Right-wing group runs ad in US daily denying sex slaves

A group of right-wing Japanese extremists has run an ad in a U.S. newspaper denying that their government forced Korean women to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese imperial army during World War II.

The Committee for Historical Facts ran the ad titled “Yes, We Remember the Facts” in the Sunday edition of the Star Ledger, a daily based in Palisades Park, New Jersey where the Comfort Women Memorial is located. The group is led by Yoshiko Sakurai, an ultra right-wing journalist known for her nationalistic views. Japan’s main opposition Liberal Democratic Party, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and 39 independent lawmakers were also reportedly involved in the publishing of the ad.

The ad is in the form of a response to the ad on the sex slaves titled “Do You Remember?” that Korean singer Kim Jang-hoon and professor Seo Kyoung-duk recently ran in New York`s Times Square and in the New York Times.

In the ad placed by the Japanese group, the committee claimed no documents show that the Japanese imperial government or military were involved in the forced mobilization of wartime sex slaves. The “comfort women,” Japan`s euphemism for the sex slaves, were “voluntary prostitutes” and Tokyo banned such prostitution and cracked down on civilian brokers, it added. A photo was also shown of a Japanese military document dated March 4, 1938, and claimed to be evidence. The ad said, “Prostitutes exist everywhere. They were paid even more than some generals.”

The Japanese group blasted Korea’s claim that Japan committed the biggest human trafficking crime of the 20th century as “intentional” defamation of the Japanese army. The “evidence” given in the ad was the same as that presented by Japanese politicians and government officials in May, when they demanded that the Comfort Women Memorial be removed.

witness@donga.com