The Asian community including local overseas Chinese will hold a major event next week to condemn the atrocities of Japanese troops during World War II (WWII) and remember the victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, organizers said Monday.
The event will be held next Sunday ahead of the 81st anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre on Dec. 13, 1937, when invading Japanese troops occupied Nanjing city in eastern China, slaughtered more than 300,000 Chinese people and raped over 20,000 women in six weeks.
An 85-year-old eyewitness to the Japanese war crime from China's northeast region will appear at the event to tell participants about his sufferings in person, the organizers said.
"We want to have our voice heard by the Japanese people so that they can learn about the cruel episode in history, and we strongly demand the Japanese government led by its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe officially apologize for the wartime crime to all countries and people victimized by the imperial Japanese troops more than eight decades ago," said Jennifer Cheung, chair of the Rape of Nanking Redress Coalition (RNRC), an organization of Asian-Americans pursuing redress from the Japanese government.
"It's unacceptable that the Japanese government has never made an official apology for the notorious crime committed by the imperial Japanese troops during WWII," she added.
The Japanese government has for many years wanted to whitewash the crime committed by the Japanese troops, and even changed the terminology of "the Nanjing Massacre" into "Nanjing Incident," a term they used in their textbooks for Japanese youth, said RNRC Founding Chair, retired Judge Julie Tang.
"These kinds of terminologies are not true, they are lies, and Japan is perpetuating a very big lie that denies history," she said.
"Japan is denying the victims of (WWII) and denying the truth of what had happened to them. It is victimizing the victims and this is something that we wanted to educate people about," Tang said.
Roger Scott, a founding member of the RNRC, said, "We demand the Japanese government make an official apology to the victimized men and women, and we want to see justice prevail."
