Japan Press Weekly

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2015 July 8 - 14 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Memorial service for Chinese victims of forced labor held at World Heritage-listed Miike coal mine

A memorial ceremony for 44 Chinese victims of wartime forced labor in Japan took place on July 12, with 70 people participating, at the Mitsui Miike Coal Mine in Fukuoka’s Omuta City, one of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution sites which recently gained UNESCO World Heritage status.

Local organizations of the Japan-China Friendship Association (chairman Nagao Mitsuyuki) in Fukuoka Prefecture have hosted this annual event in front of a memorial statue since the statue was constructed at the former Miyaura Pit of the Miike Coal Mine in 2013.

In this year’s ceremony, Ichibangase Muneyuki, chair of the Fukuoka prefectural Japan-China Friendship Association, criticized the Japanese government and coal mining companies, including Mitsui Mining Co., LTD. (currently Nippon Coke & Engineering Company), for denying the fact that Chinese workers were forcibly brought to coal mines in Japan as slave labor during WWII and for refusing to offer an apology and compensation to those affected.

Hashizumi Kazuo, who heads the Japanese Communist Party Omuta City Assembly members’ group, said, “While intending to ignore Japan’s past war of aggression, the Abe government is pushing forward with its attempt to again turn Japan into a war-fighting nation. To scrap PM Abe’s war bills is a mission entrusted to us by those victimized under Japan’s forced labor policies.”

A 25-year-old Chinese student at Kurume University graduate school said, “Thanks to people working for friendly relations between the two nations, I can study in Japan. I want to contribute to increasing mutual understanding of our two nations’ interrelated history.”

In the ceremony, a message from Chinese Consul General to Fukuoka Li Tianran was read out.