[News Figures] 10 Years of Controversy over 'The Comfort Women of the Empire,' Professor Park Yuha

Professor Park Yuha, author of The Empire's Comfort Women, was born in 1957. After graduating from high school, she completed her bachelor's degree at Keio University in Japan and pursued her master's and doctoral studies at Waseda University, majoring in Japanese literature throughout. Upon returning to Korea, she served as a professor in the Department of Japanese Literature at Sejong University and translated Kojin Karatani's The Origins of Modern Japanese Literature. She translated novels by many authors including Natsume Soseki, Yamada Amy, and Oe Kenzaburo, and was the first foreigner to receive the Osaragi Jiro Criticism Award. She retired from Sejong University last year and currently lectures as an emeritus professor.

Professor Park Yoo-ha, Sejong University

The Empire's Comfort Women was published in August 2013. In this book, Professor Park listed cases where Japanese private contractors who took Korean girls to become comfort women, as well as some Koreans who cooperated in recruiting comfort women, causing a major social upheaval with claims that differed from previously known common knowledge. She argued that the superficial perception of "pure Korean girls being forcibly mobilized by the brutal Japanese empire" should be replaced with a balanced perspective. There were also interpretations that described the victims of the Japanese military comfort women system as "prostitutes" or having a "comrade-like relationship with the Japanese military." Upon its release, the book became the most controversial work regarding the comfort women issue, the biggest point of contention between Korea and Japan.

Professor Park faced a flood of criticism, being called a "pawn of the Japanese far-right" and accused of "committing violence again against the comfort women grandmothers." In June 2014, nine former Japanese military comfort women and the support organization "Nanum-ui Jip" filed a provisional injunction to ban the publication against Professor Park and the publisher's representative. After the court partially accepted the injunction, a second edition with 34 deletions was released in May 2015. Books criticizing Professor Park's claims, such as Asking the Empire's Advocate Park Yuha and For Whom Is the Reconciliation?, were published one after another. On the other hand, 14 Japanese scholars and Professor Kim Cheol of Yonsei University published a book defending Professor Park titled For Dialogue.

The controversy also sparked social debates about freedom of expression and academic freedom. A group of 194 intellectuals, including Professor Kim Cheol and writer Jang Jeong-il, issued a statement saying, "The idea of subjecting the correctness or incorrectness of a scholar's claims to judicial judgment is extremely anachronistic," and "We deeply worry about the prosecution of Professor Park together with all citizens who wish to protect freedom of thought and expression." Conversely, Ewha Womans University emeritus professor Yoon Jeong-ok, Seoul National University professor Jeong Jin-seong, and others, under the name of "Researchers and activists working for a just resolution of the comfort women issue," criticized, "While it is fundamentally inappropriate to criminally punish researchers' works in court, The Empire's Comfort Women has many problems in various aspects such as factual accuracy, understanding of issues, presentation of arguments, balance in narration, and logical consistency."

In January 2016, Professor Park lost a civil lawsuit as the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. In the criminal trial sentenced on January 25 of the following year, the prosecution sought a three-year prison sentence, but the first trial court acquitted her, stating, "Academic expression should protect not only what is correct but also what is incorrect." On October 27 of the same year, the appellate court sentenced her to a fine of 10 million won, ruling that 11 of the 35 expressions deemed defamatory by the prosecution were indeed false statements. About six years later, on the 26th, the Supreme Court overturned the appellate court's ruling, stating that Professor Park "cannot be punished for defamation," and remanded the case to the Seoul High Court.

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