The COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan revealed the bravery of individuals whose commitment to truth and human rights resulted in persecution by the Chinese government. Their reporting highlighted the severity of the situation in Wuhan, yet they faced unjust imprisonment and espionage charges for advocating for freedom of speech.
These cases illuminate the broader issue of press freedom in China.
The government's crackdown on independent journalism not only violates human rights but also obstructs the free flow of information and stifles public discourse.
Anti-Spy Law is used to target journalists and businessmen, damaging international trust and cooperation.
These human rights violations by the China contradict the principles of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. It is vital for the international community to raise awareness of these abuses and hold the China accountable.
As the PRC serves on the United Nations Human Rights Council member from 2024 to 2027, there is an opportunity for change and accountability. We urge the PRC to fulfill its responsibilities and demonstrate a genuine commitment to respecting human rights.
We hope that this Council will recommend China to protect their own people's human rights as a member of this Council, before making any comments on the human rights of other countries.
Thank you. Mr. Vice-President. This Council and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have recommended six times that the Japanese government must recognize the Okinawans as indigenous people and protect their rights. However, most Okinawans are unaware that they are considered indigenous by the UN and have been repeatedly recommended to do so. Even Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, who addressed at the last Council meeting, has repeatedly stated that they have never been declared indigenous or even discussed by the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly or Okinawan society. The fact that such recommendations are being issued when the Okinawans have neither discussed nor demanded them is clearly an effort by a specific government to divide the Japanese people and weaken them by making them fight each other. The UN should not issue recommendations based on a purposely manipulated and separatist report by those specific groups. We call on this Council to dispatch the Special Rapporteur to Okinawa to meet with Okinawans to learn about the real situation in Okinawa without prejudice. We then ask the Council to revisit these recommendations. Thank you very much.
We are here to express grave concern about the ongoing and systematic human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
China continues to deny access to the region, making independent verification of reports of systemic discrimination, mass arbitrary detention, and forced labor challenging.
However, a growing body of evidence, including extensive research by NGOs, journalists, and academics, paints a disturbing picture of systematic human rights abuses.
Mass detentions in "vocational training centers," which function as de facto internment camps.
These facilities subject individuals to political indoctrination, forced labor, and cultural assimilation attempts.
A 2023 report by the UN iCERD raised concerns about mass surveillance, restrictions on religious practices, and forced sterilizations.
Mr. President, We urge this Council to recommend following 3 recommendations to China;
1. Allow free access to Xinjiang for observers, including UN human rights experts.
2. Release arbitrarily detained individuals.
3. Conduct a comprehensive investigation into allegations of torture, forced labor, and cultural assimilation.
•Urge member states to adopt legislation banning the import of goods produced with forced labor in Xinjiang.
We call for your attention to express our grave concern about ongoing human rights violations in China-controlled Tibet.
As a cultural and religious minority, the Tibetan people continue to face systematic oppression and violation of their fundamental human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Tibetan monks died in custody due to torture and ill-treatment. Tibetan nomads are forced to move into urban areas for migration and assimilation.
This policy is destroying traditional livelihoods and weakening the cultural identity of the Tibetan people.
Widespread surveillance, restrictions on freedom of movement, and systematic suppression of Tibetan language and culture in education.
Tibetan Buddhism faced severe restrictions, monasteries are closed, language and education marginalized in favor of Chinese, and nature destroyed for economic gain.
Independent access to Tibet is restricted, making it difficult to verify official claims.
However, consistent reports from human rights groups, journalists, and former Tibetan residents paint a very different picture.
We ask this Council for following 3 recommendations to China.
1．Allow press and UN members free access to Tibet.
2．Release all political prisoners and end the arbitrary detention of peace activists.
3．Respect Tibetan people's freedom of religion and belief.
Even at this moment, they are suffering. We need to take a decisive action. Silence is not our choice.
The Government of Japan prepared and submitted its official 42-page detailed rebuttal to Annex 1 of the Report on "Violence against Women and Its Causes and Consequences," submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee by Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy on January 4, 1996, "Report based on the visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea and Japan on the issue of military sexual slavery in time of war. However, a Japanese diplomat assigned to the United Nations at the time retracted his written rebuttal, fearing that doing so might provoke a debate on the comfort women issue.
A major influence on the Kumaraswamy Report was Etsuro Totsuka, a lawyer who was then a member of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' Special Committee on Overseas Investigations. He was the one who changed the term "comfort women," who were simply wartime prostitutes earning a living, to "sex slaves.
By using the word "slave," which is the most tragic history for blacks and the most negative history for whites in human history, and a very sensitive word for both sides, he has brought attention to both sides in a short period of time.
Etsuro Totsuka, a lawyer with a Korean spouse, began lobbying the United Nations in February 1992 under the name of an NGO called "International Development for Education (IDE)" to position wartime prostitutes as victims and to make the international community aware of a fiction that is not based on fact.
In May 1993, the Subcommittee notified the Government of Japan of the points to note based on the IDE's request for individual compensation for former comfort women.
In July 1993, the United Nations Human Rights Commission's "Human Rights Commission Subcommittee on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities" adopted a resolution to appoint a special rapporteur on the issue of wartime slavery. Sri Lankan citizen Radika Coomaraswamy was appointed as Special Rapporteur.
The term "Wartime Prostitutes" was paraphrased as "Sex Slaves" by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations through its lobbying activities at the United Nations.
Kosei Tsuchiya, then president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, wrote in his statement on November 16, 1995, that the Japan Federation of Bar Associations treated comfort women as "Sex Slaves or Sexual Slavery" at the United Nations and used the UN to lobby for compensation from the Japanese government to the comfort women.
Etsuro Totsuka was later dismissed from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations as a member of the Foreign Investigation Special Committee for being too political.
Etsuro Totsuka's common-law wife is Yamashita Yeong-ae (Choi Yeong-ae), born to a Japanese mother married to a man who was a former senior official of the North Korea-affiliated the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon). Yamashita is a member of the South Korean Council for Measures Against the Korean Paratroopers (now Justice Memory Solidarity for the Resolution of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery Issue).
The spouse of Takashi Uemura, a reporter at the time who distorted the comfort women issue and wrote several articles for the Asahi Newspaper, is also the daughter of Yang Soon-im, then president of the Bereaved Families Association of Victims of the Pacific War, who was arrested by the South Korean authorities in December 2011 on charges of fraud.
This then Asahi Shimbun reporter, Takashi Uemura, was found by the Japanese Supreme Court in its March 2021 ruling to have reported “in his interviews that women were taken to the battlefield and made to become comfort women by the Japanese military" while hearing that they had been tricked into becoming comfort women by brokers.
This means that this Asahi Newspaper reporter, Takashi Uemura, wrote something in the newspaper that was not true. However, the influence of the newspaper was so strong that the false perception spread around the world, and even the UN Special Rapporteur came to believe it.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations is a special interest organization that all lawyers are "forced" to join in order to practice law in Japan, and only a small group of lawyers with strong political views have organized an NGO, which is not the consensus of the lawyers who belong to the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. In the first place, it is against the mission of lawyers to act on political ideas, and the lawyers belonging to the NGO are only using the name of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations to act as if they are the consensus of all lawyers in Japan and are working at the United Nations.
In the first place, the issue of comfort women was one in which private contractors outsourced by the Japanese military recruited prostitutes in exchange for a huge advanced payment, and families and women suffering from poverty on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere under Japanese rule at the time applied for the job.
It is undeniable that some of these women decided to become comfort women after consulting with their parents, others were sold by their parents, and still others were naively persuaded by private brokers. However, it is clear from various documents of the time that there was no such thing as systematic forced enrollment by the Japanese government or the Japanese military in system.
On the other hand, when we pointed out the inconsistency of their claims, the organizations and groups that claimed that the Japanese military had forced them into sexual slavery propagated various invented stories as facts, claiming that the Japanese military had burned the evidence to destroy it.
In addition, the texts they use as evidence include the official documents of the Japanese government regarding recruitment at the time, but they simply hide the parts that are inconvenient for their claims and distort the parts that are convenient to them, claiming them as evidence.
This shows that while they say that the Japanese military incinerated the evidence to destroy the evidence, they themselves have shown that the evidence exists. They do not care about these contradictions.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations NGO has a close relationship with the Korean Council for the Korean Volunteer Corps Issue (currently the Justice and Memory Solidarity to Solve the Issue of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery).
However, this "volunteer corps" is a "labor service organization" that is legal even in light of international law.
The Women's Volunteer Corps was formed in Japan in August 1944, just before the end of the war, when the Women's Volunteer Work Ordinance was issued. In addition, it is clear from the contents of the law that in the Korean peninsula, recruitment was done through official mediation and there was absolutely no coercion.
In short, South Korea did not even know the difference between "comfort women" and the "volunteer corps," and did not even understand the internal use of the work, and created an organization called the "Korea Council for Measures against the Issue of the Volunteer Corps."
On May 25, 2020, Lee Yong Soo, a self-proclaimed former comfort woman who was also a billboard for the Korean Council for measure of Volunteer Corps Issue held a press conference, expressing her belief that she had been "used and deceived" by this organization and "I will never forgive the Korean Council for measure of Volunteer Corps Issue for using comfort women.”
At this press conference, Lee Yong Soo said about Yoon Mi-hyang, then president of this organization and now a member of the South Korean National Assembly, "She need to be charged with crimes she has committed and punished," "she had fulfilled her personal interests by cheating us for 30 years," "She had used comfort women. She betrayed me, betrayed the people, betrayed and deceived the whole world," she said.
She also expressed her anger at the way the campaign has been conducted that claims that former comfort women were "sex slaves" and the damage was caused by the former Japanese military. She angrily said, "Why am I a sex slave? It is an outrageous story."
In contrast, Yoon Mi-hyang that Lee Yong Soo, whom she has used as a poster woman for 30 years to raise donations, was not actually a comfort woman.
Yoon Mi-hyang has been accused of using self-proclaimed former comfort women to collect a donation fund and building five mansions with their donations, and is currently on trial with South Korean prosecutors seeking a five-year prison sentence.
She, a former leader of the Korean Council for Measure of Volunteer Corps Issue, had gotten a taste of the support money raised for the comfort women, distorted the women's statements and created a story to make them sound miserable. The content of the story was unimaginably tragic, and the mass media picked up on it.
Thus, the comfort women issue was created by some Japanese lawyers and newspaper reporters with Korean spouses, and subsequently continued to be fabricated by several interest groups in Korea and Japan, and no evidence of coercion by the state or the military has been found even from a full-scale investigation conducted by the Japanese government.
However, Yohei Kono, then Chief Cabinet Secretary of the Japanese government, issued a statement at the behest of the South Korean government. This was the first statement that referred to the comfort women issue, known as the Kono Statement.
There is a national culture of "honne tatemae (one`s true feeling and one`s official stand)" that prevails in Japan and among Japanese people. The Japanese do not like conflict. Therefore, when things are going downhill, they tend to try to settle the situation or calm the situation by apologizing, even if they are not in the wrong and do not think they are in the wrong.
In addition, there is a proverb that says, ``The more the rice grows, the more it bows its head.''
This is one of the behaviors that are regarded as good deeds in Japan, as they say, "The higher your status, the more humble you should be." It is no exaggeration to say that the naive diplomacy of the Japanese government at the time, which used methods that were only applicable domestically, created the current comfort women issue.
While successive Japanese government cabinets have said that they will follow the Kono Statement, the Japanese government has subsequently passed resolutions at cabinet meetings stating that "there is no forced recruitment by the military or officials in the comfort women issue," and "the name 'military comfort women' is incorrect.” The cabinet has passed several resolutions stating that "comfort women are not members of the military.” These contradictions of the Japanese government have been repeatedly pointed out at the UN Human Rights Council, other treaty body committee meetings, and in the international community, but the Japanese government has made no attempt to correct these contradictions, which has led to distrust of the Japanese government. Furthermore, it has seriously damaged the credibility of the Japanese people in the international community, and this contradiction of the Japanese government has developed into a violation of the human rights of the Japanese people.
Groups and NGOs who are engaging in lobbying activities for comfort women issues and forced laborers issue are almost the same. Japan and South Korea made every effort for 14years since 1951 to normalize the relationship between the two nations and concluded the following: “Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea” and “Agreement Between Japan and the Republic of Korea Concerning the Settlement of Problems in Regard to Property and Claims and Economic Cooperation.” The Japanese government needs to explain that treaty and agreement further to the international community in order to expose the fraudulent acts of the groups and NGOs. Further, Japan should demand South Korea to comply based on the law and the order regarding “Failure of the Republic of Korea to comply with obligations regarding arbitration under the Agreement.”
Based on the above agreement with the Republic of Korea which was concluded in 1965, the Japanese government spent 800 million dollars (more than twice the national budget of South Korea at that time) for South Korea and provided equipment and property, free of charge, to South Korea, which were left in the country and was worth more than 5 billion dollars.
However, the South Korean government under President Park Chung-hee used the money for the country’s infrastructure development instead of paying it to its people for compensation. The fact that Japanese support was not used for unpaid compensation of people has developed to the problem of comfort women and forced laborers between the two nations.
We, International Career Support Association, would like to ask the United Nations Human Rights Council to demand the Japanese government to do the following:
1． 慰安婦問題における日本政府の矛楯を解決するために河野官房長官談話を破棄しろ。
To vacate the Kono statement in order to solve the contradiction of the Japanese government regarding the comfort women issue.
2． 日本政府は、１９９６年に一度、国連人権委員会に提出し引っ込めた慰安婦問題に関
する日本政府の反論書を国連人権理事会および、各条約体委員会宛に提出せよ。
To submit the rebuttal paper regarding the comfort women issue, which the Japanese government prepared but did not submit in 1996, to the UNHRC and other treaty committees.
3． 日本政府は、日本国内外における日本人の人権を考慮し、慰安婦問題の誤解を解くことに注力せよ。
To make every effort to solve the misunderstanding of the comfort women issue in order to protect human rights for the Japanese people domestically and internationally.
To appeal to the international community the violation of the South Korean government regarding the agreement concluded in 1965 as well as the agreement of 2015 regarding the comfort women issue. South Korea has been repeatedly violating international law because the country is governed by people’s feeling not by the law.
We also request the UNHRC to send Japan another special rapporteur to reinvestigate the comfort women issue based on fact. Both the Coomaraswamy Report and McDougall Report were written based on the fabrication of activists, lawyers, journalists, novelists, etc., who have their own agenda to fabricate the comfort women issue. We hope that conducting an investigation based on facts, the lies of the comfort women issues will be revealed and the truth will come out.
There is a comfort woman statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, which is a clear violation of the Vienna Convention. Further, there are more than 100 statues all over the country, and they have been building statues in the US and other countries. Some Korean elementary school girls answer, “I want to be a comfort woman,” in response to a question, “What do you want to be in the future?” Such an indoctrination is even a human rights violation against children.
慰安婦問題は、北朝鮮による日本と韓国の分断工作であることは、韓国の歴史教科書の研究者である金柄憲氏や米国のハーバード大学ロースクールのジョン・マーク・ラムザイヤー教授（John Mark Ramseyer）などの論文からも理解できる。
Based on the reports written by Kim Byung heon, who is a researcher of history textbooks of South Korea, and Professor John Mark Ramseyer of Harvard University Law School in the US, it is clear that the comfort women issue is the maneuver by North Korea to divide Japan and South Korea.
国連人権理事会には、勇気をもってこれらの真相を究明する義務があり、これ以上の日本国民への人権侵害に加担すべきではない。 We think that the UNHRC has a duty to investigate this matter and not to be involved in the violation of human rights against Japanese people anymore.
52nd United Nations Human Rights Council “Item4” Oral Statement
Submitted by: International Career Support Association
Speaker: Shunichi FUJIKI
Thank you, Mr. President,
China has detained 10 Japanese businessmen on suspicion of espionage, but has not disclosed any details. This is hostage diplomacy and a clear violation of human rights.
Furthermore, China has obtained information from this Council in advance about NGOs that criticize China, and has threatened the families of those NGO members, which is a grave violation of human rights.
Last year’s the High Commissioner report on Uyghurs in China described serious abuses committed by China in Xinjiang, including massive arbitrary deprivations of liberty against Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities, as well as credible allegations of torture, sexual and gender-based violence.
Mr. President, have millions of Uyghurs committed any crimes?
Furthermore, in the China-Pakistani Economic Corridor, which China is developing in parts of Pakistan, the inhabitants are forcibly removed from the region, tortured and killed especially Baloch people, have been victimized of genocide as well.
Mr. President, have Baloch people committed any crimes?
The Human Rights Council has a mandate to courageously defend these vulnerable minorities, women and children.
We urge this Council to issue the following recommendations to the Chinese government.
1. Immediately release the 10 Japanese nationals and stop taking hostage for political purposes.
2. Immediately release all people held in concentration camps in Xinjiang.
3. Immediately stop the genocide being carried out in Balochistan with the complicity of China, Pakistan, and protect the human rights and lives of the people in the region.
Thank you for your attention, Mr. President
＜参照サイト＞
52nd Regular Session of Human Rights Council
23 March 2023
Item:4 General Debate (Cont'd) - 39th meeting, 52nd Regular Session of Human Rights Council
アイテム4 一般討論 特に国連人権理事会が注目すべき人権問題 第52会期国連人権理事会39会合
1:55:48～International Career Support Association 国際キャリア支援協会
人権理事会52セッション（ジュネーブ・2023年2月27日-4月18日）にて 国連特別協議資格をもつ新しい歴史教科書をつくる会が国際歴史論戦研究所と協力して、3月17日に「徴用工問題について」ビデオでのＮＧＯ発言を行いました。 その様子はこちらの国連の公式ネット放送（UN Web TV)でご覧になれます。
The Republic of Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies to individually compensate Korean victims, based on its ruling that “Japanese companies forcibly mobilized Koreans and made them slave-like labors during World War II.”
However, at that time, the so-called Korean victims were citizens of Japan and it was legal to mobilize them, and so they were not “slave labors”.
Moreover, the 1965 Agreement between Japan and the ROK concluded issues as “finally and completely resolved” including individual claims.
Today, there is neither legal nor moral responsibility for compensation on the part of the Japanese companies.
In response, ROK unilaterally abandoned an agreement, seized Japanese companies’ assets and is trying to cash them so that the money can be used as “compensation”.
These not only violate international law but also constitute a threat to Japanese national security.
We strongly request that this council warn the ROK not to deprive Japanese companies of their assets in ROK based on an unreasonable court ruling.
Thank you.
＜参考サイト＞ 52nd regular session of the Human Rights Council (27 February 2023 – 18 April 2023) 17 Mar 2023 Item:3 General Debate (Cont’d) – 32nd meeting, 52nd Regular Session of Human Rights Council 1:44:50 Japan Society for History Textbook https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1q/k1qqhwj7s9?kalturaStartTime=6290
委員会から日本政府に事前に出された質問事項（CCPR/C/JPN/QPR/7）では慰安婦問題を「第二次世界大戦中の日本軍による性奴隷（「慰安婦」）の問題」（原文：the issue of sexual slavery (“comfort women”) perpetrated by the Japanese military during the Second World War）と記していました。対日審査会では、イゲズ委員はこの問題は議論のあるセンシティブな問題なので適切な用語として、と前置きして「第二次世界大戦中に日本軍によって人権侵害された被害者と申したてられている慰安婦」（発言原文：comfort women who are allegedly have been victims of human rights violations perpetrated by the military during WW2）と表現し、発言中は「性奴隷」（sexual slavery）という言葉は使いませんでした。アフリカの男性委員が慰安婦問題について詳しいとは思えませんが、論争になっている複雑な問題であることは認識していたようです。
＜発言英語＞
A1; According to the principle of the democracy, the opinions and the will of the majority should be respected and reflected in the policy. Of course, the rights of the minorities should be respected, even the minorities should obey the rules and the order of the democratic society. We should not allow the illegal violence for the reason that the riots are belonging to the minorities.
In Seattle, the United States, the violence caused by the BLM members in 2020. The riots of the BLM members assaulted the shops owned by the inhabitants belonging to the majority. Even the African American people’s shops were assaulted.
We should respect the human rights of the people in the world including the minorities in the PRC and Myanmar. In those countries, the clear violations of the human rights are conducted under the dictatorship or the authoritarian government. However, we should not allow the illegal violence of the minorities in the democratic society. We should respect the human rights of all people in all countries.
In some cases, the dominant power belongs to the minorities who would not hesitate use the illegal violence under the name of the protection of the minorities. We should not allow such illegal violence conducted by any groups. The protection of the minority’s right should be realized in the legal and peaceful ways.
A2: I’d like to make some additional comments on the hate crimes.
The hate crimes against minorities are too severely restricted in Japan, the majority of the ordinary Japanese people in some cases cannot declare their legal requirements and the historical facts for the protection of their rights and honor.
For examples, concerning the so-called comfort women issue, there are not any historical facts verifying the coercion of the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII. Currently some Japanese students living in foreign countries, are sometimes blamed by such a fault history. The legitimate opposing opinions should be allowed in every country and every society including the issues concerning the so-called comfort women issue.
＜発言英語＞
We appreciated tireless works of committee members and thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak today.
Japan has a unique culture and customs in its over 2600-year history that are difficult to be understood outside of Japan. One is "to resolve disputes through discussion before conflicts occur," and even if one is not at fault, apologies are often made in order to keep the situation calm. In Japan, there is a saying that encourages this: "The boughs that bear most hang lowest." This means, "the more noble, the more humble.” The Japanese government has failed many times in the past by applying this Japanese approach in diplomacy.
One of the historical issues still smoldering between Japan and Republic of Korea (ROK) is the comfort women issue. The Japanese government conducted a full-scale investigation, but didn’t find any evidence to show forcible mobilization either by the Japanese government or military. Furthermore, in 1944, at the end of World War II, U.S. military interrogation reports of comfort women from the Korean Peninsula, stated that those women were "well-paid prostitutes," and "They enjoyed shopping and activities freely."
After Korea ended using Chinese characters in 1970, many of them no longer can read historical publications. Further, the Korean Government has been conducting anti-Japanese education, and in 1995, they even blew up a magnificent building built during the Japanese annexation period. To this day, the government blows up its own negative history to erase it, and if it cannot blow it up, they revise history in their text books.
In 1993, in order to end this fabrication based on ROK’s historical revisionism, a Japanese cabinet secretary issued a statement called the "Kono Statement" as the ROK government demanded. In exchange, the ROK government promised that they would not demand any further compensation. However, their demands still continue. This has caused the relationship to remain cold.
Similarly, ROK’s revisionism has also led Korean people to demand compensation from Japanese companies for wartime workers whom they claim were "forced to work as slaves." The ROK government and private organizations have misused the United Nations to keep pressure on the Japanese government.
As a result, the reputation of the Japanese people has been severely damaged and humiliated in various countries. We hope that the Japanese government will quickly withdraw this Kono Statement, disclose the facts to the world, and work to restore the dignity of the Japanese people.
In 1965, Japan and ROK signed the "Basic Treaty between Japan and Korea," to restore diplomatic relations. In this treaty, Japan provided Korea an aid package to "completely and finally settled" the dispute, with neither side making any claim for what happened before that time.
We would like CCPR to recommend the following three points to the Japanese government:
1. Withdraw the Kono Statement.
2. The Japanese government should strongly urge the Korean government to implement the Basic Treaty between Japan and Korea.
The first one, in relation to article 12, is “Missing Japanese Probably Related to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea”
As you might know, the Japanese government has been officially identified 17 Japanese citizens as “abductees by DPRK.”
But these cases are just only “the tip of the huge iceberg”.
This is an NGO report submitted by “the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea”
There is a list of Japanese Abductees and Missing Persons.
You find 540 (five hundred and forty) names.
Moreover, the National Police Agency has its own list of approximately 900 (nine hundred) missing persons possibly abducted by DPRK.
We assume there could be more cases because of absence of family members.
Why have such terrible human rights violations been left unsolved for decades?
Families have been waiting for them to come home.
However, as families get older, their time is very limited.
The Japanese government must rescue all the victims immediately.
And we sincerely request CCPR to discuss this gravest human rights violation during the dialogue with the Japanese government.
Secondly, I would like to speak “comfort women issue.”
The Articles 7 and 8 are not pertinent to the Comfort Women.
We request that the committee must dismiss the issue in accordance with Article 15.
Claims regarding the Comfort Women have critical flaws in the logic.
The reasons are;
(1) There has been no documentary evidence to corroborate abduction of the women;
(2) The statements made by the Comfort Women that they put some earnings in postal savings, mailed home some money, enjoyed watching movies in town, decorated themselves with jewels etc. do not make sense if they were sexual slaves;
(3) No third parties have yet presented sufficient and competent evidential matters as to the assertions of the self-proclaimed comfort women;
(4) Because the licensed prostitution was in place in Japan before and during the war, and until early 1950s, the licensed prostitution has nothing to do with war crimes.
Speaking of the history, during Japan's Annexation, the Korean peninsula saw remnants of governance flaw of the former empire.
Impoverished members of society were exploited by human trafficking.
Human trafficking was punishable during the Annexation years.
And victims of human trafficking were irrelevant to the Comfort Women who signed the employment agreements with registered business operators.
A firm perception of history must factor in the background of the times.
There is no objective rationality to extend the act of misconduct, if at all, of those times to the present.
We, the International Research Institute of Controversial Histories (iRICH), are a Non-Governmental Organization with the principal aim of recognizing true history by tackling historical controversies of international significance based on fair historical research.
On January 28, 2022, the Japanese Government informed the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that Japan recommends its “Sado Gold Mine” to be inscribed as World Cultural Heritage. “Sado Gold Mine” is a historical site located in Sadogashima Island in the northern part of Japan and is composed of several gold mines. Sado Gold Mine has a long history and during Japan’s Edo period (from1603 to 1868), the entire process of gold mining and refinery was carried out by traditional manual manufacturing. In the 17th century, the Mine produced over 400 kilograms of gold per year and its production was at a top level in the world. Today, this historical site has preserved the memory of the superb technical level achieved at the time. As such, the Japanese Government recommended this site as worthy of the status of a World Heritage Site.
However, the South Korean Government claimed that Sado Gold Mine was the very place where Koreans were forced to engage in labor during World War II and that therefore it is strongly opposed to Japan’s recommendation of the site, demanding that Japan withdraw the recommendation.
Whether Sado Gold Mine would be inscribed as World Heritage site or not is to be decided finally in June or July 2023 by the World Heritage Committee after the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) fully examines the recommendation for a year. During this period, we anticipate the South Korean Government’s feverish lobbying to prevent Sado Gold Mine from being inscribed.
However, the South Korean Government’s assertion against the prospective inscription is totally untrue. Here, we will point out how absurd and fact-twisting the Korean assertion is.
The focus of Japan’s recommendation is the Edo period.
Japan’s recommendation deals strictly with the Edo period. It highly evaluates the gold production system of manual manufacturing established during the Edo period, which has been rarely seen in the world. This has nothing to do with Korea and Korea is not a party involved in the issue. Therefore, South Korea is not in the position to oppose the inscription in question.
Moreover, the Korean assertion that “there was forced labor in the gold mines, which disqualifies the site for World Heritage Site” is wrong in the first place. If the Korean assertion were right, Athene’s “Parthenon” or Rome’s Colosseum would surely be disqualified because both of them were built by slaves.
There was no forced abduction.
It is true that there were Korean workers in Sado Gold Mine during World War II. However, those Korean workers were not forcibly brought there as the South Korean Government claims. Most of the Korean workers in Sado Gold Mine went to work there of their own volition, looking for high wages. At that time, in order to come to mainland Japan from the Korean Peninsula, various permits were needed. Those who failed to obtain the necessary permits often entered mainland Japan illegally, seeking work for high wages. From 1939 to 1942, 19, 200 illegal immigrants were caught and then were forcibly sent back to the Korean Peninsula. If there had been a need to forcibly bring Korean workers, those illegal immigrants caught upon entry would have never been sent back to Korea.
“Mobilization” of Koreans, who were Japanese nationals at the time, was legal.
There were some Korean workers brought from the Korean Peninsula to mainland Japan through “mobilization.” At that time, Japan and Korea were one country and Koreans were Japanese citizens. Therefore, it was legal to mobilize Koreans who were Japanese nationals. The ILO Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No.29) [Japan ratified the Convention before the War] Article 2-2-c) states: “The term forced or compulsory labour shall not include any work or service exacted in case of emergency, that is to say, in the event of war....” Thus, the mobilization of Korean people was authorized by the international law. In April 2021, the Japanese Government decided at a cabinet meeting that the wartime mobilization of Korean workers does not constitute forced labor as stated in the Forced Labour Convention. Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has confirmed it.
There was no slave labor.
There was no wage system based on ethnic differences applied at Sado Gold Mine. As for payment and treatment, there was no difference between Japanese and Korean workers. A reliable primary source “the Japan Mining Industry’s “Survey Report on Korean Laborers”, December 1940” reveals that with wages being paid according to results, many Korean workers earned more money than the Japanese workers did. South Korea’s assertion that Korean workers were abducted and engaged in forced labor is merely a lie South Korea made up to denigrate Japan.
As pointed out above, South Korea’s assertion distorts historical facts and is totally groundless. South Korea’s aim is to degrade Japan’s past by rewriting history and to hold a diplomatic superiority over Japan. To accomplish this goal, South Korea is deploying “intelligence warfare,” using the United Nations. If various United Nations organizations involved in the World Heritage Inscription were to make a wrong judgment regarding the case of Sado Gold mine, confused by the unilateral lobbying activities conducted by South Korea, not only would be Japan’s national honor deeply harmed, but also the United Nations’ credibility would be enormously damaged.
Hereby, we, as Japanese nationals, ardently ask those who are involved in the case of inscription of the World Heritage Sites to duly evaluate the historical value of Sado Gold Mine in a just and impartial manner and inscribe Sado Gold Mine as World Cultural Heritage, and not be influenced by the South Korea’s political propaganda.
＜NGO 発言＞ ① 2022年3月29日 議題9 一般討論 UN WEB TV https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1h/k1hrvopzx3?kalturaStartTime=921 発言者 矢野義昭 発言内容 ” Russian Federation and Ukraine ~ Protection of Noncombatants ” We are deeply concerned about the present situation in which the Russian Federation and Ukraine—that have historically belonged to one nation —are exchanging fire. No one can deny the fact, from the view of the international law, it is Russia that has been invading Ukraine. Day after day, offensive and/or defensive powers have been injuring and killing innocent civilians and forcing a big population to leave their home for safety. What we have been witnessing there is nothing but inexcusable, unmistakable infringements of human rights, including the right to life. We strongly request Russia to abide by international rules. And we also request both Russia and Ukraine to heed to protection of noncombatants to the utmost extent possible.
発言内容 ” Does animosity promote peace? ” In the USA, a little girl says, “Mom, why do my classmates hate me?” Japanese students are bullied at school. In Germany, a student is insulted because his grandparents are Japanese. In the Republic of Korea, a boy says to his Japanese mother, “Don’t come to my school. " What is going on in the world? Korean groups have been building “peace statues” both at home and abroad. There are already more than140 of them and some are in the USA, Canada, Germany, and in Australia. What does the statue stand for? It is meant to symbolize hundreds of thousands of Korean women who were sexually enslaved as comfort women by the Japanese military during wartime. Were they sexual slaves? No, they were not. In fact, they were paid prostitutes who signed contracts with brothel owners. Why do they keep building the statues? Because they cannot accept what wrongs their ancestors had done for their daughters. It is a state sponsored hate campaign. Now, another one is going to be built in Philadelphia. We sincerely ask this Council member states not to build one in your city. We hope everyone in future generations to live NOT with animosity BUT with pride and wisdom.
