The relatives of Taiwanese conscripted into the Japanese military plan to file a lawsuit in Japan demanding that their relatives' names be removed from the roster at the controversial Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, according to Japanese newspaper reports.
The Japanese-language Mainichi Shimbun reported on Wednesday that seven relatives of men who served in the Japanese military, including a Taiwanese man conscripted during World War II, were set to file a suit on Aug. 11 at the Osaka District Court.
Damages sought
Meanwhile, the English-language Japan Times reported that 10 relatives of Taiwanese forced into the Japanese Imperial Army when Taiwan was a Japanese colony were filing a suit demanding that their relatives' names be removed and that the government pay damages for releasing the names to the shrine.
It was not immediately clear if the two papers were referring to the same lawsuit.
According to lawyers who represent the relatives of the Taiwanese conscripts, this will be the first time that Yasukuni has been directly sued in an effort to remove names from its collective enshrinement of war dead, the Japan Times said.
`Natural' request
"For those who are dissatisfied with the fact that their relatives' souls are worshipped at Yasukuni shrine, it is natural to demand that their souls be removed," a lawyer was quoted as saying by the Mainichi Shimbun.
Yasukuni shrine was established in 1869 during the Meiji Restoration as part of the official state religion of Shintoism. It was forced to become a private religious institution by the US occupation authorities after World War II, and now receives all of its funding from private sources.
Hundreds of Taiwanese served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, the bulk of whom were conscripts.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods