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Tokyo demands pledge that organizers of memorial service for Korean victims of Great Kanto Earthquake will abide by the law

Posted on : 2020-05-19 17:34 KST Modified on : 2020-05-19 17:35 KST
Organizers say demands are a restriction of freedom of assembly
People pay their respects to the Korean victims who were indiscriminately slaughtered during the chaos of the Great Kanto Earthquake during a memorial service at Tokyo’s Yokoamicho Park on Sept. 1, 2019. (Hankyoreh archives)
People pay their respects to the Korean victims who were indiscriminately slaughtered during the chaos of the Great Kanto Earthquake during a memorial service at Tokyo’s Yokoamicho Park on Sept. 1, 2019. (Hankyoreh archives)
The city of Tokyo is demanding that the organizers of a memorial service for Koreans massacred in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 submit a written pledge to abide by the law. The service is held on Sept. 1 every year at Yokoamicho Park in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward. The Japanese nonprofit organization that organizes the service released a statement asking Tokyo to waive the demand on the grounds that it might place restraints on the service.

The Executive Committee for the Memorial Service for Korean Victims of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 told the Hankyoreh on May 18 that Tokyo had told it on Dec. 24, 2019, that it must provide a written pledge for this year’s service.

The city wants the executive committee to promise not to use microphones or speakers during the time of the ceremony that Tokyo organizes for all victims of the earthquake and to keep loudspeakers at the lowest volume necessary to be heard by people in attendance. The executive committee was also asked to express its understanding that it may not be allowed to use the park again if it doesn’t comply with those expectations.

The memorial service has been held at Yokoamicho Park every year since 1973, when a memorial was erected there in remembrance of Korean victims of the massacre. This is the first time that the Tokyo metropolitan government has asked the organizers to provide such a written pledge.

“We’re concerned that this will put constraints on what is supposed to be a free and autonomous assembly. The committee has never engaged in the kind of behavior the city has described or any other behavior that would interfere with park management,” the executive committee said in its statement. The committee said that when it asked the Tokyo metropolitan government in February whether it was guilty of any of the behavior Tokyo was asking it to refrain from, the city government provided a response effectively acknowledging that it had not.

Tokyo’s request for the written pledge is linked to an assembly held over the past few years by members of the Japanese right wing who deny that Koreans were massacred after the earthquake. The right-wing assembly is held immediately across from the location of the memorial service.

Since 2017, a right-wing group known as Japan Women’s Group Soyokaze (Gentle Breeze) has been holding what is ostensibly a memorial service for Japanese victims at the exact same time as the memorial service for the Korean victims. During their assembly, members of this right-wing group assert that Japanese were also attacked by Koreans and disrupt the memorial service for the Korean victims. This right-wing group is the one that has been disturbing other people in the park with their loudspeakers, which is one of the behaviors prohibited in the written pledge demanded by the city of Tokyo.

Right-wing group delighted at chance to hold counter-assembly

But bizarrely, Tokyo has asked not only the right-wing group but also the executive committee of the memorial service for Korean victims to submit the written pledge, a turn of events that appears to have delighted the right-wing group. “Writing this pledge represents acknowledgement that there is another legitimate memorial service in the park. While this is just one small step, it turns a park that had been the domain of the anti-Japanese left-wing press into a place where both positions can be represented,” the group wrote on its blog back in February. The group regards the pledge as recognition of its existence.

“While the right-wing group claims it’s holding a memorial service, it’s not actually memorializing anyone but are only disrupting the memorial service for the Korean victims of the massacre. There are fears that, if a clash erupts between the two groups, the city of Tokyo could use that as grounds to shut down both events, not only the right-wing assembly but also the memorial service for the Korean victims,” Naoki Kato told the Hankyoreh over the phone on Monday. Kato is the author of a book titled “September on the Streets of Tokyo,” which is about the massacres of Koreans after the Great Kanto Earthquake.

The city of Tokyo told the Hankyoreh that it couldn’t confirm which organizations it had asked to provide a written pledge and that it was approaching the matter with fairness and neutrality, from the perspective of park management.

In contrast with previous governors of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike has declined to send a eulogy to the memorial service since 2017, the year after she took office. Koike explained that, since she sends out a eulogy for all victims of the earthquake, she doesn’t need to send out a separate one for the Korean victims. When critics pointed out the difference between a massacre and a natural disaster, the Tokyo governor opined that there are “a number of varying attitudes toward history.”

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

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