Sydney – A local media reported on Wednesday that a Japanese community group has launched a racial discrimination case against a Sydney suburban church for erecting a war memorial for “comfort women’’.
The memorial commemorates sex slaves kept by the Japanese army during World War II.
It was erected earlier this year by Sydney’s Korean community outside a Uniting Church in the suburb of Ashfield.
The memorial depicts a 1.5 metre statue of a seated Korean woman with an empty chair next to her to remember the estimated 200,000 women,
“Mostly Korean and Chinese but also Dutch, British and Australian, who were forced to work as sex slaves’’.
A group called the Australia-Japan Community Network is claiming the memorial promotes racial hatred and division and launched an official complaint under the country’s Racial Discrimination Act.
Under the Act it is unlawful to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person on the basis of race, colour, or national or ethnic origin.’’
President of the Japanese group Tetsuhide Yamaoka inTokyo said that the action was taken in response to concerns raised by mothers and fathers in Sydney.
“ We have seen many negative things happening overseas and start happening in Australia in relation to this ‘comfort women’ thing because it’s not a pure commemoration as such, it’s highly politically motivated,” Yamaoka said.
Reverend Bill Crews, who agreed to host the memorial outside his church, said he would fight the case brought by the Japanese group.
“ It’s not against the Japanese people, it’s for the women who suffered in war,’’ Crews said.
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