Nagoya exhibition defends pulling 'comfort woman' statue; opponents say it's censorship

At a separate news conference, though, Yuka Okamoto, who organised the display of the statue, said the decision amounted to censorship and restriction of free speech.

"In regards to 'Statue of a Girl of Peace', which became a target of the attacks, this is a work of art hoping for a world without any war or sexual violence, as well as for a recovery of women's rights and dignity," she said.

The above quote will conveniently be lost on the usual crowd here on JT. Certainly there are some extremists everywhere, but somehow Japanese citizens who are open minded like her never seem to get any mention from these people. Instead, the focus will solely be on those who gave the threats as 'proof' that all Japanese people are white washing bigots.

Lunatics were giving threats, so pulling the statue in response was a perfectly legitimate option in light of recent events involving arson.

Call it censorship if you want.

You might also call it "Preventing us from having dozens of black buses out in the parking lot speaker-blasting all the visitors with martial music and incoherent 90dB microphone ramblings of a bunch of 45-year old unemployed virgins who still live with their parents".

here's the way to apologize https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/01/europe/germany-poland-ww2-forgiveness-grm-intl/index.html

I saw some photos about this exhibition on Twitter and some Japanese people were saying Western media speak about boycotting because of the statue, while they say they weren't bothered by the statue, but by other stuff: some video where they burn the pic of the emperor, and a weird piece of art that looked to make fun of young kamikaze, made with the letters for their families.

South Korean history textbooks are fiction.

Equally important as Freedom of Speech is Freedom to listen, or in this case, to watch. If someone wants to tell the other side of the story, they want to suppress them so nobody can listen. They want only their side of the story to be heard, only their one-sided narrative. No alternative views allowed. They are taking away my right to listen to what somebody else has to say, and make up my own mind about who is right and who is wrong. They don't want other people exposed to more facts and thinking, they want people to shut up and conform to their version of the truth, or else... If they are so confident and sure their version of history is "the real one" and that Korea is lying, why are they so afraid of letting other people speak out? Because they don't want people exposed to inconvenient facts. Nothing screams guilty more than trying to suppress alternative view points.

here's the way to apologize 

Dont hold your breath macv.

South Korean history textbooks are fiction.

Case in point. Behold the marvel of japanese historical revisionism. The shunning of global consensus for actual fake history.

here's the way to apologize 

Dont hold your breath macv.

"We have to talk, we have to remember about the loses we suffered, we have to demand the truth, we have to demand compensation," Morawiecki said.

War reparations remain a contentious issue in Poland -- since coming to power in 2015, the Law and Justice (PiS) party has revived calls for compensation, Reuters reported. Germany made the last payment on reparations in 2010.

The way to apologize seems irrelevant

The term comfort women is a Japanese euphemism for women, many of them Korean, who were forced to work in Japan's World War Two brothels.

A lie of omission. Its far more complicated and the term is being used to falsely cover bases for both sides of the argument. 1) Not all women were forced and the comfort woman system was set up as a voluntary and legitimate response to the fact that soldiers in war will rape if they don't voluntary sexual outlets. The comfort woman system was an above board legitimate system that 2) unfortunately degraded into a sexual slavery system as the war dragged on and Japan became more desperate. Thus, there were comfort women and sex slaves existing within the same system. The problem is that that Japanese right wingers and their allies are in complete denial of the sexual slavery that happened, and everyone else is in complete denial of the voluntary prostitution that happened. Comfort women were not sex slaves. And sex slaves were not comfort women.

Have the police been investigating these threatening communications? Can we expect arrests soon?

The deterioration of relations with Korea is an absurd justification for removing the statue because removing it is contributing to the deterioration of relations, whereas exhibiting it was potentially helping to heal. Only when the past is accepted without guilt and admitted to can there be honest and loving relations in the present.

Common sense move. Not worth risking lives. Anyone that would debate this after KyoAni is heartless. The fact that they allowed the statue to begin with shows they were open minded.

Honestly though, it's the Koreans that use this statue everywhere as a tool against Japan, so the exhibition could really do without it, anyway.

If pulling a statute in an exhibition means the possibility of just one life not being put at risk then that is the justification.

It’s a sad action to take though.

So can he also expect a visit from Japanese diplomats telling him to pull it and enlightening him with the J-version of WW2 history ( after that similar debacle by J gaimusho,s best in the US ) ?

Or he could tell the foreigner he doesn't understand Spanish culture, and to 'kaero'.

The police should track down those who make even veiled threats.

This is the movie exhibited together with comfort woman statue.

Burning Showa Emperor.

This is something Japanese people are talking about.

Actually not just movie but also there were more.

And this is something media refuse to show us.

What you hear is the only filtered version.

If you want to criticize Emperor, go ahead, but not offensive way .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80pJO8l6AxM

Oldman_13 raises a very good point. In light of recent events in Japan, the event organiser has to take into account the safety of the people who work at the venue.

If you want to criticize Emperor, go ahead, but not offensive way .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80pJO8l6AxM*

This facility is owned by Japanese people.

This art event is run by Japanese people's tax.

Of course Japanese people get angry.

Imagine burning photos of Mao Zedong in China or presidents in the US at the public run art event?

It doesn't mean it is ok to send death threats, but why doesn't media tell us the whole story while only emphasizing getting a threat part.

People don't need any stupid filtering on media.

Let people know exactly what happened as it is.

Let people judge from that.

Quote from above: "Lunatics were giving threats, so pulling the statue in response was a perfectly legitimate option in light of recent events involving arson."

Let's agree, for the sake of argument, this was a "legitimate action." In so doing, we also legitimize illegal acts of intimidation. When crazies dictate what we can see and cannot see the nation is no longer run by public but by the crazies.

I'll remind you that one such crazy threatened to fire bomb the exhibition. This is where democracy ends.

The crazies won and this will only encourage them to do it again and again.

In the end pulling the stature was not really a legitimate option, unless you think threats of violence are legimagte.

Saying that pulling the artwork was a sensible move due to the threat of violence is the same as admitting that there are indeed Japanese terrorists....

Think about it.

If you want to criticize Emperor, go ahead, but not offensive way .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80pJO8l6AxM

First, we all should be aware that we don't even know exactly what was going to be presented at exhibition as a whole.

What we know so far is it wasn't only comfort woman statue, but together with a burning Emperor and stepping on its cremation movie and other stuff with a label "Ugly Japanese grave" and so on wrapped as anti-Japan politically extreme left content.

I found some Japanese conspiracy theory comment saying Governor Omura or others use this threat as an excuse to close exhibition mentioning publicly only comfort woman statue part hiding other stuff so that they can escape from being pursued for failing to check its inappropriate all contents.

Comfort women were not sex slaves. And sex slaves were not comfort women.

Wrong. As you wrote yourself :

The comfort woman system was an above board legitimate system that 2) unfortunately degraded into a sexual slavery system

-

the comfort woman system was set up as a voluntary and legitimate response to the fact that soldiers in war will rape if they don't voluntary sexual outlets

Wrong. The legal prostitution at that time was already a non voluntary one. And we can still see it in the present. It is related to poverty, to make stuff short.

That is an important part of history which need to be enlighted. We can not grow out of our darkness by hiding it under the carpet. A solution should have been found for the exhibition of the statue. Using treat as an excuse is ...

Instead of pulling the statue, a better course would have been to close the exhibition.

Just to be clear, I am not part of the team claiming that all men are are some kind of beast driven by there sexual urge and which need to be offered sex toys or they will have no choice as to go berseck and rape round and round. And that we should show understanding of these poor men when that happen and just give them a little tape on the head. And so and so ... of the crap going out of right wing, man impowerment, ... and the like. So the "legitimate response" make me want to puke.

Won't somebody please think of the men, for once?

This issue is not "men" but ultra-right terrorism.

Self-censorship is the most nefarious form of censorship.

Norman GoodmanToday  08:47 am JST

The term comfort women is a Japanese euphemism for women, many of them Korean, who were forced to work in Japan's World War Two brothels.

That's incorrect. Comfort Women in Japanese is Ianfu, The same word pronounced Wianbu (위안부) is used in Korea to describe the "Comfort Women" who serviced US troops during and after the Korean War.

I say this again and again, to display this comfort women statue while south Korean crazies saying "pay for events hapoened 100 years ago", "forget the fact that Japan has already paid", and "stop Japanese economic aggression" samultaneously orchestrating this "awareness" protests all over the US is not going to serve whatever that koreans are saying. The purpose doesn't seem like "putting the awareness in Japanese people". It seems more like "make Japan pay using pressure by Americans". Isn't it convenient to use the term "violation of freedom of speech" when you are doing things morally wrong?

If you truly want Japanese people to listen to you, STOP THE HATRED and STOP EXAGGERATING the current events. Japan hasn't done anything to you for decades. You feed your own hatred by doing what you are doing.

Even with the battlefield brothels the soldiers still raped and killed the native women and children.

Yes but one would hope that happened less. Every war has rapes and civilian death. Probably no solution will end thhose facts, but some could lessen the toll.

That's funny, I discussed why I thought from an artistic point of view, the introduction of the statue was not appropriate and it was removed.

I also linked to the activists campaign pages as to her campaigning background.

Not only are the habitual Korean activists lying, so is Yuka Okamoto above about the nature of the piece.

Her own Facebook and website is called "Fight for Justice" dedicated to the issue of comfort women. She is an activist and on the steering committee. I don't know her background but it is just all the usual stuff starting from the Kim Hak-sun story (the one who lied about being abducted but was in fact sold to the Korean owner of a brothel by her Korean parents but it is all the Japaneses' fault src: http://www.sdh-fact.com/book-article/229/).

Her history of the redress movement is faulted as she starts it in the 90s when Uemura Takashi of the Asahi Shimbun created the stink it then had to withdraw admitting it was false. The journalist who was married to the daughter of the woman who ran the NK supported comfort woman compaign in Korea.

https://www.facebook.com/fightforjustice.info/about/

http://fightforjustice.info/?lang=en

This is actually enough to have the piece pulled from an art exhibition, because it was not art. It is part of a current propaganda war of which she is part.

The statue was not removed for aesthetic reasons but because of terrorist threats.