Protest to Asahi Newspaper on Comfort Women
ABC of Modern Japanese History objects to the reports by Asahi Shimbun.
Here’s a protest to infamous Asahi newspaper, which led the banner in the “comfort women as Japanese army’s sex slaves” campaign: It promoted the “confessions” of a Japanese soldier (i.e. Seiji Yoshida), that he abducted Korean women into prostitution. Later, his book turned out to be a bag of lies, but not before creating a world-wide sensation.
Asahi never informed nor apologized to its readers about the farce.
To Whom It May Concern,
Asahi newspaper by Yusaku Tohgo
I was truly annoyed by your (Asahi) editorial on June 28, after the US House of Representative committee passed Resolution 121. You fabricated and inflated the “comfort women” issue into a “Japanese army’s sex slave” fantasy, and never apologized nor informed the readers the fictional “facts” in your reporting. In light of this fact,
I doubt that you are qualified to discuss this matter from high moral ground.Here’s a protest to infamous Asahi newspaper, which led the banner in the “comfort women as Japanese army’s sex slaves” campaign: It promoted the “confessions” of a Japanese soldier (i.e. Seiji Yoshida), that he abducted Korean women into prostitution. Later, his book turned out to be a bag of lies, but not before creating a world-wide sensation.
Asahi never informed nor apologized to its readers about the farce.
To Whom It May Concern,
Asahi newspaper by Yusaku Tohgo
I was truly annoyed by your (Asahi) editorial on June 28, after the US House of Representative committee passed Resolution 121. You fabricated and inflated the “comfort women” issue into a “Japanese army’s sex slave” fantasy, and never apologized nor informed the readers the fictional “facts” in your reporting. In light of this fact,
I had been your reader for over 35 years, but I stopped being one last year after realizing that you base your reporting not from an universal and neutral viewpoint, but control it with particular thoughts and values.
Your calling seems to be to deny everything pre-war even at the cost of truth, and to denigrate traditional Japanese culture and spiritual thoughts. No onder the conservatives in this country call you “Japanophobic”.
The causes for the last war cannot be simplified into one reason, but in multiple intertwining factors, such as the colonization of and advancement into Asia by the Western powers, and the domestic situation of Asian countries.
I will accept criticism about Pearl Harbor, but cannot accept ethnic slander based on fictional “news” reporting such as yours.
It is possible to imagine that certainly, during the war, some may have gone too far or committed mistakes, but there is absolutely no proof that a public Japanese organ systematically involved itself in abduction of women or coerced sexual servitude to women.
Rather, thanks to the steadfast efforts of scholars, it has become apparent that “comfort- women-as- sex-slaves issue”, “the collective suicide of Okinawan peoples under army orders”, and the so-called “Nanking massacre”, all of which you have been promoting, are fictional.
I ask you not to forget pride as a leading press in Japan, and to base your editorials and articles on historical facts.
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