A memorial service was held Saturday to remember a prominent anti-Japanese Korean independence fighter, with North Korea‘s Catholic Church also delivering a eulogy to Ahn Jung-geun (1877-1910).
This year marks the 109th anniversary of the death of Ahn, one of Korea’s most honored independence fighters who assassinated the Korean Peninsula‘s first Japanese governor-general, Hirobumi Ito, in Harbin, China, in October 1909.
Korean independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun (Yonhap)
The assassination was a watershed moment in Japan’s 36 years of colonial rule of Korea that began in 1910. Ahn was executed at a Japanese prison in China on March 26, 1910.
During the memorial service, Catholic priest Ham Sei-ung said Ahn‘s “spirit of independence and peace is a symbol that connects 80 million people in South and North Korea.”
In the eulogy, North Korea’s Choson Catholic Association hailed Ahn as a hero that could bring “unification, peace and prosperity” to the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)
