hankyoreh

People commemorate the Korean victims of massacres following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 in Yokoamicho Park in Tokyo on Sept. 1, 2019. (Hankyoreh archives)

The metropolitan government of Tokyo has retracted a demand that the organizers of a memorial service for Koreans massacred in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 submit a written pledge to abide by the law.

The Executive Committee for the Memorial Service for Korean Victims of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 told the Hankyoreh on Aug. 3 that “Tokyo accepted our application [for holding the memorial service] on July 29 and said that it wouldn’t demand [that we submit] a written pledge.”

Under the guise of equal treatment with right-wing organizations, Tokyo had asked the organizers to refrain from using microphones or speakers as a condition for being allowed to use a city park for the memorial service. The city, which sought to treat the memorial service the same as the hate speech of right-wing groups that have obstructed the service, appears to have retreated on its demands because of blowback from the citizenry.

The executive committee has held the service at Yokoamicho Park, in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward, on Sept. 1 each year since 1974 in memory of Koreans who were massacred following the Great Kanto Earthquake. But the service has run into trouble since right-leaning Yuriko Koike was elected governor of Tokyo.

In December 2019, the city government made the controversial demand that the executive committee submit a statement pledging to keep down the volume of microphones and speakers during an event that Tokyo is holding for all victims of the Kanto earthquake. Submitting the pledge, the committee was told, was the condition for receiving a permit to use the park. The pledge also stated that failure to abide by the terms of the pledge could lead to the revocation of the committee’s usage permit.

This controversy was further inflamed by the city’s demand for the same pledge to be submitted by a right-wing group that has been holding a rally in the same park for the past three years with the goal of disrupting the memorial service. That led some to conclude that the city essentially regarded the memorial service for Korean victims as being on the same level as the right-wing group’s hate speech and intended to regulate both accordingly.

The executive committee released a statement this past May criticizing the Tokyo government’s measures, which was followed by a statement by Japan’s civic society and cultural community declaring that it was “neither fair nor just to regulate a ceremony commemorating the victims of ethnic discrimination in the same way as a rally inciting ethnic discrimination.”

“The city of Tokyo backed down on its demand for the pledge because citizens stood with us, and we’re sincerely grateful to them,” the executive committee said, adding that “the city of Tokyo provided very sensible guidelines but said the memorial service can be held as in previous years.”

But the executive committee said it will be excluding the general public from this year’s memorial service in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The committee plans to broadcast the service online.

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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