Japan Yomiuri "Call for Clarification of Justice Network Allegations and Review of Moon Administration's Japan Policy"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] The conservative-leaning Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun argued on the 5th that suspicions related to the Justice and Memory Foundation should be clarified and that the Moon Jae-in administration should reconsider its policy toward Japan.

In an editorial on the same day, Yomiuri stated, "Korea's comfort women support organizations have held influence over successive administrations and cast a shadow over Korea-Japan issues," adding, "The Moon Jae-in administration must rectify its relationship with these organizations and reconsider its policy toward Japan."

Yomiuri mentioned the ongoing investigation by Korean prosecutors into Yoon Mee-hyang, former chairperson of the Justice and Memory Foundation and a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, noting that public attention is focused on the matter and that such a situation involving comfort women support organizations, which were once considered 'sacred,' is "an extremely unusual incident." It further asserted, "This suspicion should serve as an opportunity to uncover the true nature of the activities of these (comfort women support) organizations."

Yomiuri also referred to the criticism of the support organizations by comfort women victim Lee Yong-soo, emphasizing, "The issue is whether the support organizations truly approached the comfort women and adequately represented their voices." It added that while the Justice and Memory Foundation called for the annulment of the 2015 Korea-Japan comfort women agreement, more than 70% of surviving comfort women received support funds according to the agreement, indicating that opinions between victims and support organizations were divided at the time.

Yomiuri further stated, "The Moon Jae-in administration is known to have ignored reality and claimed that 'the agreement did not properly reflect the wishes of the surviving comfort women,'" mentioning that the Moon administration dissolved the comfort women victim support foundation, which the Japanese government had funded with 1 billion yen. It also claimed, "Looking at the Moon administration's response, one can see its close ties with the support organizations."

Moreover, it criticized the Moon administration, saying, "The organization served as a support base for the administration, and former executives have been appointed to high-ranking positions," and added, "It cannot be denied that the victim-centered approach of the Moon administration was biased toward a specific civic group."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.