A campaign organized by Filipino veterans is underway urging San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to withdrawal his invitation to the Mayor of Osaka, Japan following his controversial remarks about women forced into sexual slavery, reports the Inquirer.
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto outraged Asian Americans when he said women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military played a necessary role. Many of those women were Koreans, but some were also Filipinos.
Filipino World War II veterans are protesting the planned visit of Hashimoto on June 11th, the day before Philippine Independence Day.
In a letter to Mayor Lee, World War II veteran Franco Arcebal blasted Hashimoto’s ““unrepentant position… justifying [the] blatant and forcible use of innocent and defenseless women in occupied territory.”
Arcebal is receiving support from the Los Angeles-based Justice for Filipino American Veterans (JFAV) and Commissioner Rudy Asercion of the San Francisco-based American Legion Veterans War Memorial Commission.
You can read more about this controversy in the Inquirer.
