Abe says Asahi stories on comfort women damaged Japan's image abroad
TOKYO —
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says that the Asahi Shimbun’s decades-old articles on wartime atrocities based on an account later found to be fictitious, had damaged Japan’s image abroad.
Speaking in the House of Representatives on Friday, Abe said the stories slandered Japan and he called for issue to be studied based on ducmented facts, TV Asahi reported.
Last month, the Asahi apologized, with its president pledging to restore his organization’s credibility.
The Asahi articles were published in the 1980s and 1990s and based on a Japanese man’s account - later found to be false - that described women on the Korean island of Jeju being forcibly recruited to work in Japanese wartime military brothels.
Those retractions, decades after scholars first raised doubts about the man’s account and years after Asahi itself said it could not be confirmed, set off a firestorm of criticism.
The issue of “comfort women”, as those forced to work in the brothels are known, has a flash point in Japan’s ties with South Korea and a red-flag topic for Japanese conservatives.
A landmark 1993 apology by then-chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono acknowledged Japanese authorities’ involvement in coercing women, many Korean, to work in the brothels.
But many Japanese conservatives including Abe say there is no proof of direct state involvement in kidnapping the women.
Japan Today/Reuters
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0
Simon Foston
It must be nice for him to be able to criticise people who are even more of an embarrassment to Japan than he is.
Of course not. The wartime authorities weren't that stupid. Almost, but not quite.
7
hackney
I used to work with a Japanese colleague who, when the topic of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima came up, broke into tears and said that his best friend had died in the bombing. I realised later that it was impossible as he couldn't even have been born at the time. I didn't conclude from this man's deception that the bombing of Hiroshima hadn't taken place. The same thing is happening here. One man has misled people with his story about comfort women, but it doesn't negate all the other thousands of pieces of evidence ( and I mean 'thousands')) that exist. Even if half were untrue it would still be a pretty damning indictment of the Japanese military's behaviour.
4
BertieWooster
I don't know what Abe's making all the fuss about. There were atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army that were FAR worse than "comfort women."
3
zichi
PM Abe said there will be no change or additions to the Kono Statement, and it remains as an apology to the suffering of the women in the battlefield brothels.
The evidence of those women and the brothels comes beyond the articles published by Asahi and their retractions don't invalidate all the evidence concerning the Comfort Women. There is evidence of the involvement of the IJM in all aspects of those brothels.
-2
OssanAmerica
Good point. Why don't you bring that up with the South Koreans? You know, the ones who were in the IJA and making use of the Comfort Women.
5
gaijintraveller
And I thought it was Abe's denials that damaged Japan's image abroad, certainly in neighbouring countries.
0
Scrote
Abe isn't interested in the facts, only the narrative as he sees it which is that Japan did nothing wrong during the war. If he's worried about Japan's image abroad he should ask himself why he is being shunned by the leaders of neighbouring countries and try to work out why that is.
0
oikawa
....and japan wonders why nobody accepts their "apologies"
-1
harvey pekar
Nnoooo, Abe and his cabinet poopoo'ing the story damages your image abroad.
What kids should learn, just fess up to what happened, don't say well others did it, too, but sincerely apologize and show youve learned from your mistakes through your actions in the future.
1
alladin
I BELIVE Abe has gotten it all wrong. The person that's really damaging Japan's image is Abe himself. All of his useless tactics and foolish decisions are making Japan to look like a nation that can never be trusted at all. If you ask me, I think it's time for him to step down and let someone else who can do a better job then he is doing take his place.
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