Song For Megumi

Nearly two years ago, I passed along a story about Megumi Yokota and a new movie from Safari Media titled, "Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story".

I have kept any eye on the story, since Japan refuses to provide aid to North Korea in return for nuclear disarmament until progress is made on this issue and more information on those abducted is revealed.

I don't think many people even know Megumi's story, so the article I read today is good news.

Moved by the story of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese schoolgirl kidnapped by North Korean secret agents three decades ago, folk singer Noel Paul Stookey has penned a song he hopes will help bring her home.

The saga of Japanese kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies is a highly emotive topic in Japan but has been little known overseas until recently.

…

North Korea says Megumi, kidnapped on her way home from school in 1977 at the age of 13, hanged herself in 1994.

But her parents believe she is alive and Tokyo wants better proof of her fate.

"When I read what had been done to this young girl and the emotional result to her family, I decided to do what folk music has always done — put a face on the pain," Stookey, a member of folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, said at a news conference in Tokyo ahead of Wednesday's release of "Song for Megumi."

Kudos to Noel for stepping up and helping to raise awareness about Megumi. I, for one, will be grabbing this one.

You can watch a clip from Japanese TV about the new song. Of course, if you don't speak or understand Japanese, you won't understand much of it, but at least you get to hear clips of the song.