TOKYO (AP) — A journalist close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has defended her view that South Korean women who were sent into Japanese WWII military brothels were not sex slaves, accusing a liberal-leaning newspaper of fabrication.
One of its reporters a day earlier said that the journalist's opinion triggered threats against him and delayed a settlement of the issue between Japan and South Korea.
Their spat — a defamation suit by writer Takashi Uemura against journalist Yoshiko Sakurai — and divisive views highlight Japan's struggle to come to terms with its wartime atrocities.
The conservatives hold the Asahi newspaper where Uemura works responsible for spreading the impression that all of the so-called "comfort women" were coerced. Liberals say evidence shows many victims were forced into sexual slavery.
