| Japanese officials order removal of war memorial for Korean labourers Petitions complained that monument erected by a friendship society in a public park in Gunma prefecture was anti-Japanese Justin McCurry in Tokyo theguardian.com, Wednesday 23 July 2014 20.22 AEST
Local authorities in Japan have demanded the removal of a monument in memory of the tens of thousands of labourers forcibly recruited from the Korean peninsula during the second world war. [...] Many of the 600,000 ethnic Koreans living in Japan are the descendants of labourers who remained in the country after its defeat in 1945. | Commemorating the use of forced labour is causing similar controversy in other parts of Japan. In Nagasaki, a row has erupted over a proposed monument to Korean victims of the atomic bombing ... The controversies are being played out against a rise in anti-Korean sentiment in Japan, fuelled by disputes between Tokyo and Seoul over territory and Japan's conduct during its 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula. The UN human rights committee has called on Japan to do more to clamp down on hate speech directed at Koreans during demonstrations in Tokyo and other cities. The committee, which noted that there were more than 360 such demonstrations and speeches last year, mainly in Korean neighbourhoods in Tokyo, is expected to make recommendations to Japan on Wednesday, possibly including the introduction of legislation against hate speech. ... officials from both countries met in Seoul to discuss Japan's use of as many as 200,000 mainly Korean and Chinese women as sex slaves before and during the war. Japan recently ruled out a revision to a 1993 official apology... The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is one of several prominent conservative politicians who have questioned claims that the imperial Japanese army coerced the women – euphemistically referred to as comfort women – into working in frontline brothels. Source - The Guardian - here. |
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COMMENT
It's supposed to be commemorative but it's not merely commemorative; it's a political statement also -- even if that's not the intention.
Political or commemorative, it shouldn't matter.
But it's obviously rocking the boat over in Japan.
Even so, the anti 'hate speech' legislation proposed by the UN is legislation to silence disapproval.
But isn't that kind of like trying to legislate to produce an altered perception of reality?
