US Supreme Court rejects Japan's bid over 'comfort women' statue

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce places a bouquet on a bench next to the bronze comfort woman statue in Glendale, California, in January 2014. / Korea Times file

By Ko Dong-hwan

The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed Japanese government efforts to remove from California a "comfort women" statue that symbolizes victims of Japan's sexual slavery during World War II.

The court on Monday decided not to review the case brought by U.S. plaintiffs who were supported by the Japanese government. It ended Japan's three-year bid to remove the statue. U.S. politicians involved in the case and civil rights groups applauded the decision.

Glendale's comfort woman statue is the first erected outside Korea.

U.S. Republican Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Japan Times: "By remembering the past, including the women who suffered immensely, we help ensure these atrocities are never committed again.

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"Now that the highest court in the land has spoken, I hope those who've wasted years trying to rewrite history will finally move on."

The court's decision encouraged the Korean community in the U.S., which has been defending the statue.

Phyllis Kim, Executive Director of the Korean American Forum of California, was quoted by the news outlet as saying U.S. cities and states "have a right to remember grave human rights violations and include them in textbooks."

She said the Japanese government "has publicly supported this shameful lawsuit in its efforts to deny, downplay and erase the dark history of its war crimes."

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday that the court's refusal to hear the case was "an extremely regrettable decision."

The Glendale statue was erected in 2013 as a tribute to more than 200,000 Asian and Dutch women from Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, East Timor and Indonesia who were forced into sexual slavery between 1932 and 1945.

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