Nat'l Diet Library shelves file on crimes by U.S. service personnel

Tuesday 12th August, 02:12 AM JST

TOKYO —

The National Diet Library deleted the entry for a document about a 1953 Justice Ministry order on abandonment of Japanese justice on U.S. service personnel from its catalog of documents by early June, following the ministry’s request, the library and ministry said Monday.

The ministry in late May requested to make the information inaccessible as “(Public viewing of the documents) potentially harms (Japan’s) relations of trust with the United States,” they said, but shelving of the document may provoke public criticism from the standpoint of people’s right to know.

› Login to comment

6 Comments

rjd_jr at 07:29 AM JST - 12th August

Good, no good things would have come from it, not that anyone would care nowadays of such a long ago thing.
mindovermatter at 12:48 PM JST - 12th August

Notginger

women procured for the Japanese government as forced sex workers

For the Japanese Gov't? or by the Japanese Gov't?

First of all unless you are talking about underground sex industry here in Japan as today, where "Entertainers" are brought into the country from Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan, China, etc... and made to pay off debt's in order to get their passports back, but the JN Gov't has absolutely nothing to do with this, other than, looking the other way...

The JN gov't never forced women into prostitution for the occupied forces, sure they may pressured some, but they were never forced into being sex workers, unlike what the Yakuza does today to these imported asian women...
pathat at 01:12 PM JST - 12th August

"Well, in 1953 American and British servicemen had only just stopped regularly enjoying the services of comfort women, women procured for the Japanese government as forced sex workers. Much is made of the Japanese governments responsibility in this area, but little has been said of the complicity of the occupying powers."

John Dower`s Pulitzer Prize-winning history, "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II," devotes more than a few pages to the history of what you are err... trying to bring up here. It was first published 10 years ago, and I bet it has been read by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.

The use of the verb "shelve" does not really make sense in this article.
mindovermatter at 01:41 PM JST - 12th August

pathat

John Dower`s Pulitzer Prize-winning history, "Embracing Defeat"

Yes, very good read....and written from a very left-leaning, japan biased perspective (or at least a serious attempt was made), having read this thing cover to cover a dozen times, one cannot walk away saying anything bad about the way Japan was treated...as much as I think he tried to convey the sense of "Japan" and "victim-hood", it leaves the reader thinking what a good deal Japan actually received...
stipend at 03:25 PM JST - 12th August

Futons to be aired out on the balcony with the laundry, history bits to be swept under the carpet. Ok, got it!

But what of being a democracy? Government decides what can and cannot be accessed/read - from 55 yrs ago? That's pretty sad.

You either learn from history or are condemned to repeat it.