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Shrine's claim on war criminals fallacious
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-26 09:26 The notorious Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Saturday
made fallacious claim that the 14 World War II Class-A war criminals it
enshrines are no longer war criminals in Japan.
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| Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi (2nd L) follows a Shinto priest, dressed in a white and
yellow robe, on a surprise visit to the controversial Yasukuni
shrine that prompted angry reaction from China and South
Korea.
[AFP] | | According to a
written statement of the shrine in response to the interview of Tokyo News, the
Yasukuni Shrine doubted the just sentence on the war criminals by the
International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) after the WWII, saying
the IMTFE sentence is not unconditional correct.
"Japan has revised related laws to grant pension to families of those
convicted war criminals as well as the ordinary war dead, both are called the
dead of official duty," the shrine claimed.
"In this term, the war criminals is no longer regarded as criminals in Japan
because the government never grants pensions to criminals."
Yasukuni also rejected the call at home and abroad to establish a new
national memorial to separate enshrinement of the Class-A war criminals from the
ordinary war dead in the shrine, urging Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to
continue his Yasukuni visits.
Many Asian countries have strongly protested Japanese leaders' visits to the
Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the Class-A war criminals responsible for Japan's
aggression war against its Asianneighbors.
Koizumi has paid annual visits to the shrine since he took office in
2001.
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