapboard home, barely fit for a dog. Inside lived a poor Korean
teenager. This was the young man who would become Mi-oh’s father. The
grandfather objected, but Mi-oh’s mother went ahead with the wedding.
Since they were of two different nationalities, they decided to give
their first child Japanese nationality and their second Chosun
nationality. Mi-oh was the second daughter. Proud and assertive, she had
hopes of leaving Japan someday to live elsewhere. If she left the land
where she was born and raised, maybe, she imagined, she could be free.
Was there something she could do that would let her become
self-sufficient right away, something she could do outside of Japan? A
job where she could help others. She finally settled on becoming a
doctor.
“Chosun” isn’t a recognized nationality. Mi-oh has no passport, and
people without passports have a difficult time traveling from one
country to another. One substitute for a passport is a document from the
Japanese Ministry of Justice permitting “reentry,” which serves as the
necessary identification for border crossing. Any overseas travel
requires at least two or three months to prepare the necessary
documents. But it’s a process that has allowed her to visit the US and
the United Kingdom, although she was unable to travel to Ireland.
Traveling to South Korea is also a tall order. She has to receive a
“travel certificate,” a temporary passport issued by the South Korean
government. It was not until 1996, during the administration of
President Kim Young-sam, that she was able to set foot in the country.
The authorities had permitted her visit after she explained that she
wanted to visit her father’s grave in Jeju Island. After he passed away
in 1991, it had taken four years for his remains to make their way home.
Under the brutal military dictatorship, it was inconceivable for her
relatives in Jeju to try to contact the family. Her father was once a
member of Chongryon, though she claims he was forced out.
In 2010, with the Lee Myung-bak administration in office in South Korea,
Mi-oh and a friend paid a visit to the Toji (“Land” as referred to in
Pak Kyung-ni’s series) Foundation of Culture in Wonju, Gangwon Province.
Stopping in a restaurant during her trip, she saw the Vancouver Winter
Olympics being broadcast on TV. “Kim Yu-na’s performance was so
beautiful,” she recalled. It was her last memory in South Korea. While
Kim Yu-na was going for a second Olympics gold earlier this year, Mi-oh
was being prevented from making another trip. She made two consulate
visits for the necessary procedures, but her efforts were in vain. “The
employee at the consulate told me, ‘You’ve been there ten times now. If
you’ve seen what a good country South Korea is, why don’t you change
your citizenship? All it takes it one procedure and you won’t have to
come here every time anymore,’” she recalled. “And I said, ‘I’m willing
to come to the consulate twenty or thirty times if it means I can go to
South Korea.‘”
Her plight is shared by around 30,000 other people with Chosun
nationality in Japan. Her husband Kang-ho decided that he could not sit
by in silence any longer. It was one of the reasons he gave for wanting
to renounce his South Korean nationality.
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
http://h21.hani.co.kr/arti/special/special_general/36714.html
