Japanese court rejects Korean suit

Japanese court on Thursday rejected a suit demanding that the names of killed Korean soldiers be removed from a Tokyo war shrine that critics say glorifies militarism, a court spokeswoman said.

Photo: Japanese court rejects Korean suit

Japanese court rejects Korean suit

The Tokyo District Court issued the ruling in a suit brought by South Koreans who served in Japan's wartime military and relatives of dead soldiers, spokeswoman Ayumi Yoshida said.

The plaintiffs were demanding that the names of the Koreans be removed from Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo and 4.4 billion yen (US$39 million; Ђ 30.4 million) in damages, Kyodo News agency said.

The amount includes unpaid salaries for those who served in the Japanese military and those who were assigned to forced labor in Siberia after World War II, it said.

Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 until 1945, and Koreans who were drafted into Japan's military are honored along with Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including executed war criminals, at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

Many Koreans deeply resent Japan's colonization of the peninsula and see the inclusion of their countrymen at the war shrine, which helped fan support for Japan's conquests in Asia in the 1930s and '40s, as a further insult.

China and South Korea have stridently protested Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni.

The suit lists 414 plaintiffs, 161 former South Korean soldiers and former civilian military personnel, and 253 members of bereaved families, Kyodo reported.

The plaintiffs argued that the government had no right to include the names at a religious institution, and that forcing the dead soldiers to be included at a Shinto shrine is a violation of their religious freedom, reports the AP.

I.L.