Ethnic Korean students in Japan are being targeted for harassment, and in some cases outright violence, following a recent barrage of missile launches by North Korea.

The Japan Network toward Human Rights Legislation for Non-Japanese Nationals and Ethnic Minorities visited the Justice Ministry with Korean school officials in October to call on the government to take concrete action, including sending out a message that it will not tolerate discrimination and stepping up security around Korean schools.

“The framework in which discrimination is directed against Korean schools has been a historical problem since prewar Japan’s colonial rule,” said lawyer Masao Niwa, a joint representative of the group comprised of lawyers and researchers.

North Korea has continued to launch ballistic missiles toward Japan since late September, triggering a flurry of hateful Twitter posts, some demanding that Korean schools, which are affiliated with the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), be shut down.

The citizens group said it had confirmed nine incidents of physical violence and verbal intimidation experienced by students at six Korean schools around the country as of Oct. 8.

A North Korean mid-range ballistic missile flew over Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan on Oct. 4, which prompted the government to activate the J-Alert national early warning system for the first time in five years over a missile launch.

In the evening on the same day, a junior high school student at the Tokyo Korean Junior and Senior High School in the capital’s Kita Ward was confronted by a male passenger while traveling on a train, according to an association of principals of Korean schools in Japan.

The man stomped on the student’s feet and criticized Korean schools for calling for the government’s tuition-free high school program to cover them.

The school filed a report with the police.

The government led by the now-defunct Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) introduced a tuition-waiver program for high schools in fiscal 2010.

But after the Liberal Democratic Party returned to power at the end of 2012, the government decided to exclude Korean schools, citing the unresolved issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea.

On Oct. 5, a teacher and a sixth-grader on their way to the Yokkaichi Korean Elementary and Middle School in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, were verbally threatened by a stranger who demanded they tell North Korea “not to fire missiles.”

School officials referred the matter to the prefectural police and other authorities for advice on how to handle such situations.

Mie Governor Katsuyuki Ichimi called on residents during a Nov. 2 news conference to remain calm, saying that children living in Japan have nothing to do with the missile launches.

The school said teachers still accompany students to and from the nearest train station during their commuting hours.

In an emergency statement issued on Oct. 6, the Japan Network toward Human Rights Legislation for Non-Japanese Nationals and Ethnic Minorities said discrimination had become so rampant that children are afraid to wear traditional Korean uniforms outside their schools.

The group also said it is unacceptable to allow hate crimes in which people are regarded with hostility and excluded on grounds of their race, nationality and other factors.

Niwa said he felt a strong sense of crisis, especially after a recent spate of hate crimes against Korean residents, including an arson case in an ethnic Korean community in the Utoro district of Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, and another arson attack in which a man set a bundle of cardboard ablaze at the Korea International School in Ibaraki, Osaka Prefecture.

An official from the Justice Ministry’s Human Rights Bureau expressed agreement with the group’s sentiment.

On Oct. 20, the bureau said on Twitter: “Posting and scribbling abusive and slanderous comments against other ethnic groups and foreign nationals or harassing them could constitute infringements of human rights.”

It also said the ministry will make strenuous efforts to organize awareness-raising activities and continue human rights counseling services provided at the legal affairs bureaus nationwide.