A man walks past advertisements for comic books and compact discs on the street in Tokyo. The Tokyo District Court found Monotori Kishi, a 54-year-old publisher, guilty of distributing obscene printed material and handed him a one-year prison term suspended for three years. Murayama, who as prime minister issued an apology in 1995 for Japan's wartime aggression, said that it was time for Tokyo to finally resolve the issue of the so-called "comfort women" who were drafted into military brothels.
Japan committed indescribable wrongdoings by forcing women from South Korea and elsewhere to serve as sex slaves to its wartime troops, former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama said yesterday. But the term "comfort women" is set to disappear from many government-approved history textbooks for junior high schools from next year, Japanese media have reported. Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama was quoted by media over the weekend as saying the term "comfort women," a euphemism for the sex slaves, did not exist during the war and it was good the term had disappeared from school textbooks Ties between Japan and South Korea have been strained by a range of feuds, including one over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to a Tokyo shrine for the war dead which Seoul, like China, sees as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.
In April 2002, Kishi sold some 20,500 copies of the 144-page book, entitled "Misshitsu (Honey Room)" and marketed as for adults only. The penal code article itself does not clearly define obscenity but the legal precedent was set by a 1957 Supreme Court ruling over a Japanese translation of D.H. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said In addition to a territorial row over two tiny islands, many South Koreans feel Japan has not squarely faced its wartime past, including the brutal 1910-1945 rule of the Korean peninsula.
A man walks past advertisements for A片 comic books and compact discs on the street in Tokyo. Jun Byung-hun, a spokesman for South Korea's ruling Uri Party, said on Sunday. In a bid to narrow the gap over history, the two governments launched a joint study four years ago, but a report on its results issued on Friday showed the two sides were sharply at odds on many subjects, including the sex slaves issue. Historians estimate that as many as 200,000 women, mostly Korean, were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels during World War II.
The two sides have been unable to set a date for a regular summit meeting between Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, 做愛視頻 which they had agreed to hold by the end of June. Japan's top government spokesman sought to contain any further damage, saying Tokyo was sorry for the sex slaves. Kishi immediately appealed in the Tokyo High Court. Japan apologized again on Monday for the suffering of women who served as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II, a day after comments by a cabinet minister drew an angry reaction in South Korea.