KIM Byung-heon criticizes Comfort Women verdict on Jan.8

The content we present here relates to the Kamikaze Special Attack Unit and the ever familiar LEE Halmoni.
Please have a listen to Director KIM:

LEE Yong-soo Fact-checks taken by a Kamikaze Unit at the Age of “14”?!
January 12, 2021
KIM Byung-heon, Representative of the National Action to Abolish the Comfort Women Act

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLqb6FLBbUk

Hello, everyone. I’m KIM Byung-heon of the Korean History Channel.

It happened this past January 8. In the suit seeking filed against the Japanese government by 12 former comfort women, including the late Ms. BAE Chun-hee, the court made a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.

The verdict orders the Japanese government to “pay 100 million won to each of the 12.” Tomorrow, January 13, was the day scheduled for the ruling of the First Court concerning damages filed by 20 plaintiffs, including the late Ms. KWAK Ye-nam. It has now been postponed to March 24.

I have studied the plaintiff’s claims of the January 8 trial and the statements submitted by the plaintiff’s attorneys for the trail for March 24 and have found various inconsistencies. The claims and allegations are totally inconsistent with historical facts. And I wondered if what they stated and claimed were in fact real and if these statements and claims in fact constitute evidence.

Accordingly, in order to get to the bottom of all this, I make this video, scrutinizing all of the facts. I plan to produce many more of these videos in the future.

The Japanese comfort women issue is grounded in the Comfort Women Act [of South Korea]. Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the “Comfort Women Act” defines Japanese military comfort women victims. Let me read the relevant paragraph:

“Japanese military comfort women victims refer to victims who were forcibly mobilized by the Empire of Japan, sexually abused and forced to live a life of a comfort woman.”

The Empire of Japan here means the Japanese army. The Act claims that Japanese military comfort women victims are women who were forcibly mobilized and sexually abused by the Japanese army and forced by the Japanese army to live as comfort women.

Now, I studied a number of materials related to this issue, including the statements of comfort women, and found that absolutely no Korean woman falls under this definition, that she was a Japanese military comfort women victim.

Allow me to explain:

This photo, dated November 13, 2019, shows Ms. LEE Yong-soo, the one sitting in the center of the photo. Let me tell you about Ms. LEE, as her statement is seen as a genuine, suffering comfort woman halmoni.

Sadly, Ms. LEE Yong-soo’s statement has numerous issues.

She shifts her claims and stories wherever she speaks, depending on the setting, such that she has acquired the name “LEE Yong-soo the Inconstant Liar”. The point is that the claim she gave in the court was not just given as her own story but as sworn and lawful testimony. This is important to consider.

What did LEE say? “Your Honor, in all your wisdom, please look. I did nothing wrong. At the age of 14, I was taken by Japan — not Japan but the Japanese army, I should say — taken by the Japanese army and suffered all kinds of torture including electric shocks by the Kamikaze Unit before I returned. Under rain and snow, I have spent the past 30 years crying out in front of the Japanese Embassy. Crying for an investigation, for an apology and compensation — that is how I have lived for more than 90 years”

A newspaper article dated November 13: “Her tearful appeal filled courtroom 558 at Seoul Central District Court. LEE Yong-soo Halmoni, who was using a wheelchair, stood on her knees when she was granted a hearing. It was done before the chief judge, sitting at the highest position in the court.” Very emotional.

So let us take a look to see if LEE, who “was taken by the Japanese army at the age of 14 and tortured with electric shocks by the Kamikaze Unit” conforms to the facts. I will take up the claims of torture with electric shocks later.

She says that she was taken by the Japanese army to a Kamikaze Unit when she was 14! Let’s think about this.

She was kidnapped and taken to the Kamikaze Unit when she was 14.
Ms. LEE Yong-soo was born in 1928, so she was 14 years old in 1942.
Here is a photo of a Japanese fighter airplane, a “Zero”, used by the Kamikaze Special Attack Unit [a photo of a Zero fighter appears] to crash into U.S. warships, a very well known airplane at the time. The Zero is a single-seater. Now, Ms. LEE’s initial stories, in 1993, say that she was born in 1928.

If she was born in 1928, then she was 14 years old in 1942.
Did the Kamikaze Special Attack Unit exist in 1942?

The Kamikaze Special Attack Unit was first organized on October 20, 1944 in the Philippines. On October 25, 1944, the unit made their first assault in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In January 1945, full scale attacks by Kamikaze volunteers started. So, in 1942, when Ms. LEE was 14 years old, there was no Kamikaze Special Attack Unit—this “Kamikaze” unit did not exist.

Thus, Ms. LEE’s testimony, in court, that she was taken to the Kamikaze Special Attack unit at the age of 14 is false and a lie.

She says that she 14 years old when she was grabbed but was it possible, at all, to be a comfort woman at this age? Remember, a 14-year-old at the time was a middle school student–a juvenile.

Now, let’s take a look at a newspaper from those days. The Mainichi Shimbun dated October 27, 1944 ran an ad recruiting comfort women.

It stated that the place of employment is the comfort station for Unit “XX” and qualifications include being between 18 to 30 years old and in good physical health. Thus the minimum age is 18!

There is another–Ms. KIM Hak-sun, often referred to as the first to claim she was a former [Koream] comfort woman. In Volume 1 of The Forcibly Drafted Korean Comfort Women, a collection of testimonies issued by the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, Ms. KIM states:

“After a certificate was issued at the assignation office, it was possible to work as a regular kisaeng. An official kisaeng license was given only after turning 19 year of age. When I completed the course, however, I was only 17 and could not work even if I finished the training.”

She clearly stated “19 years of age.” To state age in complete Western cycles, this would be 18 years of age.

A Korean newspaper in 1934 had an article, “Where is the licensed prostitution issue going?”

At that time, licensed prostitution was abolished in Japan. In Korea, however, licensed prostitution was present at the time of the Liberation and of course during the Korean War. Licensed prostitution was fully maintained at the time of Korean “Liberation”.

Underground prostitution was strictly prohibited and those to work as prostitutes, barmaids or professional entertainers had to be at least 17 years of age (in principle). Those under 17 were not given the license unless they were free of infectious diseases and met other requirements.

The article further stated that, it was only possible for women to engage in these professions when they were at least 17 years old, had no infectious diseases and met other qualification requirements. Again, girls under 17 were not permitted to work as a prostitute.

So, Ms. LEE Yong-soo’s account—that she was grabbed by the Japanese army to work for a ”Kamikaze Special Attack Unit” at the age of 14, or forcibly mobilized by the Japanese army to the Kamikaze Unit – is any of this real? Or are these fabrications?

Fact-checking shows that this is false. Clearly falsehoods.

The important point is that Ms. LEE Yong-soo claimed that she was taken by the Japanese army to the Kamikaze Special Attack Unit at the age of 14, as a witness to a legal proceeding, and nobody else, no one, was brought in as a witness.

Therefore, if she is lying then she will need to pay the consequences of lying in open court.

Ms. LEE Yong-soo obviously gave false witness!

The Court must reflect on the ridiculous statements given by Ms. LEE Yong-soo.

If the Court merely regurgitates “sovereign immunity” based on previous nonsense from so called comfort women, physical evidence and so on without verification, and if they rule in favor of the plaintiffs again, this will only demonstrate to the world that the Korean judiciary is corrupt. Period.

If this happens, then Koreans today are no better off than being under the Joseon Dynasty.

Thank you for being with me today!