North Koreans protest against crackdown in Tokyo

TOKYO, Mar 3 (Reuters) Thousands of pro-Pyongyang Koreans living in Japan rallied at a Tokyo park today against a crackdown on their activities since North Korea's nuclear and missile tests last year.

The rally, followed by a two-hour march around central Tokyo, came after North Korea's foreign ministry last month lambasted the searches as brutal suppression.

The pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), which organised the gathering, describes the searches into its offices as harassment.

Japan says the raids that have led to several arrests, are because people in group are not complying with accounting and trade laws amid suspicions that North Korean resident may be helping to finance Pyongyang's weapons programmes.

An official at the group said about 7,000 members took part in the demonstration. Newspapers put the figure at 3,000-5,000.

Kyodo news agency said about 1,500 police officers stood guard by the rally as right-wing groups taunted the demonstrators with anti-North Korean slogans.

There were no reports of violence.

Protesters also called on Japan to lift a ban on visits by a North Korean ferry, imposed after Pyongyang test-fired a barrage of missiles last July.

The ferry, used by ethnic North Korean residents of Japan to visit relatives in the North, was long suspected of involvement in transporting parts for North Korea's missile programmes.

About 600,000 ethnic Koreans live in Japan, many of them descended from the 2 million Koreans brought to Japan as forced labour during Tokyo's 1910-1945 colonisation of the peninsula.

Of those, about 80,000 are pro-North, while 220,000 support South Korea. The rest are neutral.

REUTERS SP PM1540