He was there, in court most of the time, when the human rights of Korean residents in Japan were at issue -- denial of pension rights, forced fingerprinting of foreign residents for immigration registration, and blocked promotions of Korean nationals working for local governments. He also served in a lawsuit filed by a Korean woman forced to labor as a "comfort woman" for the Imperial Japanese armed forces.
On Dec. 28, Mr. Kim Kyong Duk died of stomach cancer. He was 56. Probably because reports of his death came at yearend, newspapers gave it only minor coverage. Still, he will be remembered as a pioneer who became the first foreign national in postwar Japan to be admitted to the Supreme Court's Legal Training and Research Institute to become a lawyer.
Mr. Kim, who was born in Wakayama as a second-generation Korean resident, was hardly an activist early on. Rather, he hid his nationality and tried to shed things Korean to get accepted into Japanese society. He changed, however, after graduating from the law school at Waseda University. Because of his nationality, he was not hired by any company. The experience prompted him to discard his Japanese name in favor of the Korean one.