Tokyo yesterday sought to downplay comments made by the new head of national broadcaster NHK that the Japanese Imperial Army’s system of wartime sex slavery was not unique to Japan.
“Our understanding is that [NHK] chairman Momii made the comment as an individual,” not as NHK head, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.
Suga said that Abe, in line with his predecessors, has expressed sympathy to the Asian women forced to provide sexual services for Japanese soldiers and “there is nothing more to add to that.”
Momii on Saturday said that the practice of forcibly drafting women into military brothels during World War II was “common in any country at war” and criticized South Korea for dredging up a compensation issue that had been settled by a bilateral peace treaty.
“Can we say there were none in Germany or France? It was everywhere in Europe,” he told an inaugural press conference, according to local media reports.
Momii’s comments drew an angry response from South Korean officials and former victims. The country’s ruling and opposition parties demanded an apology from Japan and Momii’s resignation.
Kang Il-chul, 87, who said she was abducted by Japanese soldiers and forced into sex slavery at 15, called his comments “absurd.”
The remarks came a day before the death in Seoul of Hwang Kum-ja, aged 90, leaving just 55 former South Korean “comfort women” alive.
“Japan must bear in mind that it will forever go down in history as an unapologetic perpetrator when all the victims pass away,” said Hwang Woo-yea, chairman of South Korea’s Saenuri Party.
Momii, 70, has since apologized for the comments, which he described as a personal opinion.
“Even as a personal opinion I shouldn’t have said it. It was extremely inappropriate,” he said, according to the Mainichi Shimbun. “I had never been [speaking] in such a place before, it is my fault for not grasping the rules.”
The chairman’s remarks have raised concerns about a possible right-leaning shift by the country’s public broadcaster, which has reportedly faced criticism from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s nationalist government for having programs that were too liberal.
Abe is thought to be pushing a more nationalist agenda since taking office in 2012 and NHK’s recent appointments were seen reflecting his ideological bias.
Although numbers vary, historians say as many as 200,000 Asian women — mostly Korean, but also Taiwanese, Chinese and from several Southeast Asian countries — were forced into Japan’s brothels.
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