Court accepts forced labor suit
Print Edition
Japan was accused of failing to address the issue of forced labor during World War II yesterday as China expressed support for court action seeking compensation from two Japanese companies.
The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court has accepted a lawsuit brought by 37 former workers and their descendants. It is believed to be the first time a Chinese court has accepted such a case.
A Japanese government spokesman said yesterday there was “no case” to answer and Tokyo has said postwar agreements had settled cases of forced wartime labor.
But Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: “Forced labor is a grave crime which Japanese militarists committed during their World War II aggression. It is an issue which has yet to be properly solved.”
The lawsuit seeks compensation of 1 million yuan (US$163,300) for each victim from Mitsubishi Materials Corp and Nippon Coke & Engineering Co, formerly the Mitsui Mining Co.
It also demands that the companies issue apologies, in both Chinese and Japanese, in 17 major media outlets in both countries, according to a Beijing Evening News report.
Documents showed that 38,953 Chinese people, aged from 11 to 78, were captured by the Japanese army and forcibly sent to 35 companies to work between April 1943 and May 1945.
Statistics showed 6,830 of them died before Japan surrendered in September 1945.
Mitsubishi and Nippon were alleged to have kept 9,415 Chinese laborers, with 1,745 of them dying in Japan, the newspaper said.
Zhang Shijie, 88, said he was forced into hard labor in Nagasaki before the age of 20.
“I was ordered to do coal mining. I was poorly fed at night but was still ordered to work. I felt like I was jailed,” Zhang told China National Radio.
Zhao Zongren, 84, was taken to Japan in the autumn of 1944.
“I carried stones on my back. I did repair work at power plants. I sieved sand. I was severely beaten,” he told China News Service.
Chinese labors have never given up seeking justice. In July 2001, a court in Tokyo ruled that the Japanese government should pay 20 million yen (US$195,455) compensation to siblings of a deceased forced laborer Liu Lianren. But two higher courts later rejected the verdict.
Since the 1990s, Japanese courts have rejected compensation claims in 15 lawsuits filed over forced Chinese laborers, Xinhua news agency reported.
The latest case ended on March 1, 2011, when the Japan Supreme Court confirmed that Japanese companies had harmed Chinese people, but exempted them from responsibility.
Japanese courts have refused to hear appeals, one reason being that it is claimed the individual rights of Chinese nationals for war reparations were discarded under the 1972 Japan-China joint statement.
Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters yesterday that Tokyo’s position was that all claims had been “settled” by agreements between the two governments.
“This is a matter between China and companies with China-related business, so it is a civil issue,” Suga said.
“However, I can say that since such problems were included in the Japan-China communique, there is no case,” he said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
