Hong Kyung Eui was once a proud member of Chongryon, the pro-DPRK organization of ethnic Koreans in Japan. The group gave him a sense of identity and belonging in a country where ethnic Koreans have long faced discrimination. 

He first learned of the group decades ago as an undergraduate in Osaka. Japan’s second-largest city is home to more Koreans than any other place in Japan, and Hong soon fell in with Chongryon student circles.

“I did not have any political motivations to join Chongryon, but I was in search of my identity and wanted to learn about my Korean roots,”