Japan Press Weekly

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2014 October 15 - 21 [JCP]

This week’s JCP international activity

South Korean daily interviews Shii about ‘comfort women’ issue

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo recently talked about the JCP position on Japan’s wartime “comfort women” issue in a telephone interview with the Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean daily newspaper with the largest circulation in that country. The interview was published on October 16.

Shii said, “It is the most shameful conduct to conceal facts and try to rewrite history.” He sharply criticized some Japanese rightists’ moves to revise the 1993 statement issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei, which recognizes the Imperial Japanese Army’s involvement in the wartime sexual slavery system.

Citing recent opinion polls in Japan showing that a majority of the general public are opposed to undermining the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution as well as enabling Japan to use the collective self-defense right, Shii said, “The public opposition to the Abe government’s rightist policies is gaining momentum.”

The JCP chair stressed that although some right-wingers insist that recognizing Japan’s responsibility for the comfort women issue would hurt Japanese people’s pride, refusing to accept the blame will be more shameful.


Past related article:
> Group formed to support blackmailed university regarding ‘comfort women’ Asahi reports [October 1, 2 & 7, 2014]