SDHF Newsletter No.194 Open Letter to the United Nations High Commissioner

Open Letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Universal Periodical Review Working Group for Japan in November 2017

December 20, 2017

The ‘Alliance for Truth about Comfort Woman’ (Chairman: KASE Hideaki) and ‘Academic Alliance for Correcting Groundless Criticisms of Japan’ (Chairman: TANAKA Hidemichi) jointly issued an Open Letter (dated December 19, 2017) to the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Universal Periodical Working Group for Japan in November 2017.

URL: https://www.sdh-fact.com/essay-article/1094/

PDF: https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/2017-12-Open-Letter-to-UNHCHR-Prince-Zeid.pdf

The major problems raised in the letter are that in the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) phrases such as “sexual slavery practices”, “sexual slavery crimes”, “prosecuting and punishing perpetrators”, and “bring to justice those responsible” are used regarding the issue of the comfort women, referring to the Committee against Torture (CAT) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
The use of these words are completely groundless. YAMANAKA Osamu, Director of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Division, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) clearly stated at a meeting of the Centre for Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) in Geneva on July 15, 2014 that the phrase “sexual slavery practices” is not at all appropriate. Moreover, SUGIYAMA Shinsuke, Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, MOFA definitely stated, at a meeting of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on February 16, 2016, that the phrases “forceful abduction”, “sexual slavery” and “the number of comfort women is 200,000” are totally without meaning after explaining in detail why so many fallacies prevail on the comfort women issue.
It is emphasized that Japanese NGO has, to date, requested seven times at Regular Sessions of the UN Human Rights Council that “the Coomaraswamy Report” on the comfort women in 1996 be withdrawn for reexamination of the facts on the comfort women.

Questions are welcome.

MOTEKI Hiromichi, Acting Chairman
for KASE Hideaki, Chairman
Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact