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Japan ‘comfort women’ mayor to face censure – reports

Agence France-Presse

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Council members in the western Japanese city of Osaka plan to jointly submit the motion against city supremo Toru Hashimoto

UNDER FIRE. Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto speaks during a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on May 27, 2013. Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP

TOKYO, Japan – A Japanese mayor who caused a storm with his comments on “comfort women” is expected to face a censure motion filed by local politicians on Thursday, May 30, reports said.

Council members in the western Japanese city of Osaka plan to jointly submit the motion against city supremo Toru Hashimoto, who is also joint leader of the national Japan Restoration Party, Jiji Press said.

Hashimoto prompted outrage at home and abroad by suggesting battle-stressed soldiers needed the services of up to 200,000 sex slaves from Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere who were forcibly drafted into Japanese brothels during World War II.

The non-binding motion is expected to be approved Thursday afternoon at a plenary session by a majority of the council, Jiji said.

Ichiro Matsui, Osaka prefectural governor and a close aide to Hashimoto, hinted that if the motion is passed, Hashimoto may resign to force a mayoral election in which he would seek re-election.

On Tuesday, May 28, Hashimoto cancelled a trip to the United States after the US denounced his remarks as “outrageous and offensive”.

Seeking to contain the fallout from his remarks, the former TV pundit said Monday, May 27, that Tokyo should apologize to former sex slaves. But he insisted that Japan’s soldiers were not unique in brutalizing women.

He also retracted advice he gave to US military commanders in Japan, urging them to allow their troops to use the country’s licensed sex businesses as part of what he called a crime reduction strategy.

Hashimoto has proved a colorful, if divisive, figure in Japan’s somewhat monochrome political world since he emerged as a force on the local, then national scene.

His plain-speaking iconoclasm and ability to brazenly ride out controversy won him admirers enough to be mentioned at one time as a possible future prime minister.

However, some commentators suggest the backlash this time over his “comfort women” comments may have struck a serious blow to his reputation. – Rappler.com

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