The following is from an article by Yasuko Kato, Executive Director of the National Conference on Industrial Heritage, published in the monthly magazine Hanada titled "Industrial Heritage Information Center," which was promptly criticized by South Korea and Asahi.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but also for people around the world.
For the first time, the Japanese people should be aware of the outrageous manner in which the reporters of the Asahi Shimbun and Kyodo News Agency covered the story.
And it is the existence of activists such as Hideki Yano, who could be called a traitor and whom almost no one in Japan knew.
At the same time, we feel the wrath from the bottom of our hearts against them.
The fact that the Asahi Shimbun was not discontinued six years ago in August is distressing because of the enormous damage it will continue to do to Japan.
The paper's existence will only bring about a hollow black hole in Japan.
＊My concern became a reality with the assassination of Mr. Abe on July 8 this year.
One of the first signs of this is the NHK/Watch9 report, in which the female presenter, Wakuda, looks like she is hosting a funeral... and manipulates the impression that Japan, the best country in the world, is the worst and most troubled country in the world.
Yuriko Koike, who claimed to be the governor of Tokyo, started a cluster of businesses in Shinjuku's Kabuki Cho district, only caring about her publicity stunts and not announcing the names of her host clubs nor suspending their operations, and attacking the regime.
It is a fact that China is expanding its violations of the Senkaku Islands.
Am I the only one who senses a Chinese conspiracy to expand the number of infected people?
A famous activist visited the museum.
A Korean media reporter looked at the material and said, 'Why do you only exhibit material in line with the Japanese government's position? It's outrageous!' I responded by saying, 'We can't force people to say what they want to say or falsify data to the liking of the South Korean or Japanese governments, and we can't do that intentionally in Japan.'
What did the Korean media reporter say?
'It can't be. The Japanese government falsified data on the Moritomo-Kake issue.'
No matter what facts we point at them, it is useless; they will not accept it unless the exhibit is about mourning the victims as they want it to be and the documents and data that go along with it.
On the contrary, some Korean media left without going to Zone 3, perhaps because they were not interested in primary historical documents and testimonies, saying they didn't have time.
Recently, Mr. Hideki Yano, Secretary-General of the Japan-Korea Joint Action for Compensation for Korean Forced Labor Victims (JJK Joint Action for Legislation for Korean Forced Labor Victims), visited the museum.
When the UNESCO World Heritage Committee met in 2015 in Bonn, Germany, Mr. Yano joined a South Korean citizens' group that had been campaigning against the registration of the island in the hotel's lobby where the committee members were staying, saying, "Gunkanjima is a Hell Island! He was the person who made a big presentation.
Mr. Yano is a well-known activist who was reported in the news as the Secretary-General of the Association in Support of the Trial of Formerly Conscripted Workers of Nippon Steel Corporation held a press conference with the plaintiffs after the Supreme Court of Korea's ruling.
Mr. Yano's message left an impression in the minds of the committee members from 150 countries at a symposium at the hotel where they stayed that Gunkanjima was no different from Auschwitz.
It would be an excellent time to ask Mr. Yano some questions I've been having.
As an aside, two men came with Mr. Yano.
I wanted to know who they were since they didn't give me their business cards, and I checked the names they gave me when they entered the museum. I discovered they were Mr. Daisuke Shimizu, a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, and Mr. Shu Nishino, a reporter for the Kyodo News, who specialized in covering the issue of conscripted workers.
I can't help but wonder why they hid their identities and came to cover the story as if it were a play me foul.
A pamphlet full of lies
The following is an exchange between myself and Mr. Yano.
Who asked you to do the presentation in Germany?
The Institute for Ethnic Affairs.
The Institute for Ethnic Affairs is a South Korean civil society organization known for its pro-Japanese pursuit and research activities.
In 2015, I showed Mr. Yano a pamphlet that the Institute for Ethnic Affairs had distributed at the World Heritage Committee meeting in Bonn, Germany.
On the cover of the pamphlet were photos of emaciated laborers and miners digging coal mines while lying on their backs. Still, our investigation revealed that the pictures had nothing to do with Korean workers.
The photo used on the cover of this pamphlet is Japanese. The source is also clear and unrelated. Mr. Yano provided these photos to the Institute for Nationalities Affairs?"
"No, I don't know."
Do you know Mr. Seo Kyoung-Duk? Do you collaborate with him?
Mr. Seo Kyoung-Duk (visiting professor at Seishin Women's University) is the person who spent 100 million yen to send out an advertisement video in the evening at IMS Square in New York City, complaining about the atrocities of Hashima Island.
The photos used in that ad were also unrelated to the Korean conscripts.
However, Mr. Yano says he knows of no such person.
'Seo Kyoung-Duk is a member of the Institute for Ethnic Affairs, and you don't know him?
He said, "Huh? Did I?"
To my explanation that there was no such thing as discrimination or abuse on Gunkanjima, Mr. Yano countered, "I don't know.
But a man who was the general secretary of the Hashima Labor Union wrote, 'Gunkanjima was a hell island.
I also asked him about his testimony, and he said, 'I was deceived by a reporter from the Asahi Shimbun who came to interview me."
"What?"
Asahi's foul play
Mr. Yano refers to Mr. Tomohiro Tada, 92, a former islander who, as general secretary of the Hashima Island Labor Union, devoted many years to the union's members.
The following is a bit long, but it is Mr. Tada's testimony.
"After the war, I spent many years working in the union movement on Hashima. However, I felt at that time that there was a tendency to speak ill of everything before the war. For example, the Imperial Rescript on Education (Kyoiku-Chokugo) says that people should respect their parents and get along with their brothers and sisters, but it also denies everything. So I think that one of the culprits for creating such a trend is the Japanese mass media."
"When it comes to Hashima when an article about Hashima appears, it always ends with the sentence, "Koreans were abused."
I am annoyed at the fact that who confirmed such a fact."
On the 20th anniversary of the closing of the Hashima coal mine, about 360 people from all over Japan gathered there. At that time, a young reporter from the Asahi Shimbun came to me and said he wanted to write an article about it. He said he was impressed that so many people had gathered 20 years after the closure of the mine. But I flatly refused. I also turned down the request to borrow photos of Hashima Island. I told him I refused because I could not agree with your newspaper articles mentioning Hashima Island as a place where Koreans were abused.
I have no right to stop you from writing an article, but I refused to have it published as my discourse."
"Then he came to me several times and said, 'This is the article I have been entrusted with, and my feeling is that I want to write an article about the 20th anniversary of the closure of the coal mine, so Mr. Tada, I'm sorry, but please lend me the photos. He said he would never write about the "mistreatment of Koreans," so the young reporter kept coming back, so I felt sorry for him and agreed to lend him the photos. However, the Korean issue was still prominently featured in the newspaper article. I was so angry that I called the newspaper to protest. But they didn't get the point at all. So I called several times, but they told me the reporter was no longer there. They told me that he had been transferred to another company. There was nothing I could do. I didn't even know where he had been transferred to. Then, some years later, I received a letter and a photo from him. I received an EXCUSE letter and photo from him, and he said it was not his intention. He said his boss had added the information to the report without his knowledge. After that, I decided not to read the Asahi Shimbun anymore."
This article continues.
