A Korean man has been arrested for breaking into the grounds of Yasukuni Shrine with the intention of committing arson, police said Tuesday.
According to police, the 23-year-old man, who has been named as Kang Yong Min, illegally entered the grounds of the shrine at around 9 p.m. on Sunday. He was spotted by a security guard and threw a plastic bottle containing a liquid believed to be toluene at the shrine's main hall, Fuji TV reported.
At the time of his arrest, police said Kang had two lighters in his possession, leading officers to suspect he was planning to commit arson.
© Japan Today
33 Comments
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Mitch Cohen
Oh my.
Like arson was going to solve anything. Lucky he got caught, otherwise there would be tit for tat acts of revenge attacks everywhere, just what we need.
I've only taken an active interest in Korea-Japan relations a few years ago, starting from when I stumbled on Korea-hate smear campaigns on Youtube channels originating from Japan, but following it closely I wonder if there will ever be peace in far east Asia. We're closer to an all out war than we've been in 50 years.
Triumvere
Oh sh... international incident narrowly averted.
GalapagosnoGairaishu
I've taken an "active interest" from decades ago, like the time when 4th graders at a Seoul primary school were invited to use their crayons to make anti-Japanese posters for an art competition, works from which were picked for display on the walls of a nearby subway station. (This was widely covered in the Japanese vernacular media.) Perhaps the just-arrested Mr. Kang was one of those students.
nath
Lucky it was a typical Korean fail. Or next we would see Akasaka in flames!
SamuraiBlue
Yasukuni is in Kudanshita, not Akasaka. The shrine in Akasaka is Hiei Shrine.
pochan
Yep we've seen where nationalism leads before.
CGB Spender
What an idiot! I've been to the shrine some weeks ago to pray for Japan's people who died in the war. It's a beautiful shrine!
Thunderbird2
Glad they got this nutter before he could cause a disaster. When are these people going to realise that this shrine is about more than a handful of war criminals?
I've just been reading about Korea's part in WW2, and they had 148 executed as being class B and C war criminals. Maybe he should have attacked his own country's war memorials as well.
oyatoi
Korea gets an undeserved automatic pass on anything to do with collaborating with the enemy. Those self-same go-getters who enlisted in the Japanese military when the going was good, later became experts at playing the victim card and portraying themselves as fellow sufferers of Koreans whose lives really were hell under the brutal yoke of imperial rule.
Tiger_In_The_Hermitage
Fortunate he was caught before starting the fire, no matter the dead who's souls are there as they won't get burnt. I'm more concerned about the people inside, whether left / right or centre, burn victims suffer the same pain and its never the rightous way to make a point.
hidingout
An example should be made of this guy. Six months in jail then deported with black X in his passport and a boot to the ass on the way out the door.
Scnadal.Lova
this will only make this worse for the Japanese/Korean delima.
Heza!
Wow what an idiot. I don't get people now a day.
hikkifan17
What an idiot and a disgrace to the Korean people. New's like this will only bring tension between the two countries.
sfjp330
Official visits to Yasukuni by J-goverment representatives raise questions of the Japan's Constitution, which calls for the separation of politics and religion. Japan should keep Yasukuni away from politics. Isn’t it the duty of politicians to think of ways to achieve that goal? You can't treat Cabinet ministers’ visits to the shrine in the same way as those by families and citizens who mourn the war dead because of the unusual characteristics of the shrine. Such behavior has caused the international community to think that Japan has forgotten its past mistakes and is supporting such perceptions of history.
Michael Craig
Glad they caught that guy!
Burning down a Shinto shrine is just as bad as burning down a church, mosque or synagogue!
A shrine is also a place of worship--even Yasukuni!!
Ex Animo
The guy was trying to torch a shrine. Politics or not he deserves a punishment.
mrkobayashi
FAIL
ControlFreak
@Thunderbird2--Maybe just as soon as over one thousand Class A, B, and C war criminals have their souls and placards removed?
These people were convicted and executed for things such as burying people alive, rapes, cannibalism, tortuous medical experimentation on people, tortures such as amputations, execution of civilians by firing squad, mass murder, burning people alive etc. etc.
If the topic were the A-bombings, all these things would be brought up as justification. And here is a shrine where the people responsible for all those crimes are being worshiped? You have GOT to be kidding me!
Emperor Hirohito stopped visiting the shrine after the war criminal's souls were inducted. Emperor Akihito has not gone. Are these the people you think need to realize Yasukuni is about more than war criminals?
Row Bur
Well said controlfreak. Yasukuni is a disgrace to Japan.
ControlFreak
Thank you Row Bur. I am amazed to get so many thumbs down complaining about the enshrinement of people who are no doubt responsible for some members grandfather's, great-grandfathers, uncles and great uncle's deaths.
I cannot say I am overly fond of any military graves or shines, but Yasukuni went way beyond the pale when it enshrined the war criminals in the 70s. Its outrageous. Am I to take it that if they tried to bury Timothy McVeigh, a decorated war veteran, in Arlington National Cemetery? Am I to take it that if Germany set up a cemetery for soldiers, and Herman Goering's ashes were to be found, they would be okay with Goering being put in a mausoleum there? No, I think McVeigh would get dug up and Goering's mausoleum hit with a wrecking ball. I scarcely see the difference in trying to torch Yasukuni.
toshiko
Behind of Honden, there is Reijido building that was raised in 1972 after then emperor Hirohito donated his own private money. Emperor and other royal families can not travel freely. Ministry if Imoerial Palace and Office of Imperial house (Kunaisho and Kunaicho) control Emperor's activity. Just a placard for some enshrined souls. Honden only have the name list of of people who died in service of the Empire of Japan. It is in Chiyoda-ku (ward). if it is burned, all buildings in Chyoda-ku will be engulfed and spread to entire Tokyo? Why lists of names? Too many, 2,466,332. It was in time of no word processing era. Not even 5 & 1/4 inch floppy disk existed. Just hand writings.
OssanAmerica
That's really remarkable considering that 99.9% of the planet became aware through Korean anti-Japan news stories, Korean sites, Korean posters on forums, and that since 1945 anti-Japan sentiment in and among Koreans seems to outweigh Japanese anti-Korean sentiment by a factor of 1000 to 1. I mean only Koreans are extending their sentiment on a global scale. As for this story the man broke laws, trespassing and attempted arson, crimes anywhere. Will Koreans denounce this man's actions? Or will they remain silent giving act approval because it was the Yasukuni Shrine? The recent article on the psychotic level of some South Korean protesters involving finger cutting and excrement tossing really exposes the level of disconnect from reality and civility that the anti-Japanism in South Korea has reached.
sfjp330
ControlFreak Sep. 25, 2013 - 08:31PM JST Am I to take it that if Germany set up a cemetery for soldiers, and Herman Goering's ashes were to be found, they would be okay with Goering being put in a mausoleum there? No, I think McVeigh would get dug up and Goering's mausoleum hit with a wrecking ball. I scarcely see the difference in trying to torch Yasukuni.
Then why did Chancellor Kohl visit the Nazi cemetary? What is the difference between Japanese PM and Kohl visiting the cemetary? In 1985, Chancellor Kohl of Germany invited Reagan to Bitberg cemetary wreath-laying of 2,000 graves of German soldiers, including 49 Nazi SS troops. There are German class A, B and C there in Bitberg cemetary.
ControlFreak
@sfjp330--Where did you hear that?
As far as I know, there are no tried, convicted and executed war criminals at Bitberg. As far as I know, they all died in combat. Its a key difference to Yasukuni. Just because someone was in the SS or even Nazi party does not mean they were automatic war criminals or guilty of anything.
tokyodoumo
What a shame and disgrace for Korean People... It's humiliating enough for them to witness Japanese Govt honoring War Criminals at Yasukuni Shrine now they have to endure being cast as lawless while the real Criminals are worshipped for their past abusive and immoral deeds against neighboring Countries.
sfjp330
ControlFreak Sep. 26, 2013 - 07:36AM JST As far as I know, there are no tried, convicted and executed war criminals at Bitberg. As far as I know, they all died in combat. Its a key difference to Yasukuni. Just because someone was in the SS or even Nazi party does not mean they were automatic war criminals or guilty of anything.
What your saying is that if you remove 14 Class A, all B & C's from Yasukuni, PM of Japan could visit there and everything is ok with China? How ridiculous.
Tomohisa Yokoyama
Some 21,181 Koreans are remembered here, almost 1%. May these souls rest in peace.
genjuro
@Ossan Good points you have there. I completely agree.
hidingout
Its an excellent question .... I think we already know the answer.
ControlFreak
Ridiculous? I would not drag that word into this if I were you, seeing as we are not talking about China how there are over a thousand Class A, B, and C's there. And on top of that I never said anyone would calm down if Japan took such actions. So where did that come from?
Not honoring known and convicted war criminals is quite simply the decent thing to do. How Koreans and Chinese act after the removal of their souls and placards will then be totally on the heads of Chinese and Koreans and I will judge them accordingly.
Situation being what it is, Japanese PM's should stay away from Yasukuni just as Hirohito did. Surely there is someplace decent they could go to to honor war dead (of which those hung are most certainly not!). But you know what? Yasukuni is not about war dead! Its a place for those who served the emperor. And the emperor turned his nose up at the place?
Rightists. They don't even follow the path of their own revered demi-gods! Is that not bizarre?
Probot2000X
You don't like Japan, go back to Korea!
nigelboy
In a way, yes. Before the enshrinement of so-called Class A war criminals, there were over 1,000 B/C so-called war criminals enshrined there during the 50's and none of the countries including China and Korea made any fuss about it. In fact, not once did China complain from 1978 (enshrinement of Class A) -1985 during which time, the Japanese PM's visited Yasukuni a grand total of 21 times. To add further, the Korean government has sent their military attache's to Yasukuni as late as 2002 before they got on the China's bandwagon. Finally, those two were simply against the PM's to go there. Only a few years ago is when they changed the bar to "lawmakers" To put it simply, it's just a political tool used by both governments against Japan.
You're under the assumption that these lawmakers are honoring exclusively to the so-called war criminals when there is a specifically a place in Aichi where the executed Class A's ashes are housed there.
There isn't. One could possibly build one but who's the target audience?
The reason why the Emperor stopped the visit, if the released memo is correct, is not because of the enshrinment of war criminals per se. It's because the Emperor felt that a few that were ensrhined were not soldiers/people who died for the country. Hence, the reason is domestic as well as completely different from the argument of China and Korea.