An Abridged Version of My Book, Asahi Shimbun no Ianfu Hōdō to Saiban [The Reports of Comfort Women by the Asahi Newspaper and Litigations

Abstract

The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun has covered the Comfort Women issue since the 1990s, and because of that, it has been a target of the rightwing attack in Japan until now. Ryūichi Kitano, Senior Staff Writer at Asahi Shimbun, decided to write a tome about the entire proceedings of legal battles with the rightwing groups in Japan over Asahi’s coverage of the comfort women issue. The book was published in August 2020, and this contribution by Mr. Kitano is a summary of the 539 page-long record of historical documents and commentaries regarding the litigations and the comfort women issue. Mr. Kitano believes that this book is the only reliable source from Japan that present and future researchers of the comfort women issue can reliably use.