Media Abuzz Over Asahi Retraction on ‘Comfort Women’

• By
• Jun Hongo

Japan’s newspapers usually refrain from reporting on each other’s activities, but this week media outlets are abuzz over a retraction issued Tuesday by the Asahi newspaper over reporting on World War II “comfort women.”

The Asahi retracted articles that cited testimony by author Seiji Yoshida, who said he had taken part in abducting 200 women on Jeju Island during the war. The women were forced to become “comfort women,” or workers at sex brothels for the Imperial Japanese Army, according to his testimony.

The Asahi said it first published Mr. Yoshida’s story in September 1982 and mentioned him in at least 16 articles through the 1990s. But it said his stories couldn’t be confirmed.

“We have judged that Mr. Yoshida’s statement, in which he said that he took comfort women by force from Jeju Island, was fake, and we retract the article,” wrote the left-leaning daily, which has second-largest circulation in the country. “At the time we could not figure out that the statement was fake.”

The Asahi said Mr. Yoshida, who wrote two memoirs, died in 2000. In 1997, he told the paper over the phone that his books were based on facts and what he experienced, according to the Asahi.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had been critical of Asahi’s series of reports, calling Mr. Yoshida a “crook” during a debate at the Japan National Press Center in November 2012, shortly before Mr. Abe started his second stint as prime minister. The comfort-women issue on comfort women expanded and spread across the country “because of the inaccurate reporting by Asahi,” Mr. Abe said.

The Asahi’s review of its reporting took up two full pages of Tuesday’s paper and an additional two full pages Wednesday. While retracting the articles citing Mr. Yoshida, the paper said there was solid evidence to show that the kidnapping of women by the Imperial Japanese Army took place in other parts of Asia.

The Japanese government apologized in 1993 to Asian women forced to serve soldiers sexually. The apology, known as the Kono Statement, says the women “in many cases … were recruited against their own will, through coaxing coercion, etc.,” and “lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.” Mr. Abe has said he will uphold the statement.

Conservatives in Japan have questioned the Kono statement, and they were quick to claim vindication in the Asahi’s retraction. The conservative Sankei newspaper said the Asahi should issue an official apology over what the Sankei called “groundless and inaccurate” articles. The Sankei also criticized the Asahi for the tardiness of its response.

The Yomiuri Shimbun, which has the largest circulation in Japan, touched on the impact it said the Asahi’s erroneous reports had in amplifying diplomatic tensions between Tokyo and Seoul. The Yomiuri referred to a 1996 United Nations report that said “the practice of ‘comfort women’ should be considered a clear case of sexual slavery and a slavery-like practice.” Conservatives in Japan have disputed that terminology.

In the years after the Asahi’s now-retracted articles on Mr. Yoshida, an “incorrect understanding of history spread across the world,” the Yomiuri said.

For the latest news and analysis, follow @WSJAsia