{"id":15511,"date":"2013-05-25T05:05:55","date_gmt":"2013-05-25T05:05:55","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-05-25T05:05:55","modified_gmt":"2013-05-25T05:05:55","slug":"Japan-mayor-to-apologise-to-US-over-brothels-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=15511","title":{"rendered":"Japan mayor to apologise to US over brothels comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japanese politician who drew fire for calling “comfort women” a wartime necessity has been forced to apologize for suggesting US soldiers in Okinawa visit brothels to vent their violent frustrations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto had suggested that US servicemen<\/a> in the southern prefecture of Okinawa, where relations are frequently tested by violent crimes including rapes and assaults, patronise legal sex businesses there.<\/p>\n

As the remark triggered disgust in the United States and outrage in Okinawa, Hashimoto said he would retract it at a press conference scheduled on May 27 at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

“The word ‘sex businesses’ was inappropriate,” he said in a Saturday program by YTV broadcaster. “I must apologize to the US military and American people and retract my comment at the Monday press conference.”<\/p>\n

Hashimoto said he has no intention of retracting his other controversial comment that “comfort women” served a “necessary” role during World War II in keeping soldiers in line, a remark that set off a volley of criticism from countries under Japan’s rule in the 1930s and 1940s as well as from the US.<\/p>\n

Most historians agree the Asian women were pressed into sexual slavery for the Japanese imperial army.<\/p>\n

Hashimoto has insisted Japan’s soldiers were not unique in brutalizing women.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Hashimoto said his original remarks were misinterpreted.<\/p>\n

Hashimoto was scheduled to meet a pair of former so-called comfort women on Friday, but the elderly South Korean women cancelled over fears of becoming political pawns<\/strong> in a long-running diplomatic dispute that has stoked tensions between Tokyo and Seoul.<\/p>\n

Sex slavery is a particularly sensitive issue in Korea, a former Japanese colony whose people made up many of the up to 200,000 “comfort women” forcibly drafted into brothels for the Japanese military during World War II.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Source AP<\/em>
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