Japan lodged a protest with authorities in German capital over extension of the period of public display of a statue meant to represent South Korean women who were forced to work in Japanese wartime brothels, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2021) Japan lodged a protest with authorities in German capital over extension of the period of public display of a statue meant to represent South Korean women who were forced to work in Japanese wartime brothels, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said on Monday.
"This is not acceptable. We have strongly protested it," Kato told a press briefing, as quoted by the Kyodo news agency. He added that "there are multiple cases in which attempts (to install statues) ended after we took various actions to gain people's understanding."
The bronze memorial in question was installed by the Berlin-based Korea Verband non-profit last September for the initial period of one year. Japan instantly requested the statue's demolition, but Berlin's Mitte district decided to keep it in place first for the entire year and then indefinitely.
Kato said "pro-South Korean civic organizations" have been installing similar statues, including near Japanese diplomatic premises in Seoul and Busan.
According to historians, an estimated 200,000 women, most of whom were Koreans, were forced into sexual slavery at frontline brothels from 1910-1945 when the Korean Peninsula was a Japanese colony during the war.
