South Korean women forced into wartime sexual slavery held their 1,000th weekly protest outside Japan’s embassy yesterday, demanding compensation and an apology from Tokyo as they have since 1992.
“Apologize!” shouted five women in their 80s or 90s and an estimated 500 supporters, waving banners reading “Compensate” and “Admit the war crime.”
Demonstrators campaigning to publicize World War II crimes braved near-freezing temperatures to unveil a “peace monument” across the street from the mission, despite protests from the Japanese government over the statue.
Photo: AFP
The five former sex slaves known euphemistically as “comfort women” hugged the replica of a teenage Korean girl in traditional costume.
“Young girls were dragged to other countries as slaves of the Japanese military,” said a frail Kim Bok-dong, 85. “I demand that the ambassador of Japan tell the Japanese government to apologize before we all die.”
The oldest of the Korean former “comfort women” died earlier this month aged 94 and another aged 87 died on Tuesday, leaving just 63 survivors out of 234 who had registered with the Seoul government.
In a rare move, a North Korean association for former comfort women sent a letter of support.
“The Wednesday demonstration that has lasted for 20 years is an unbearable blaze of anger against sexual slavery crimes committed by Japan that have trampled on national pride,” the group said in a faxed message.
Historians say that during World War II, about 200,000 women from Taiwan, Korea, China, the Philippines and other countries were drafted to work in Japanese military brothels.
The issue came to widespread notice in the early 1990s after some victims found the courage to go public.
Japan has apologized for the military’s crimes against the women, but denies official responsibility for running the brothels. It has rejected South Korea’s proposal of bilateral talks about the women’s demands.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it was inexcusable that the issue was still not settled.
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
Cozy knits, sparkly bobbles and Santa hats were all the canine rage on Sunday, as hundreds of sausage dogs and their owners converged on central London for an annual parade and get-together. The dachshunds’ gathering in London’s Hyde Park came after a previous “Sausage Walk” planned for Halloween had to be postponed, because it had become so popular organizers needed to apply for an events licence. “It was going to be too much fun so they canceled it,” laughed Nicky Bailey, the owner of three sausage dogs: Una and her two 19-week-old puppies Ember and Finnegan, wearing matching red coats and silver
RSS