Japan Press Weekly

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2014 October 22 - 28 [POLITICS]

Yamashita criticizes Cabinet spokesman for trying to distort facts regarding ‘comfort women’

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Yamashita Yoshiki on October 21 at a Diet meeting criticized Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide for trying to deny the fact that the Japanese authorities during WWII were involved in the forcible recruitment of so-called “comfort women”.

In a Cabinet Committee meeting of the House of Councilors on that day, Yamashita asked Suga if the government maintains its position endorsing the 1993 Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei statement which recognized that the Japanese military was involved and used coercion in the comfort women system and apologizes to the victims.

In response, while nodding to Yamashita, Suga expressed his willingness to restore Japan’s reputation by denying the assertion that comfort women were forcibly transported to wartime brothels against their will. Suga’s call for the need to reassess Japan’s bad reputation follows what Prime Minister Abe said at the October 3 meeting of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

Yamashita refuted Suga’s argument by pointing out that the forcible recruiting of comfort women is confirmed by foreign countries’ official documents and Japan’s court judgments.

“While pretending to support the Kono Statement, the government is complaining that to call the comfort women system a sex slavery system is an insult or an inappropriate choice of words. Such insincere behavior will damage international trust in Japan,” Yamashita stressed.

Past related articles
> Yamashita: Abe remarks give away his real intention to revise Kono Statement [October 4, 2014]
> LDP posing a challenge to int’l opinion on ‘comfort women’ issue [October 3, 2014]