A comfort woman statue wears winter clothes outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. [Photo by Namgung Jin-woong = timeid@ajunews.com]
South Korea has asked Winter Asiad organizers to switch a hotel for athletes due to guest room books denying and whitewashing Japan's wartime atrocities and sex slavery.
The Asian Winter Games will run from February 19 to 26 in Sapporo on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. APA Hotel and Resort was to house some 2,000 athletes including those from China and South Korea.
Seoul and Beijing have lodged a protest with the Olympic Council of Asia, the governing body of sports in Asia, and Games organizers as guest room books provided by APA denied or played down Japan's forced recruitment of World War II sex slaves and the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.
Under pressure, the hotel offered to remove the books, but Seoul and Beijing want a different hotel.
The Korean Sport and Olympic Committee said Wednesday it has sent letters asking for a switch of lodging so that athletes could stay away from diplomatic disputes.
The event comes amid a diplomatic row reignited by the construction of "comfort woman" statues symbolizing the plight of Asian women sexually enslaved by Japan's imperial army during World War II. Japan thinks they expose embarrassing historical facts.
Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women mostly from Korea were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese troops. Many South Koreans still harbor deep resentment against Japan over its 1910-45 colonial rule, and they want Tokyo's sincere apology.
Seoul and Tokyo reached a landmark deal in 2015 to resolve the emotional "comfort woman" issue after Japan agreed to donate one billion yen ($9.97 million) to a foundation dedicated to supporting the victims of sexual slavery.
In return, Tokyo wants Seoul to tear down the "comfort woman" statues set up outside Japanese legations in Seoul and the southern port city of Busan.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.