An appeal has been filed by a group that waged an unsuccessful bid in federal court to have the comfort women memorial in Glendale, California removed, reports Courthouse News Service.
A group known as the Global Alliance for Historical Truth along with its president Koichi Mera and Michiko Shiota Gingery filed the appeal in the 9th Circuit.
GAHT is seven months old and appears to have been launched specifically to fight the memorial.
U.S. Central District of California Judge Percy Anderson rejected GAHT’s original lawsuit in August ruling the memorial does not violate the constitution by interfering with the federal government’s jurisdiction over foreign affairs.
“GAHT deplores this issue being used to create a negative image of Japan, Japanese citizens, and Japanese Americans in order to weaken the US-Japan strategic partnership that has flourished for over 60 years and has been the backbone of the U.S. policy in East Asia,” GAHT said in a statement.
The group also filed a motion in the Superior Court.
Several comfort women memorials have been erected across the United States to bring attention to women forced into slavery by the Japanese army in World War II and to pressure the Japanese government to issue a formal apology.
You can read reaction from the Korean American community in Courthouse News Service.
