Representatives of a South Korean civic group on Monday paid their respects to a revered Korean independence hero who assassinated a prominent Japanese colonial leader more than a century ago in China.

Monday marks the 106th anniversary of the assassination of the Korean Peninsula's first Japanese governor-general, Hirobumi Ito, by Korean independence hero Ahn Jung-geun at a railway station in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin.

The assassination was a watershed moment in Japan's 36-year colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910. Ahn was executed at a Japanese prison in China on March 26, 1910.

Early last year, China opened a memorial hall honoring Ahn at the Harbin railway station, where Ito was killed.

About 40 members of a South Korean civic group dedicated to honoring Ahn's patriotic works visited the memorial hall in Harbin to pay tribute to him.

"Let's make efforts to bear the sacrifice of Martyr Ahn, a wise man ahead of the times who advocated harmony and peace in the world and the region, in our mind," Yoon Won-il, deputy head of the group, told at the memorial ceremony.

Ahn is viewed in both Korea and China as a symbol of the fight against Japan's Imperial Army, but Japanese officials have drawn criticism by describing him as a terrorist. (Yonhap)