| Korean plaintiffs condemn a Japanese court's decision to reject their request to remove the names of their family members from the Yasukuni Shrine, following a court decision in Tokyo, Wednesday. Their family members died while forcibly participating in Japan's war efforts during World War II. / Yonhap |
By Kim Jae-heun
A Japanese court has denied a request by 27 Korean people to remove the names of their family members from the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. The shrine honors Japan's war dead, including Class A war criminals.
It took five years and seven months for the Tokyo District Court to make a decision on the lawsuit filed in September 2013. The court did not offer an explanation for its decision. Moreover, it ordered the plaintiffs to cover the trial costs.
According to Kyodo News, Tuesday, the court did not accept the plaintiffs' claim that the enshrinement damaged the deceased Koreans' honor, saying their enshrinement has not been made public, which leaves no chance for it to become known to unspecified individuals.
Yasukuni Shrine honors 2.4 million of Japan's war dead, including 1,068 convicted Pacific War criminals, 14 of whom were Class A.
The names of 21,181 Koreans, many of whom were forced to participate in the war during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of Korea, have been engraved on stones there since 1959, according to Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
The shrine only lists the names, origin, birthdates and places of death, while their remains and ancestral tablets are kept elsewhere.
The Japanese government has been arguing that the shrine only serves as a religious facility, but many ultranationalists visit the venue every year, making it a symbol of Japanese imperialism.
One of the plaintiffs, Park Nam-soon, criticized the Japanese court for its decision and asked for his father's name to be removed from the list as soon as possible.
“I lived like an orphan after Japan took my father away. Japan took him, killed him and enshrined him there at its discretion,” Park said in a media briefing in front of the court after the ruling. “My father did not die in the war serving the Japanese emperor. Why does he have to be honored in Japan? If the court knew the hardships we went through, it would not have made such a decision.”
The Center for Historical Truth and Justice, which supported the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, also denounced the court's decision.
“We can't accept the fact that victims, who died after forcibly being mobilized for Japanese imperialist wars, are named at Yasukuni along with war criminals even 74 years after Korea's liberation from Japan,” it said in a statement.
“Without hesitation, we'll appeal to a high court, as well as to the international community.”
The very first lawsuit filed to demand the removal of the names took place in February 2007. In the first suit, the plaintiffs lost the case at local and high court trials. With more victims' families joining, they filed the second suit, the ruling of which was made Tuesday.