APA hotel pledges to remove right-wing books: organizer of Asian Winter Games

TOKYO - Japan's major business hotel chain APA Group has pledged to withdraw right-wing books in rooms of its reception hotel for athletes of the 8th Asian Winter Games (AWG) in Sapporo, said the organizer of AWG on Wednesday.

"The APA hotel has made a pledge to the organizer that it will remove the books from rooms to accommodate athletes from all countries," Hisamu Yamazaki, an official working in the athletics section of the organizing committee of the 2017 Sapporo AWG, said on Wednesday.

"The organizer will check all the rooms before the Games start to confirm all the books are removed," he said.

The 8th AWG will be held in Sapporo and Obihiro during Feb 19-26. To save cost, the 2017 Sapporo AWG has not built athletes village, but chose two local hotels as official designated reception hotels for athletes. APA Hotel&Resort Sapporo is one of the two hotels.

According to accommodation arrangement, athletes from Chinese and South Korean delegation will be accommodated in the hotel.

The organizing committee has requested APA to remove the right-wing books placed in the hotel guest rooms, a staff working in the media section of the organizing committee of the 2017 Sapporo AWG said last week.

The 8th Asian Winter Games will feature five sports, 11 disciplines and 64 events.

APA Group has sparked public outrage recently as books carried in its hotel rooms in Japan deny Japan's history of aggression including the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and the forced recruitment of "comfort women" before and during World War II.

Last week, two APA hotel guests from New York uploaded a video message on the internet, showing the books placed in the hotel guest rooms and sold at the front desk as well. The online video soon went viral on social media sites and attracted tens of millions of views.

It was soon confirmed independently by media including Xinhua as well as major Japanese media outlets.

The books, with versions in both Japanese and English, written by APA Chief Executive Toshio Motoya, are filled with right-wing, revisionist views, including but not limited to statements such as: "the Nanjing Massacre was fabricated by the Chinese side and did not actually happen," comfort women were just common prostitutes, and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East is the winner's revenge to the loser.