Text of report in English by Japan’s largest news agency Kyodo
Tokyo, April 4: Japan confirmed on Friday North Korea’s jamming of a Japanese radio programme containing messages for any surviving Japanese victims of Pyongyang’s past abductions and will report it to the International Telecommunication Union on Saturday, the communications ministry said.
North Korea was confirmed jamming the programme “Shiokaze” with radio waves on the same frequency between 5.25 a.m. and 6.07 a.m. Friday, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
It is the fourth time North Korea has jammed the programme after once in March last year and twice in November.
The interference is a violation of the ITU’s radio-frequency transmission rules and thus will be reported to the Geneva-based UN body, the ministry said.
“Shiokaze” was launched in March last year to send messages from family members of people who were possibly abducted by Pyongyang and are still residing in the country, for 30 minutes from 5.30 a.m. daily in Japanese, Korean, Chinese and English.
(Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 1414 gmt 4 Apr 08 via BBC Monitoring)
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