Taiwanese protest outside de facto embassy after Japanese kicks ‘comfort woman’ statue
They want right-wing group member Mitsuhiko Fujii barred from leaving the island until he apologises for his act at the new memorial in Tainan
Around 100 human rights activists protested outside Japan’s de facto embassy in Taipei on Monday demanding that a member of a Japanese right-wing group be barred from leaving Taiwan after he was caught on security camera kicking a “comfort woman” memorial.
The footage showed Mitsuhiko Fujii, who is in Taiwan representing 16 right-wing groups from Japan, kicking the bronze statue outside the opposition Kuomintang’s office in the southwest city of Tainan after he visited on Thursday, asking for it to be removed.
Taiwanese, mainland Chinese, Korean, Filipino and other Asian women forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels were euphemistically referred to in Japan as “comfort women”.
The statue is the first such memorial in Taiwan and was installed on August 14, the International Memorial Day for Comfort Women, by a local association and the KMT. Former president Ma Ying-jeou, who has long demanded Japan apologise over the comfort women issue, took part in the ceremony to unveil the statue.
The KMT office said it was not aware of the incident, which it described as “humiliating”, until media reports emerged. Office director Hsieh Lung-chieh, who is also a Tainan councillor, said he then reviewed the surveillance footage and confirmed Fujii had kicked the statue as he was leaving the premises.