PROTEST AGAINST HARVARD PROFESSOR

[Anchor Lead]

A Harvard professor’s paper that asserted that sex slaves in Imperial Japan were prostitutes has sparked fiery reactions. A Korean-American group in eastern U.S. has staged a protest to demand the withdrawal of the paper and Americans are planning a demonstration in time for the March 1st Movement, one of the most notable anti-Japanese events during the colonial period.

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​Despite the freezing temperatures, members of the Korean community from the northeastern part of the U.S. have gathered in front of the monument commemorating victims of wartime sexual slavery. On behalf of the 700,000 Koreans in Massachusetts to Philadelphia, they have come to demand the immediate withdrawal of Harvard Professor Mark Ramseyer’s paper and his apology.

[Soundbite] Lee Joo-hyang(President, Federation of Korean-American Associations) : "We strongly condemn Professor Mark Ramseyer’s thesis that distorts history and demand that the paper be immediately withdrawn."

They again emphasized the fact that the colonial Japanese army’s organized sex slavery was a war crime committed not only in Korea but in other Asian countries and the U.N. Human Rights Commission had urged Japan to apologize and compensate the victims for the atrocity. The Korean-American groups in northeast U.S. planned an online petition drive on an American petitioning site called Change.org. They plan to deliver the signatures to the Harvard Law School and the International Review of Law and Economics that is about to publish the controversial thesis. At present, four petitions from VANK, a South Korea based NGO, Australia, and other organizers have been posted on Change.org to publicize Ramseyer’s distortion of history.

[Soundbite] Lillian Sing(Co-chair, Comfort Women Justice Alliance)

Calls for the withdrawal of Ramseyer’s thesis was first started by Harvard students and then spread to Asian-American youth groups and Korean-American associations. Protests are planned in several American cities in time for the commemoration of the March 1st Movement, one of the most powerful displays of resistance against the Japanese colonial regime.