Takashi Uemura (academic)

Takashi Uemura is a Japanese academic and former journalist who, while a reporter for The Asahi Shimbun, wrote about comfort women. His mother-in-law is Yang Sun-Im, a Korean activist who heads the Association of Pacific War Victims and plaintiff groups for lawsuits by former comfort women.^[1]

Controversy

While a reporter for Asahi, Uemura wrote articles about the comfort women who had been forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. However, some have been alleged to involve incorrect information.^[2][3][4] It has also been claimed that they was an intentional "forgery".^[5][6][7] On August 5, 2014, 23 years after the publication of the articles, Asahi Shimbun placed a correction article stating that certain articles misused a document and described information incorrectly.^[8] Uemura is not mentioned by name in the correction article and the articles which he wrote are not among the retracted articles.^[9][10] Uemura has since initiated legal proceedings over the public accusation against the publisher.^[11]

The New York Times, which has partnered with Asahi Shimbun, reported that he was the target of ultra-nationalists, as was Asahi Shimbun. Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo, in northern Japan, where he lectures, has come under pressure to fire him. Furthermore, the same article explains that Uemura's article was not among those that Asahi retracted. This contradicts claims made in the right wing Japanese press regarding his writings.^[9][10]

On January 9, Uemura filed a defamation suit with the Tokyo District Court against Tsutomu Nishioka, professor of Korean studies at Tokyo Christian University, and Bungeishunjū publishing company in response to the public accusations against him.^[12]

References