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Post by Admin on Oct 2, 2019 7:16:57 GMT
Uncomfortable findings Lee addressed some disinformation surrounding forced labor. For example, photographs that claim to show a Korean forced laborer that have appeared in Korean textbooks and even in giant advertising spaces in New York’s Times Square, alleging Korean victimhood, have actually been shown to depict Japanese miners, he noted. However, in his briefing to foreign reporters, Lee focused in on the most emotive issue dividing Korea from Japan. The widespread belief in South Korea is that some 200,000 sex slaves, predominantly Korean, were kidnapped by and for the use of the Japanese armed forces. Lee does not deny the existence of the “comfort women” system, nor that it was created for Japanese troops. He does, however, challenge virtually everything else about it, citing research into institutional and judicial records that, he claims, have been ignored by other Korean researchers. In terms of numbers, he called 200,000 “a groundless and manufactured figure … no one has been able to prove this.” While other researchers cite numbers of 20,000-40,000, Lee has a radically lower estimate, of up to 7,000. He believes that many women were, in fact, Japanese or Korean prostitutes laboring in brothels near Japanese military bases. When the official “comfort women” system was promulgated by Tokyo in 1937, a number of these brothels were converted to “comfort stations.” He also disputes the “sex slave” narrative, stating that comfort women were contracted sex workers – a profession legal in the Japanese Empire. They enjoyed some freedom of movement and were paid. “’Sex slave’ is very political terminology,” he said. “We found operational rules and regulations for comfort stations … these rules were adhered to and many women from Korea and Japan were able to save up for their lives after service.” As for kidnappings by Japanese troops, he offered “a different notion of the recruitment process than we are accustomed to.” Lee’s research indicates that many of the comfort women were, in fact, poor peasant girls sold to civilian human traffickers. “Parents or guardians had to sign an agreement to allow girls to work for brothels,” he said. When “pimps went to low-income and remote areas with large sums,” parents, who “could not afford three meals a day” literally sold their daughters on contracts. As for oral accounts by aging survivors of the system, “we cannot say I did not listen, but we need to be more objective,” he said. “With witness accounts, we need to look at their representativeness in terms of the overall group: Any historian has to be a bit skeptical about human accounts – you cannot be sure of them, and they change.” Even so, he conceded that the system’s “crude face of humanity” could be a truly beastly process. “Women cried and tried to defy this, and some were beaten and dragged by the pimps,” he said. “But some went willingly to get out of poverty. This is the reality.”
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Post by Admin on Oct 2, 2019 18:12:15 GMT
A perilous path The book’s reception has been largely positive he said. “I believe many Koreans are taking this as a positive sign – a new perspective on history, a new interpretation, a new Galileo or Copernicus,” Lee said. “However, a lot of social and political forces have been coming together and slowly criticizing the book.” Still, it is a risky path he is walking. South Korea has powerful defamation laws which have already been deployed: academics have been fined and even sentenced to jail for questioning the “comfort women” narrative. The Korea Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, an NGO that advocates for comfort women, is mulling a response. “We are discussing on how we would deal with Lee Young-hoon’s book,” Kim Hae-sel, a staffer at the group, told Asia Times. But not all are so measured in their opposition. Lee has been assaulted, been accused of using “violence of words” and been compared to a Holocaust denier. His literary charge has been met with cannonades from both political and media circles. Cho Kuk, Korea’s controversial, newly appointed Justice Minister – now the most high-profile figure in the Moon administration – coined the most emotive terms possible to attack those who supported the book: “I do not know what to call the scholars, who openly make these claims, and some politicians and journalists, who support the claims, anything else than pro-Japanese collaborators,” he wrote on social media. Lee’s book “… shows views based on distorted history are becoming more familiar to the public in the name of alternative historical perspectives,” The Korea Times thundered in an editorial. “We need to take stern action against this because they were created only to serve the needs of unrepentant Japanese politicians and right-wing groups. “There is no need to debate the facts concerning the details of a book or statements representing Japan, not to mention the eyes of the far right … we need to tell them and make them fear how their ‘pro-Japanese acts’ that know no shame will go down in history,” the left-leaning Kyunghyang Shinmun editorialized, accusing one of Lee’s co-authors of being in league with Japan’s far right. But Lee is not backing down. “Most of the criticism was emotional,” he said. “There has yet to be any serious academic criticism.”
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Post by Admin on Nov 6, 2019 21:19:15 GMT
The leaders of South Korea and Japan have had talks for the first time in over a year in an attempt to resolve a long-running dispute. President Moon Jae-in and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe briefly met at the Asean summit of Asian nations in Bangkok, Thailand. A bitter row over wartime compensation escalated recently. In August, Japan removed South Korea from its list of trusted trade partners. Immediately, South Korea retaliated by ending its intelligence-sharing pact with Japan. At the heart of the dispute are the "comfort women" of Japan. Tens of thousands of Korean women were forced to work in brothels for Japanese soldiers during World War Two. South Koreans want reparations but Japan considers the issue settled. It has apologised or acknowledged its responsibility for wartime sex slaves before - most recently in 2015 when the country also promised to set up a 1bn yen ($9.5m, £7.9m) fund to assist the victims. It has however resisted giving greater compensation, arguing that the dispute was settled in 1965 when diplomatic ties were normalised between the two countries and more than $800m in economic aid and loans was given to South Korea. But critics argue the victims were never consulted. A dozen surviving "comfort women" demand a direct apology and compensation from the Japanese government.
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Post by Admin on Jun 25, 2020 2:12:44 GMT
A woman running a shelter for South Korean victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery has been found dead in her home, police said Sunday, amid a corruption probe involving the facility. Prosecutors are investigating claims that the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance activist group misused funds meant for the so-called “comfort women” – a euphemism for the country’s World War II sex slaves. The 60-year-old woman was believed to have taken her own life, police said. “She came home by herself and the door was locked,” police told AFP without giving the woman’s name. Officers said they did not believe anyone else was involved in her death. The reason for her death was not known, but the activist group said she had been struggling with the ongoing investigation and a raid of the shelter by prosecutors last month. “She said she felt as if her entire life was being denied,” it said in a statement. The plight of comfort women has been a thorny issue between Seoul and Tokyo for decades and the activist group had campaigned for compensation from Japan. Last month Lee Yong-soo, one prominent victim, accused the group and its former leader of exploiting comfort women to collect government funds and public donations. Lee said little money had been spent on their cause, prompting an investigation by prosecutors. The probe includes allegations that the former leader, Yoon Mee-hyang, embezzled funds to buy apartments and to pay for her daughter’s tuition in the United States. Yoon – who left the group after winning a parliamentary seat in April – has denied all the allegations but apologised for “banking errors”.
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Post by Admin on Jul 10, 2020 21:27:12 GMT
South Korea has been left in shock after the mayor of Seoul apparently killed himself amid allegations of sexual harassment.
Park Won-soon, an activist and lawyer who had led the capital for 10 years, was discovered dead after a search party involving hundreds of officers was launched by police. A fire brigade search dog located Park’s body in a wooded area on Mount Bukak in central Seoul one minute after midnight local time (1601 BST) on Friday.]
A police spokesman said an investigation was being conducted into the cause of his death, but foul play had been ruled out.
A letter was discovered in his office that read: “I apologise to everyone and thank all those who were with me in my life. I am sorry to my family to whom I only brought pain. Cremate me and spread the ashes over the graves of my parents. Everyone, goodbye.”
The 64-year-old was found dead seven hours after his daughter reported him missing on Thursday afternoon. She told police Park had made remarks hinting at killing himself and that he left his home at about 11am on Thursday.
His body was moved to the Seoul National University hospital and hundreds of politicians had visited the mourning altar by Friday afternoon.
Park’s death came two days after a former secretary filed a criminal complaint with police alleging he had sexually harassed her. According to police, the former secretary and her lawyer visited a police precinct on Wednesday where she gave her testimony until the early hours of Thursday.
South Korean media reported the woman alleged Park repeatedly sexually harassed her after she began working for him in 2017.
A representative of Park’s family issued a statement on their behalf saying it was time to let him go and urging people to avoid spreading “groundless statements”.
“If acts of defaming him continue irrespective of the truth, we will sternly respond with legal action,” said Moon Mi-ran, who formerly served as deputy mayor under Park.
Many residents of Seoul, a city of nearly 10 million people, expressed shock over the sudden death of the women’s rights advocate, whom many saw as a potential presidential candidate. The role of mayor in the capital is considered to be the second most powerful position in the country after the president.
“I feel sorry, but apart from that there needed to be a clear explanation on the sexual harassment,” said Jeon Sung-jae, an office worker.
Feminist groups have said that despite his sudden death, an investigation into the sexual harassment allegation should be carried out. The head of Korean National Women’s Solidarity, Han Mi-Kyung, said: “If there is a link between Park’s death and the allegation of sexual harassment, Park should have made his position clear during his lifetime. We have seen that there is a dark side even for prominent figures at the forefront of social change. We need to try much harder to change that.”
A criminal case involving the mayor is likely to be closed due to his death, as is usual under the South Korean legal system.
The vice-mayor for administrative affairs, Seo Jeong-hyup, said Parkwould receive a mayoral funeral organised by the city lasting five days, two days longer than the traditional Korean funeral. Seo will serve as acting mayor until a byelection scheduled for April 2021.
There has been a number of sexual abuse cases in recent years in South Korea, including those involving former the former South Chungcheong governor Ahn Hee-jung and the former Busan mayor Oh Keo-don.
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