South Korea, North Korea, China Strongly Denounced Japan at UN

South-North Korea and China, critiquing Japan`s prime minister Koizumi Junichiro`s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, military sexual slavery during World War II and the distorted history textbooks, urged the Japanese government to fulfill the UN Human Rights Organization`s resolution and recommendations at the 53rd UN Human Rights Committee held in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday.

Yoon Byong-Sae, diplomatic representative in Geneva, urged the Japanese government to correct the errors saying that ``distortion of the history textbooks is a violation of the UN Human Rights Organization`s resolution that defined the military sexual slavery as anti-humanitarian crime.``

North Korean representative Kim Young-Ho also demanded the punishment of the related people arguing that ``sexual slavery during wartime is an anti-humanitarian criminal act, which not only violated the physical freedom of the victims, but also inflicted unbearable physical pain to the victims throughout their lives.``

Chinese representative Pan Guoshiang insisted that ``many problems have been raised because Japan avoids the responsibility for World War II.``

In his response, Japanese representative Yokoda Yozo (Law School, Tokyo University) said that the authorization system of textbooks has nothing to do with the Japanese government and the issue of compensation for the military sexual slavery was settled at the 1965 South Korea-Japan Treaty. He also said that he would make an effort to correct the omission of the issue of the military sexual slavery in the textbooks.

Meanwhile, Cho Shi-Hyun (Law professor at Sungshin Women`s University) and other Korean and Japanese NGO members participated in the committee meeting and demanded the legal compensation for the military sexual slavery and the abolition of the Japan`s official certification and sanction system.