The book, consisting of eight short stories, was priced at 920 yen (8.7 dollars) Japan apologized again on Monday for the suffering of women who served as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II, a day after comments by a cabinet minister drew an angry reaction in South Korea. Murayama, who as prime minister issued an apology in 1995 for Japan’s wartime aggression, said that it was time for Tokyo to finally resolve the issue of the so-called “comfort women” who were drafted into military brothels.
But the term “comfort women” is set to disappear from many government-approved history textbooks for junior high schools from next year, H片 Japanese media have reported. Jun Byung-hun, a spokesman for South Korea’s ruling Uri Party, said on Sunday. Japan committed indescribable wrongdoings by forcing women from South Korea and elsewhere to serve as sex slaves to its wartime troops, former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama said yesterday.
In April 2002, Kishi sold some 20,500 copies of the 144-page book, entitled “Misshitsu (Honey Room)” and marketed as for adults only. Ties between Japan and South Korea have been strained by a range of feuds, including one over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s annual visits to a Tokyo shrine for the war dead which Seoul, like China, sees as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Eminent academics and critics had testified that it was not a matter for the state to judge obscenity and restricting expression was unconstitutional.
Kishi immediately appealed in the Tokyo High Court. The two sides have been unable to set a date for a regular summit meeting between Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, which they had agreed to hold by the end of June. In addition to a territorial row over two tiny islands, many South Koreans feel Japan has not squarely faced its wartime past, including the brutal 1910-1945 rule of the Korean peninsula. Japan’s top government spokesman sought to contain any further damage, saying Tokyo was sorry for the sex slaves.
Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama was quoted by media over the weekend as saying the term “comfort women,” a euphemism for the sex slaves, did not exist during the war and it was good the term had disappeared from school textbooks Kishi’s defence counsel had argued that an article in Japan’s penal code, which prohibits the sale and distribution of obscene literature, violated the constitution which guarantees freedom of expression. In a bid to narrow the gap over history, the two governments launched a joint study four years ago, but a report on its results issued on Friday showed the two sides were sharply at odds on many subjects, including the sex slaves issue.
Two people — the cartoonist and the chief editor of the comic book — have been fined 500,000 yen (4,700 dollars) each. A comic book which depicts genitalia and 色情 sexual acts in two thirds of its content was ruled obscene in a landmark court case which has sparked a debate on freedom of expression in Japan.