Three elected officials from Japan visiting Southern California demanded that the city of Glendale remove its Comfort Women memorial, reports Al Jazeera.
The three – Hiromu Nakamaru, Yuzuru Nishida and Mio Sugita– are all from the country’s conservative Restoration party.
“They asked, ‘Why is a third country involved in this issue,’ when they believe it’s between Japan and I guess South Korea,’” said Kathy Masaoka, co-chair of Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress, who met with the legislators.
The memorial which shows a lone women in a Korean dress (photo by Melissa Wall) pays homage to an estimated 20,000 women who were held as sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II.
There is so far no indication that Glendale will comply with the request.
“Japanese society these days is becoming hopelessly more and more conservative,” said Dai Sil Kim-Gibson who produced a film about the subject.. “They are not only denying the comfort women, but also, if you can believe it, the Nanjing Massacre.”
You can read how Kim-Gibson got involved in this subject in Al Jazeera.
