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Demonstration held against US position on comfort women
( 2001-07-24 16:08 ) (7 )

A demonstration was held on Monday in front of the US State Department, protesting the US support of Japan's refusal to provide justice to women who were forced into rape camps by Japan during World War II.

The demonstrators, coming from some major US cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and New York, chanted slogans: " Japanese Emperor must Apologize!" "Justice for Comfort Women!" and "Punish War Criminals!"

The demonstration was sponsored by 11 US-based organizations, including National Organization for Women, Young Koreans United of USA. and Truth Council for World War II in Asia.

In a letter delivered to the State Department and cosigned by over 300 US-based organizations, the demonstrators urged the US government to immediately withdraw a recent "State of Interest" in which it opposed and requested the dismissal of a class action lawsuit filed by some "comfort women" victims on September 18, 2000.

The lawsuit, the first-ever of its kind which was filed in a federal court in Washington D.C., demands redress from the Government of Japan for the comfort women victims.

"We must convey our shock, disappointment, and condemnation of this action (of the US government)," the letter said.

"We demand that the US stand on the side of justice and human rights, and take steps to assist -- not hinder -- the comfort women's quest for justice," it noted.

Between 1932 and 1945, an aknowledged number of over 400,000 women and young girls from some Asian countries or regions as well as the Netherlands were rounded up by the Japanese military and forced into sex camps where they were raped by up to seventy soldiers a day, tortured, beaten and sometimes murdered.

Some of the victims -- known euphemistically as "comfort women" -- were as young as ten years old when their ordeal began.