On May 30, three people held a news conference in Tokyo to speak out against a documentary titled "Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue," which focuses on the rhetorical battle over the women who sexually serviced Japanese soldiers before and during World War II. The participants included Nobukatsu Fujioka, vice chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, which wants history textbooks to reflect the view that the government at the time did not force these women to work in authorized front-line brothels and that they were, in fact, professional prostitutes. This view is disputed by South Korea, where many comfort women were from, as well as by many Japanese scholars.
Fujioka and others claim Japanese-American Miki Dezaki deceived them when the director persuaded them to appear on camera to explain their position. At the time, Dezaki was a graduate student at Sophia University, and the participants believed the interviews were part of Dezaki's academic research. They had no idea they would end up in a commercially released documentary. They also claim the footage was edited "unfairly" so as to distort their views.
It's a “grotesque piece of propaganda,” Fujioka said, demanding that distribution be halted. Fujioka and six others have decided to take legal action.
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