Ex-president’s statue damaged This photo taken on Nov. 19, 2020, shows a statue of former President Chun Doo-whan at Cheongnamdae, a former presidential retreat, in Cheongju, 140 kilometers south of Seoul, after the neck was damaged by someone with a wire saw. Chun brutally cracked down on the 1980 Gwangju uprising. (Yonhap) (END)
113 #SouthKorean lawmakers from 3 parties (Democratic, Justice, & Basic Income) criticize Germany, accusing it of human rights abuses for ordering the "comfort girl" statue be removed from a street in Berlin.
Maybe I missed it, but when was vandalism ever legalized?:
The statue of a Confederate soldier and plinth sit on a flatbed truck at the Old Capitol in Raleigh, N.C., on June 21, 2020. After protesters pulled down two smaller statues on the same monument, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper ordered the removal of several other monuments to the Confederacy, citing public safety concerns. (Allen G. Breed/AP)
On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted that he had authorized federal officials to “arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veterans’ Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent.”
A protester is taken away from a statue symbolizing Korea’s forced laborers on a sidewalk near the Japanese Consulate in the southeastern port city of Busan on May 31, 2018, as officials from the city’s Dong Ward office load the statue onto a truck, as police disperse protesters from civic groups who attempt to prevent it from being removed. The statue, which represents laborers who were forcibly mobilized by Japan during its 1910-45 colonial domination over the Korean Peninsula, was transported to the state-run National Memorial Museum of Forced Mobilization under Japanese Occupation also in the city. Civic groups want to set it up in front of the Japanese Consulate, but the government says it should be placed elsewhere. (Yonhap)
Choo Mi-ae, leader of the ruling Democratic Party, holds the hands of a “comfort woman” statue at Museum of Korean American Heritage in New York on Nov. 17, 2017 (New York time). Comfort women refer to those who were forcibly taken to Japanese front-line military brothels during World War II. (Yonhap)
Shown is a 4.2-meter-tall statue of former President Park Chung-hee made by his supporters to be installed at President Park Chung-hee Memorial Foundation in western Seoul. The group of supporters delivered a certificate to the foundation on Nov. 13, 2017, indicating that it will donate the statue. (Yonhap)
Labor activists unveil the model of a statue symbolizing Korean laborers forcibly taken abroad by the imperialist Japan during World War II at the Yongsan Station Square in western Seoul on April 6, 2017. They called for the government to allow them to set up the statue at the square on the Aug. 15 Independence Day. Early this year, the nation’s two largest umbrella labor unions unsuccessfully tried to establish the statue there on the March 1 Independence Movement Day. The government disapproved the demand, saying the square is state land. Up to 1.4 million Koreans are estimated to have been forced to work at coal mines, factories and construction sites abroad from 1939-45, when Korea was a Japanese colony. (Yonhap)
This does seem pretty stupid for the Japanese government to oppose this statue since it is sitting in a public park and not right in front of a Japanese embassy or consulate like we have seen in Korea. How would the Japanese public feel if the US launched a lawsuit to take down statues remembering atomic bombing victims?:
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce places a bouquet on a bench next to the bronze comfort woman statue in Glendale, California, in January 2014. / Korea Times file
The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed Japanese government efforts to remove from California a “comfort women” statue that symbolizes victims of Japan’s sexual slavery during World War II.
The court on Monday decided not to review the case brought by U.S. plaintiffs who were supported by the Japanese government. It ended Japan’s three-year bid to remove the statue. U.S. politicians involved in the case and civil rights groups applauded the decision.
Glendale’s comfort woman statue is the first erected outside Korea.
U.S. Republican Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Japan Times: “By remembering the past, including the women who suffered immensely, we help ensure these atrocities are never committed again. [Korea Times]
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