UEMURA Takashi I Publisher and President of Weekly Friday, Japan & Former Asahi ShimbunReporter

Session 1. The Implications of the 30th anniversary of Kim Hak-soon ’s Public Testimony

What Kim Hak-soon Wanted to Tell: The Report from the Journalist Who First Reported

UEMURA Takashi I Publisher and President of Weekly Friday, Japan & Former Asahi ShimbunReporter

In the Summer of 1990, I Could Not Hear a Single Testimony of a Former ‘Comfort Woman’

In 1990, as a reporter at the Osaka headquarters of the Asahi Shimbun, I wanted to introduce the testimony of former Japanese military comfort women in an article on the Summer Peace Project. At that time, I was the “ethnicity person” in charge of Koreans and

Korean issues in Japan. I rented an apartment in Ikuno-ku, Osaka City, where a lot of Zainichi Koreans and ethnic Koreans live, and was covering the issues of human rights of Zainichi Koreans, Koreans and political prisoners. As a foreign language student for Asahi, I studied at the Yonsei University Korean Language Institute in Seoul for one year, starting from the summer of 1987. Therefore, I was able to use Korean for the coverage, and I often went on business trips to Korea.

In June of 1990, Rep. Motooka Shōji (Socialist Party, JSP), at the Budget Committee of the House of Councilors, urged the Japanese government to investigate the comfort women issue. In response to this, the head of the Ministry of Labor’s Job Security Bureau at the time responded by saying that “Private contractors were carrying them along with the military,” inciting protests in Korea. I wanted to convey the voices of the victims. I

consulted my friend, a Korean female journalist, asking, “Is it possible to listen to the story

of a former comfort woman?” “There’s a woman I’ve interviewed before,” she responded.

Thinking that I would be able to interview her, I headed to Korea.

However, the woman had already passed away. There was no trace to follow. In January of that year, I also heard a story from Ewha Woman’s University professor Yun Chung-ok, who published a series called “Report following the footsteps of Chongshindae Victims” in

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the Hankyoreh. I met with other officials and traveled around the country based on various sources of information, but there were no victims who could testify. In a village in Gyeonggi-do, I even met a woman referred to as “Manchurian Grandma” by locals, but

she remained silent saying, “I have never been to a place like Manchuria.” The two weeks

of coverage in Korea ended in vain. One of my reporter collaborators said to me, “Former

comfort women will never talk about it. It’s as painful as dying.”

After I returned from Korea, I met a Zainichi woman who owned a meat restaurant in Osaka. I went to the restaurant, after hearing information that “she was in the

chongshindae (a comfort woman).” I’ve been there several times but haven’t heard any

testimony from her. She said to me, “Even if I was who you think I am, I wouldn’t tell you.

Don’t spend any unnecessary money.”

Ultimately, in the summer of 1990, I did not hear any testimonies from a single comfort woman. I was 32 at the time, and no matter how much I could speak Korean, I was a kid from Japan that plundered the Korean Peninsula as a colony in the past. There was no way for victims to speak of such painful story to me, who is Japanese and also a man.

During the two-week coverage period of that summer, I came to know a woman who was working at the “Association for the Pacific War Victims” in Korea and started dating

her. She was the daughter of female director (at the time) Yang Soon-im. Her mother objected, but we got married anyway.

A Scoop Called “Kim Hak-soon’s First Testimony”

The following year, in the summer of 1991, things changed significantly. When I made an international call to the Seoul bureau of Asahi, Mr. Odagawa Ko, the bureau chief at the time, told me this.

“It is said that former Korean Japanese military comfort women in Seoul has begun to testify. Uemura-kun, how about coming here for an interview?” Mr. Odagawa knew that I

had interviewed in Korea for two weeks in the summer of the previous year and ended up not receiving any testimony from former comfort women. So he gave this information as a potential scoop for me. Mr. Odagawa’s news source was Yun Chung-ok, co-representative of the Korean Council (The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, now The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of

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Military Sexual Slavery by Japan). As mentioned earlier, I was already acquainted with Yun from my previous year’s coverage attempts. When asked to interview Yun by phone from

Osaka, she said the following about a former comfort woman, “I can’t give you her name

because she is refusing to respond to the interview. But I can let you listen to the tapes.”

Even if I couldn’t meet her in person, I thought it was great news that the former comfort

woman was still alive in Seoul and that she was being taken care of by the Korean Council. I headed straight from Osaka to Korea.

On August 9, 1991, I visited Yun’s home in Seoul. Regarding the woman, Yun said of

the woman, “She testified under her real name... She was angry that the Japanese government doesn’t admit that there was chongshindae (comfort women).” And on the

next day, on the 10th, she played the tape at the Korean Council office and taught me generally about the main points from the interview. The voice in the tape said, “I want to forget somehow, but I can’t. When I think about that time, I get angry and the tears don’t

stop.” “When I think of it again, the hairs all over her body stand upright.” She was recalling

her past. According to their description, the woman was born in northeast China and when she was 17, she was tricked into becoming a comfort woman. She was taken to a comfort station in China, where she was forced to service three or four people every day. For several months, she was forced to work, but she managed to escape. It was not until after the war that she returned to Seoul. Although she was married, her husband and child died, and she was living under her basic livelihood protection.

After the interview, I hurriedly went to the Seoul branch to complete the manuscript. The next day, my article appeared on the front page of the Osaka head office edition on August 11th = Photo ①=. The title of the article was “I still cry when I think about it /

Former Korean Japanese military comfort woman / Half a century after the war / Opened her heavy lips / Hearing of Korean group,” and the full text of the article read, “They were

taken to the battlefield under the name of female chongshindae (volunteer labour corps) and forced into prostitution to Japanese soldiers. One of the victims of Korean comfort women is still alive in downtown Seoul.” In the main text, as told by Yun and others read,

“When she was 17, she was deceived into becoming a comfort woman.” At that time, in

Korea, the comfort women were called “chongshindae” or “female volunteer labour corps,”

and the Korean and Japanese media also used the term to mean “comfort women.” At the

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time, I never thought that this article would be attacked, as it did later, for reasons such criticizing it as a “fabrication” and spreading false information to the world that she became a comfort woman by forcible mobilization.

My article was heavily edited, but it was also published on the second page of the social section of the Tokyo head office on the following day, the 12th. However, despite the scoop of the testimony of former comfort woman, the media in South Korea and Japan did not publish any follow-up reports.

I found out in Osaka that this woman revealed her real name, “Kim Hak-soon,” and

that she held a press conference in Seoul on the 14th. I remember getting to know about the news through my contact from the Seoul branch. On the 15th, an article about Kim Hak-soon’s testimony was published in the morning of every Korean newspaper. I regretted

returning to Osaka, thinking prior to that, “She says she won’t see a reporter, so I can’t

help it.” “If I had been in Seoul a little longer, I could have written some breaking news

piece.” I was very upset to think this way.

The headlines of the Korean newspapers at the time were as follows. “I will definitely receive reparations for sufferings of chongshindae (Japanese military sexual slavery) (DongA Ilbo),” “I was a chongshindae (Japanese military sexual slave) (JoongAng Ilbo),” and “I

will testify as a living victim of chongshindae (Japanese military sexual slavery) (Hankook Ilbo)”1

I called Yun. Yun said something like this: “As a result of the second interview on the

14th, Kim said, ‘I feel so angry that the Japanese government does not recognize the

existence of comfort women’ and said she would testify to her experience. In the meantime, we had been listening to her testimony privately, but suddenly her words became public to Korean reporters.”

I wrote a breaking news article about Kim Hak-soon’s real name testimony in the

evening of the 15th in the Osaka main branch edition. However, the Japanese media’s

correspondents did not pay much attention to the reveal of Kim Hak-soon, and the main newspapers, the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun, did not report this press conferences. However, I found out later that Kita Yoshinori, the head of the Seoul bureau

1 Japanese-Korean translator’s note: Edited in accordance with the original Korean title of the article at the time.

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of the Hokkaido Shimbun, had an exclusive interview with Kim Hak-soon on the 14th. Mr.

Kita also used the word chongshindae as the preamble in my article, and wrote:

“Before the war, a Korean woman who was humiliated by Japanese soldiers on the battlefield as a comfort woman in the war under the alias of chongshindae responded to an exclusive interview with the Hokkaido Shimbun on the 14th (abbreviated)”

After receiving courage from Kim Hak-soon’s press conference, former comfort women

from all over the world began to testify about their experiences, one after another. Kim Hak-soon’s courageous testimony became a major opportunity for the world to recognize

the comfort women issue as an issue of sexual violence in conflict.

I, myself, could not attend Kim Hak-soon’s press conference on August 14th. However,

later, I was able to see the scene. A news video from KBS, announcing this press conference, was introduced in Japanese subtitles for the documentary film 63 Years on (2008) produced by Korean film director Kim Dong-won. The title “I was a chongshindae” was written on

the first screen, and a male anchor explained the caption. “One halmoni, who was dragged

into the Japanese military 50 years ago and forced to live as a comfort woman, overcame her shame and accused the Japanese of their atrocities.” There was also a scene where

Kim Hak-soon held a press conference in front of the reporters. Kim Hak-soon appealed this way. “If you drag someone a little over 16 years old and force her, I cried out and tried to avoid it, but they won’t let you go. I want to vent my anger before I close my

eyes.” Kim Hak-soon’s anger was expressed eloquently.

The documentary also featured a Dutch victim, Jan Ruff O’Herne. It is known that

O’Herne was inspired by Kim Hak-soon’s testimony and decided to testify about her

sufferings herself. “What is really surprising is that the ‘comfort women’, who had been

silent for 50 years, opened their mouths at the same time and very suddenly.” O’Herne described this as “boom.”2 This testimony shows how strong the impact of Kim Hak-soon’s public testimony was. (Note: The Japanese subtitles for this 63 Years on are on loan from the Kansai Network for the Japanese Military “Comfort Women’’ Issue)

The Details of Kim Hak-soon’s Appeal

Kim Hak-soon later decided to become a plaintiff in a trial demanding an apology

2 Japanese-Korean translator’s note: Explosive sound

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and compensation from the Japanese government. Ahead of the lawsuit (December 6, 1991), she joined the Association of Pacific War Victims and Bereaved Families and was interviewed by the Japanese defense counsel on November 25, 1991. After receiving permission to attend and hear about the whole story, I recorded Kim Hak-soon’s story on

tape. And, in the morning series “Pacific War for Women,” which was published in Osaka

main branch edition on December 25 of the same year, I wrote an article titled “The Youth

that Never Returned, Half of Lifetime in Agony” = Photo ② =. In the preamble, I wrote, “Reenacting the testimony tape.”

Kim said at the end of the interview said, “No matter how much money you receive,

you can’t return this forsaken body. The Japanese government must acknowledge the

historical facts and apologize. I want young people to know about this. There are many victims. I want you to erect a tombstone. I hope this never happens again.” That was what

Kim wanted to say the most.

After the trial of Kim Hak-soon and others, the Japanese government conducted a hearing investigation on former comfort women, and in August 1993, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei published a government statement (“Kono Statement”). He

acknowledged and apologized for military involvement and coercion. Furthermore, he stated that he would not repeat his mistakes by including the issue in education of history. And so, the description of the comfort women issue was published in Japanese middle school textbooks. However, from 1997, history revisionists including Abe Shinzo (later Prime Minister) started a movement to remove the comfort women issue from textbooks. After that, the comfort women account and representation disappeared from many textbooks. Abe also insisted on a re-examination of the “Kono Statement,” and in reality,

only the shell of the “Kono Statement” remains.

In 2014, Malicious Attacks on Uemura Begins

In 2014, 23 years after Kim Hak-soon’s testimony was released, I was severely bashed. The February 6 issue of the conservative Japanese magazine Weekly Bunchun, possessing the title “Comfort Women Fabrication,” the Asahi Shimbun Reporter Became a Professor

at a Women’s University Attended by the Daughters of Wealthy Families, falsifying my August 11, 1991 article. A comment from Nishioka Tsutomu, a professor at Tokyo Christian

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University, ignited the spark. Nishioka commented: “Reporter Uemura’s article says, ‘I was

taken to the battlefield in the name of the Labour Corps,’ but the Labour Corps is an

organization that mobilizes labor in places like military factories and has nothing to do with the comfort women. Moreover, the woman who testified in her real name at this time was sold by her parents and made into a comfort woman, as written in her complaint, and as she responds to the coverage of the Korean newspaper. Uemura did not mention this fact, and he wrote an article as if there had been a forced mobilization, so it is not an

exaggeration to say that this is fake news.”

In the August 11, 1991 article, I wrote “I was deceived into becoming a comfort woman

when I was 17” and did not write “forcible mobilization.” However, Nishioka did not

mention it.

Nishioka, in the April 1992 issue of Bungeishunjū, called my article “a serious

misrepresentation of facts,” but began to criticize it later as “fabricated” from around 1998.

It was clear that the article in Weekly Bunchun that used Nishioka’s comments was an

attack that was targeted only at me. This article even criticized the “Kono statement.”

Immediately after the publication of this Weekly Bunchun, violent bashings against me began. E-mails, faxes, and phone calls protesting the “professor inauguration” flooded into

Kobe Women’s University, where the appointment of my full-time professorship was granted. Eventually, the employment contract was canceled. The censure on Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo, where I was a part-time lecturer, continued.

Sakurai Yoshiko, chairman of the conservative Japan Institute for National Fundamentals, also started bashing me. Sakurai attacked me with several articles, the representative of which was an article in the April 2014 issue of WiLL, a magazine published by WAC. “In the past, present and future, propaganda by those who seriously damage the honor of Japan and the Japanese, however, had a starting point of the fake article on “military comfort women” written by a Japanese. What was that fake article written by a

Japanese national that resented and hated Japan?” After writing that, she criticized my

August 11 article saying, “The legal complaint (of the trial in which Kim Hak-soon sued the Japanese government), describes how she became a comfort women. It says that she was sold for 40 yen by her stepfather at the age of 14, taken to Tiepizhen (鉄壁鎮)3 in Beizhi

3 Japanese-Korean translator’s note: ‘Zhen (鎮)’ is a name equivalent to ‘village’

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(北支)4 three years later, again by her stepfather at the age of 17, and became a comfort woman. Not only did Uemura not report on the important point that she was trafficked by her stepfather, but also he reported it in connection with the ‘female labour corps’ that

had nothing to do with the comfort women.”

The two people’s remarks spread across the Internet. Asahi denied that my article was

a “fabrication” in the “Comfort Women Report” verification feature on August 5 and 6, 2014. However, due to the cancellation of 16 articles (overall 18) about the late Yoshida Seiji, who testified that he forcibly took women and made them into comfort women in Jeju Island, the attacks exacerbated. Even though I didn’t write an article about Mr. Yoshida, the attacks against me grew stronger.

My daughter, who was in high school at the time, was also taken as a “target,” and

her face and name were exposed on the Internet. One blog wrote, “How many Japanese

people suffered because of this girl’s father. (Omitted) There is no choice but to keep

pushing him until he commits suicide.” Even a threatening letter saying “I’m going to kill

your daughter” = photo ③ = came. When my daughter was going to and from school, a patrol car had to stand by and guard her.

In early 2015, I sued Nishioka and Sakurai for defamation in the district courts of Tokyo and Sapporo, respectively. It was also to keep my family safe.

After the complaint was filed, in August 2015, I was invited to an international symposium on the issue of comfort women in Seoul. On August 15, the day after the symposium ended, I visited the tomb of Kim Hak-soon, who was resting at the National Cemetery for Overseas Koreans in Cheonan-si, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea =Photo ④=. I put my laptop next to the tombstone and played the news from Kim Hak-soon’s real-name press conference on August 14, 1991. This video was introduced in the documentary film 63 Years on. Kim Hak-soon’s voice echoed in the graveyard. I told my

companion: “Ms. Kim Hak-soon is being slandered as a ‘liar’ and a ‘prostitute’ in Japan. I

cannot forgive that.” And for my own “weakness,” I apologized to Kim Hak-soon from the bottom of my heart. On December 16, 1997, when Kim Hak-soon passed away, I was a correspondent in Seoul and wrote an obituary article calmly, and after that, I did not

4 Japanese-Korean translator’s note: In the past, it was used as a name for the northern provinces of China and corresponds to the present-day Hubei (華北). 237

diligently report on the comfort women issue. Despite the fact that I published the first article that Kim Hak-soon began to testify, I distanced myself from the comfort women issue because my mother-in-law was a core member of the Association of Pacific War Victims and Bereaved Families. However, after I was severely attacked, I reflected on myself until then and decided to properly address the comfort women issue. And I kept in mind that my trial was also a struggle to restore Kim Hak-soon’s honor. There is a phrase in the

statement that Kim Hak-soon submitted to the court for her case (June 6, 1994). “I was

taken away by the Japanese military and became a ‘comfort woman’ and my life itself was taken away.” I wrote about this bitter feeling on a piece of paper with black marker and

put it in front of my desk. And sometimes I went to court with it in my suit pocket.

Unfair Judgment and Intervention of Abe Shinzo

Nishioka and Sakurai, neither of the defendants had ever interviewed Kim Hak-soon. Without even confirming with her, they continued to claim that she was sold by her parents and became a comfort woman, not forcibly taken by the Japanese military. The two defendants said that because I wrote that it was a forced mobilization, misunderstandings spread around the world, and Japan was defamed. In addition, Nishioka even argued that Kim Hak-soon attended a gisaeng school in Pyongyang, and since I did not include it in the article, the article was a “fabrication (Note: Kim Hak-soon did not talk about gisaeng school when the Japanese lawyers interview her.).” These are victims who have been

sexually abused by Japanese soldiers against their will, whether forcibly detained or trafficked. Yet these defendants believe that the Japanese military is not responsible if the victims had been “trafficked.”

Nishioka’s Weekly Bunchun discourse is symbolic. Nishioka wrote, “The woman who

testified under her real name wrote in the complaint that she was sold by her parents and became a comfort woman, and that’s how she responded to Korean newspaper coverage.”

However, during the witness interrogation process of the Tokyo District Court, it was already confirmed that there was no mention of “trafficking in persons” in neither the complaint nor the Korean newspaper articles. The premise of criticizing my article as a “fabrication” was false. In addition, Nishioka cited the Hankyoreh as a basis for criticizing

Uemura in his book The Comfort Women Issue in Easy to Understand, but he himself

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arbitrarily wrote a part that was not included in the original article: “I was sold for 40 yen,

took gisaeng classes for a few years, and then went to a place where the Japanese military is.” Then he introduced the entire article as an article in the Hankyoreh. This was a manipulation to emphasize that Kim Hak-soon was “trafficked.”

On the other hand, Sakurai made similar arguments as Nishioka. ① Kim Hak-soon became a “comfort woman” through human trafficking. ② There is no connection between the comfort women and the “female labour corps.” Under this premise, my article

was slandered as “fabricated.” However, in Kim Hak-soon’s complaint, there were no

phrases such as “I was sold for 40 yen by my stepfather” or “I became a comfort woman

again by my stepfather…” There is no sentence to conclude that Kim was a “victim of

human trafficking.” Sakurai also admitted the mistake in the interrogation process, and

eventually corrected it.

Both the defendants, Nishioka and Sakurai, had weak grounds to criticize me. In addition, both of them did not even communicate with me and decided that it was a “fabrication.” 5 However, in the Tokyo and Sapporo trials, the two defendants were exonerated by significantly breaking down the wall of “relevance of truth.” Moreover, the

Tokyo trial even admitted the “truth” of some of Nishioka’s statements. It was a truly

unusual judgment. In a normal trial, I think I would have won. There are three reasons for the defeat.

First, I think the courts’ shift to rightwing and consideration of the intentions of the

Abe administration (at the time) played a role. It was unspeakable that the Tokyo District Court ruling described the “military comfort women” as “women who were engaged in

prostitution on the battlefield under the state prostitution system.” There was no awareness

of the comfort women as victims of sexual violence in conflict. I think it’s an evidence that

the judge himself is rightwing. Nishioka wrote in the Rondan of the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals (May 23, 2016), “I have been participating in the debate on the

comfort women issue since 1991. The present Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and the head of the Institute, Sakurai Yoshiko, and other are long-time comrades.” Sakurai is like Abe’s tool

of “propaganda [advertisement tower]” and is also a central figure in the constitutional

5 Japanese-Korean translator’s note: Even if the truth of the stated facts cannot be proved, it is a jurisprudence that judges that there is no illegality if there is a good reason to believe that it is true, otherwise, known as innocence until proven guilty. 239

reform that he is promoting. I fought with the two of them, but there was always Abe behind them I think.

Second, I think the prevalence of historical revisionism in Japanese society is also a big reason. I think that the judge’s misjudgment was allowed because this wrong

perception of history is widespread in society. Third, the Asahi Shimbun itself announced that my article was not “fabricated,” but it was severely criticized for cancellation of Yoshida Seiji’s testimony, and was not able to fight alongside me.

Shortly after my defeat in the lawsuit against Sakurai was confirmed by the Supreme Court, former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo posted on his Facebook page on November 21, 2020, “It means that the fabrication of reporter Uemura and the Asahi Shimbun has been

confirmed as a fact.” He was spreading “fake confirmation” with my name. I thought it was

a strange obsession and interest. However, in the lawsuit against Sakurai, none of the “truths” were recognized, and it was a clear error to say that “the fabrication was confirmed

as fact.” I sent Abe a proof of content requesting that the post be deleted through my

agent. Abe secretly deleted his post without even apologizing to me. Even from this fact, I think it is clear that Prime Minister Abe was watching Sakurai’s case.

However, in both Tokyo and Sapporo, more than 100 lawyers were organized and fought in the six-year Uemura trial. It is also true that the threat to my family has been significantly reduced. In addition, many citizens and researchers also contributed to the trial. The systematic support of the Japan Newspaper Trade Union Federation, the Japan Journalists Conference (JCJ), and the devoted support of my former colleagues from Asahi were great support. Kita of the Hokkaido Shimbun, who interviewed Kim Hak-soon and wrote the same kind of article as me, stood as a witness in the Sapporo lawsuit. He claimed in support that Sakurai’s criticism of Uemura was just a “nitpicking”: “When one person is

slandered as a fabricator, I felt like I’m not being reprimanded from the criticizer’s point

of view. I strongly believed that I should speak up as a human being and a journalist.”

Three female reporters from Korea’s Hankyoreh, the Kyunghyang Shinmun, and the

Dong-A Ilbo, who covered Kim Hak-soon, also wrote a statement proving that my article was not a falsification and submitted it to the court. The voices of these journalists were completely ignored in the verdict. However, I am accepting that each one of journalists’

contributions counts as a “victorious judgment.”

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Also, at the end of September 2018, while the trial was in progress, it was a great achievement for me to be able to return to the Japanese journalism world by being invited as the publisher and president of the Japanese progressive magazine Weekly Friday. Even at a time when the Japanese media shrank and did not report in detail about the vicious attacks on Uemura, Weekly Friday boldly reported on them. That coverage alone was enough to create a single “separate edition (2016, created by Citizens’ Association to

Support Uemura Takashi’s Lawsuits)” = photo ⑤ =. As I held respect for the journalist spirit of the magazine, I took the position of head of the magazine in the face of financial difficulties.

In the midst of these criticisms, I was invited to the Catholic University of Korea and worked as a visiting professor from 2016 to 2020. Although the spread of the coronavirus made it difficult for me to travel and I ultimately gave up my professorship, my five years in Korea were invaluable. I received the “Kim Young-geun National Education Award” (2018)

and “Rhee Yeung-hui Award” (2019) for my special report on the beginning of the

testimony of Kim Hak Soon. I was able to interact deeply with “dismissed reporters’’ such

as Lee Bu-yeong, a former Dong-a Ilbo reporter who was unfairly dismissed from a news agency for fighting for the democratization of the Korean press, and Im Jae-kyung, the founding vice-president of the Hankyoreh. With such people at the nexus, my trial support organization was formed, and the Uemura bashing gave birth to a new exchange of reporters between Korea and Japan.

Daughter Involved in Attacks against Uemura

My daughter also got caught up in the public criticisms against me and was subjected to several slanderous slanders on the Internet. Lawyers concerned about my daughter became her lawyers in finding and suing a man in his 40s who posted her name and photo on Twitter. The man wrote:

“The daughter of Uemura Takashi, a member of the Asahi Shimbun military comfort

women hoax, was chosen as the high school peace ambassador. An extreme anti-Japanese noble family raised by a fraudster maternal grandmother, an anti-Japanese Korean mother, and an anti-Japanese forgery agent father. They will surely become enemies of Japan in the future.”

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In August 2016, the Tokyo District Court made a judgment, and the presiding judge ordered the man behind the slander to compensate for damages of 1.7 million yen as requested by the plaintiff. After the verdict, the defense counsel read her daughter’s

comments at a press conference. “I thought it was absolutely unacceptable to attack

someone and expose their privacy due to their selfish desires,” she said. “What happened

to me can happen to others. We hope that this ruling will serve as an opportunity to stop these unjust attacks,” she appealed. Initially, the presiding judge recommended a

settlement process, but my daughter refused and demanded her court verdict. The defendant did not appeal, and the judgment was confirmed. I am proud that my daughter stood by her resolute attitude.

30 Years Since the Testimony, “Question” Posed by Kim Hak-soon

Thirty years after I reported on Kim Hak-soon’s appearance, I reflected again after rereading the article that Kim Hak-soon appealed to. It is surprising that the three wishes Kim Hak-soon appealed to the Japanese lawyers prior to the trial: ① the Japanese government’s official apology, ② the succession of memories to the younger generations, and ③ the erection of the monument — had hardly been realized.

The Japanese government has not made a sincere apology that touches the hearts of former comfort women. There was also a time when the description of the comfort women issue was published in middle school history textbooks through the “Kono Statement.”

However, most of this has disappeared due to the movement of Abe Shinzo and others. In 2016, a large number of protest postcards were sent to Nada Junior High School in Hyogo Prefecture, etc. There are various interferences to the acts of properly conveying the memory of the comfort women issue. Even erecting a monument is inconceivable in mainland Japan. The mere display of a replica of a Peace Statue in Seoul in Japan is causing harassment and disturbance. It is also a big problem that the Japanese government has not tried to stop the attacks and threats on the succession of such memories.

As a Japanese and as a journalist who covered the testimony of Kim Hak-soon 30 years ago, I am so ashamed of the current situation. I want to do my best to make Kim Hak-soon’s wishes come true.

This year, the 30th anniversary of Kim Hak-soon’s public testimony, the documentary

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film Target = Photo ⑥ = made by Nishijima Shinji, a former reporter of RKB Mainichi Broadcasting, will be released. This film depicts the flow of historical revisionism in Japan with the theme of “Uemura Bashing.” Nishijima was the head of the Seoul bureau of the

same broadcasting station in the summer of 1991, when Kim Hak-soon testified. Before the trial of Kim Hak-soon, he also had experience of covering the issue and broadcasting nationwide in the form of news. Nishijima began to shoot the film, questioning why I was the only “target” of the right wing. At first, he tried to produce it as a program for RKB Mainichi Broadcasting, where he was working at the time. However, when his proposal was not approved, he resigned and set up an office by himself and started production. There are also interviews with Kita from Hokkaido Shimbun, who interviewed Kim Hak-soon, and former NHK director Eriko Ikeda (currently the honorary director at The Women's Active Museum on War and Peace). The voice of the then Minister Kono Yohei can also be heard in the film.

Another theme of this film is the testimonies of former comfort women victims, such

as Kim Hak-soon = Photo ⑦ = etc. The private broadcasting station with the copyright did not give permission to use the video of Kim Hak-soon, which was filmed by Mr. Nishijima himself. For this reason, he used the video filmed by MBC’s PD Note in Korea.

In the film, Kim Hak-soon criticizes the Japanese government for not recognizing the comfort women issue. There is also a video showing former comfort woman Lee Ok-seon, who lives in the House of Sharing, criticizing the Japanese government for denying the forced mobilization of victims. This is the scene where Lee talks about her experiences of suffering to Korean and Japanese students who visited the House of Sharing as the first project of the “Korea-Japan Aspiring Journalists Student Forum” established in 2017 by me

and fellow journalists.

Director Nishijima said the following in an interview with Weekly Friday on July 23rd, 2021. “In Japan, the media does not cover the comfort women issue very much, but people also think it is strange for ‘comfort women’ to sue Japan over the claim that ‘comfort

women’ are prostitutes. However, I want people to think about that after watching the

videos of Kim [Hak-soon] and others. So, I included interview videos of Kim Hak-soon and Lee Ok-seon. I think this is a valuable scene because we rarely ever hear the voices of the ‘comfort women’ victims directly.”

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I also want to carry the DVD of this documentary film, hold its screenings in various places, and carry on the work that former comfort women victims such as Kim Hak-soon wanted to convey.

References

Books

The Truth (February 26, 2016, Uemura Takashi, Iwanami Bookstore) (『真実』（2016年2月26 日、植村隆、岩波書店）)

I am not a fake reporter (October 9, 2016, Writer = Uemura Takashi, Translator = Gil Yunhyeong, Blue History)

Newspapers, magazines Asahi Shimbun Osaka Head Office Edition, article dated from August 11, 1991 (「朝日新聞」

大阪本社版1991年8月11日付記事) Asahi Shimbun Osaka Main Edition December 25, 1991 article (「朝日新聞」大阪本社版1991 年12月25日付記事) MILE November 1991 issue (『MILE』1991年11月号) President Hira is Going 131 Accomplish the 30-year old appeal from the testimony of Kim

Hak-soon! (Uemura Takashi, Weekly Friday July 30, 2021 issue, Friday, Inc.) (「ヒラ社長

が行く」131「金学順証言から30年 その訴えを実現せよ！」（植村隆、『週刊金曜日』

2021年7月30日号、（株）金曜日）)

“Ask the director Nishijima Shinji of the movie The Target” / “I wanted to hear your

daughter’s story somehow” (Moon Seong-hee, Weekly Friday July 23, 2021 issue, Friday, Inc.) (「映画『標的』の西嶋真司監督に聞く／「娘さんの話はどうしても聞きたかっ

た」」（文聖姫、『週刊金曜日』2021年7月23日号、（株）金曜日）)

Videos

Documentary film Target (2021, Director: Nishijima Shinji, Distributor: Group Hyundai) (ド

キュメンタリー映画「標的」（２０２１年、監督＝西嶋真司、配給＝グループ現代）)

Documentary film 63 Years On with Japanese subtitles (2008, Director: Kim Dong-won) (ド

キュメンタリー映画「終わらない戦争」日本字幕版（２００８年、監督＝金東元）)

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