Loading...
From 8 to 10 April, the children and other relatives of 18 victims of the Japanese "comfort women" system submitted complaints to the Shanxi Provincial High People's Court against the Japanese government, which was the first time in 32 years that a group of victims of the "comfort women" system of Chinese nationality had filed a complaint against the Japanese government in a Chinese court.
The 18 victims of the Japanese army's "comfort women" system have all passed away, and they are Zhao Runmei, Liu Mianchang, Zhang Xiantu, Wang Gaihe, Yang Xihe, Hou Qiaoliang, Wan Aihua, Chen Lintao, Hou Dong'e, Gao Yin'e, Yang Shizhen, Zhou Xixiang, Yin Yulin, Nan Erpu, Zhao Cunni, Zhang Gaixiang, Guo Xicui, and Li Xiumei.
△ Victim of the Japanese army's "comfort women" system
Zhang Shuangbing, head of the litigation team: I just want to seek justice for them
Zhang Shuangbing, a native of Yangquan Village, Xipan Township, Yuxian County, Shanxi Province, was a rural primary school teacher before his retirement.
In 1982, Zhang Shuangbing met Hou Dong'e, who had been arrested by Japanese soldiers twice to be a "comfort woman", and found that the old man's life was difficult, and he was also pointed at by the villagers. Later, when he read a newspaper report that the "comfort women" demanded compensation from the Japanese government, Zhang Shuangbing decided to help the "Hou Dong'e" seek justice, and thus began the process of visiting the "comfort women," collecting and sorting out materials, and filing a complaint against the Japanese government.
Since he embarked on this path in 1982, he has persisted for 42 years, and over the years he has visited thousands of victims of the Japanese "comfort women" system, and 139 of them have courageously come forward to claim compensation from the Japanese government. Today, these old people are gone.
△ Previously, Zhang Shuangbing participated in litigation in Japanese courts
Zhang Shuangbing told the Modern Express reporter that since 1992, he has led the elderly to Japan many times to fight lawsuits to defend their rights. By 2007, after 15 years of lawsuits, nine trials and nine judgments, the Japanese government did not apologize to these victimized old people, and did not give a penny of comfort and compensation, which made the old people very angry, and Zhang Shuangbing was also full of resentment.
In 2007, the Supreme Court of Japan made a final judgment that the historical facts should be recognized, but no compensation should be made. First, the statute of limitations has expired, and second, Japanese law prohibits individuals from suing the government.
After many years, Zhang Shuangbing once again sued the Japanese government on behalf of the elderly. As the head of the Chinese "comfort women" victims' litigation team against Japan, he led a team of more than 10 lawyers led by Jia Fangyi and Guo Chengxi to submit complaints to the Shanxi Provincial High People's Court against the Japanese government from April 8 to 10.
This is the first time a Japanese government has been sued in a Chinese court, Mr. Zhang said the reason for doing so was inspired by a case in South Korea. According to Yonhap News Agency, the Seoul Central District Court in South Korea handed down a first-instance judgment in 2021 on a lawsuit filed by a Korean "comfort women" victim against the Japanese government, and sentenced the Japanese government to pay 100 million won to each of the plaintiffs.
"I had many conversations with Korean volunteers before they started to help Korean victims of the comfort women system sue them, and the verdict gave me the idea of suing the Japanese government in China," Zhang said. He started the preparatory work in 2023.
This may be the last thing Zhang Shuangbing did for the victims of the "comfort women" system of the Chinese Japanese army. In November 2020, 68-year-old Zhang Shuangbing was diagnosed with lung cancer and still has to take targeted drugs for treatment every day.
"Seeking justice" is what he mentioned many times in interviews, and he said: "I don't have any purpose in doing this, just to get justice for them." Now these old people are gone, they had this wish when they were alive, and I want to help them as much as I can. ”
△ Memorial Hall of Female Victims of the Anti-Japanese War Claims Lawsuit against Japan
Descendants of the victims of the "comfort women" system: For the apology that grandma did not wait
Li Shuangqiao, the granddaughter of Hou Dong'e, a victim of the Japanese army's "comfort women" system, was one of the 18 people who submitted the complaint.
Hou Dong'e was the first victim of the Japanese army's "comfort women" system that Zhang Shuangbing came into contact with, and since they first met in 1982, Zhang Shuangbing often went to help Hou Dong'e when he had free time, although the old man remained silent when he mentioned the past.
In 1992, when domestic scholars called for the search for victims of the "comfort women" system of Chinese Japanese soldiers, Zhang Shuangbing was shocked. He went to Hou Dong'e's house more than a dozen times, and the old man finally spoke after crying. In that year, she was captured and ravaged by the Japanese army invading China twice, and when she fled back, she found that her daughter was starving to death, and her husband also left with his son.
Zhang Shuangbing compiled Hou Dong'e's tragic experience into a complaint and forwarded it to the Japanese government through the Japanese embassy in China, the first in Chinese mainland to come forward and accuse the Japanese government of the victims of the "comfort women" system. Unfortunately, Hou Dong'e died in 1994 and did not go to Japan to attend the trial in 1995.
The apology that did not wait is undoubtedly her biggest regret. Before she died, she said to her granddaughter Li Shuangqiao: "I am not in good health, I can't wait for the day when the Japanese apologize, now it is all up to your next generation, the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese, you have to seek justice for me!"
Today, Li Shuangqiao is 59 years old, and she always remembers the suffering of her grandmother in her heart, "Last year, Zhang Shuangbing contacted me, and I immediately agreed to sue. ”
△ China "Comfort Women" History Museum
Lawyers: Claims for injuries suffered by civilians in war, not subject to statute of limitations and state immunity
"There is a pain in my heart, Japan's war of aggression against China itself has been defined as a war of aggression, defined as a war crime, and Hideki Tojo has long been sentenced to death in the Tokyo Trial, but the victims of the Japanese army's 'comfort women' system who were violated in the war have never received a fair judgment from the law. Last year, Zhang Shuangbing found lawyer Jia Fangyi and sent him a judgment that South Korea had sentenced Japan to compensate the victimized women "comfort women" in accordance with domestic law, hoping that he could help the victims of China's Japanese "comfort women" system to file lawsuits.
Jia Fangyi studied the judgment of the Tokyo High Court in the tort claim lawsuit against 16 women victims from Shanxi, which cited the 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Declaration, which states that "the Government of the People's Republic of China declares that it renounces its claim for war compensation against Japan for the sake of friendship between the two peoples." ”
The 1972 declaration is distorted by Japan's judgment that the 1972 declaration is distorted by the Japanese judgment by stating that the waiver is limited to the right of the State as a legal person to claim compensation for war damages, and does not include the independent right to claim civil compensation for civilian women after their individual human rights have been violated. Jia Fangyi pointed out that the compensation for the "comfort women" is human rights compensation, and that the Japanese army has committed such heinous illegal and criminal acts as kidnapping, detaining, raping, beating, abating, destroying, injuring, and spreading disease against civilian women during the war of aggression against China, and has violated the life, health, human rights, and dignity of the victimized women. The victims' demands for apologies and compensation from the Japanese government are part of the protection of the rights of civilians who have been victims of war, which are two different international and domestic legal systems from state claims. Civilians harmed in war are not subject to statutes of limitations and State immunity in terms of international law and relevant international conventions.
Some people also asked Jia Fangyi, "Do you think that the Korean judgment is symbolic?" and Jia Fangyi replied: "By no means! It is an expression of a country's judicial sovereignty; after the Korean court made a legal judgment, the South Korean victim woman and her children asked the court to enforce it, and the South Korean court asked the South Korean government to make public the list of Japanese assets in South Korea so that the South Korean court could enforce it. This is a lesson for Chinese victims. ”
Of course, financial compensation is not enough to heal the wounds of history, and what the old people are waiting for is a sincere apology from the aggressor. Jia Fangyi believes that "if the Japanese government refuses to apologize and compensate, then the conditions we ask for in the judgment, enforcement, negotiation and reconciliation in the course of enforcement may be easier to promote their sincere repentance and apology." ”
Expert: It is of great significance to sue the Japanese government for the first time in China
"This indictment is significant. On April 19, Su Zhiliang, a professor at Shanghai Normal University and director of the China Center for the Study of Comfort Women, expressed his views on the matter in a few short and forceful words.
Su Zhiliang paid attention to this information for the first time, and he believed that the descendants of the 18 survivors of the "comfort women" system could take the initiative to submit a complaint, which was the inheritance of their mothers or ancestors, "As early as 1992, the victims of the Chinese Japanese army's 'comfort women' system filed a complaint with the Japanese government, demanding that the Japanese government publicly apologize and compensate the victims of the 'comfort women'. From 1995 to 2007, after dozens of court sessions, Japanese courts finally ruled that they would admit historical facts, not publicly apologize to the victims, and not pay financial compensation. In fact, this is a lost case, so we will now continue to hold the Japanese government accountable. ”
Why has China's war victims, including the victims of the "comfort women" system and the survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, have not received a public apology and corresponding economic compensation from the Japanese Government? Su Zhiliang said that the Japanese Government's basis is that the Chinese Government announced in the "Sino-Japanese Joint Statement" that it would renounce its demand for war compensation against Japan. "But this does not mean that the Chinese people, including war victims, have given up war reparations, and the right to claim compensation as war victims is sacrosanct," he said. In addition, he believes that according to the generally accepted principles of international law, war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law are not statute of limitations and must be retroactive.
Su Zhiliang said: "This move also gives us an inspiration, not only the Shanxi Provincial High People's Court, but also the courts across the country can pay attention to the fact that there are still many problems left over from the war, such as the victims of bacteriological warfare and forced labor by the Japanese invasion of China, and the harm caused by poison gas bombs left in Northeast China, which should be investigated." ”
Modern Express/Modern + reporter Xu Mengyun Zhang Ran/text Qian Nianqiu/photo
(Some photos courtesy of the interviewee)