Pyongyang, June 2 (KCNA) -- During their colonial rule over Korea, the Japanese imperialists forcibly drafted and kidnapped more than 8.4 million young and middle-aged Koreans and forced medieval slave labor upon them or used them as cannon fodder.

They cooked up various evil laws such as "the National Mobilization Law" and "Ordinance on Labor Conscription", deprived the Koreans of even the elementary freedom and rights of human beings and did not provide them with the minimum working conditions.

The Koreans were compelled to slave labour at construction sites of military establishments, coal mines, mines and construction sites of dams without any labour protection facilities.

The data dating back to 1944-1945 found in Japan show that Koreans were taken to more than 540 construction sites of military facilities in Japan at that time.

The construction sites were a trap of death for them who had to do heavy physical work for 16 to 18 hours a day and 21 hours to the maximum.

At a coal mine in Kyushu of Japan, many Korean boys under the age of 15 toiled and moiled, and tens of them were buried alive at once owing to the cave-in accident.

The Japanese imperialists mercilessly massacred the people who displeased them even a bit, not being content with making them disabled.

During the period from 1940 to 1944, more than 60 000 Koreans lost their lives due to the harsh maltreatment in coal mines of Japan alone.

The Japanese imperialists' forcible drafting of Koreans was a harsh human rights abuse aimed at forcing the murderous slave labor upon them. -0-