A group of survivors of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, relatives of
massacre victims, and experts gathered in Nanjing yesterday to
protest against Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's weekend
visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine.
The gathering was held at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall in Nanjing,
capital of East China's
Jiangsu Province.
Koizumi's second visit to the shrine has been strongly criticized
by Asian people including the Japanese people, said Wang Weixing,
deputy director of the Historical Institute of the Jiangsu
Provincial Academy of Social Sciences.
Whenever top Japanese politicians visit the shrine for whatever
reason, it is seen as commemorating war criminals and as supporting
Japan's past war of aggression, Wang said. It is a betrayal of the
cause of peace and justice as well as of international moral and
ethical codes, he stressed.
Li
Xiuying, an 84-year old victim of the massacre, pointed to the
scars on her face and said: "These are the scars from 37 slashes
made by Japanese soldiers and we will never forget the bloody
history of the war."
Li
criticized the Japanese prime minister and Japanese right-wingers
who have used every means to deny the facts of the massacre, during
which Japanese troops killed 300,000 Chinese people in Nanjing.
Also yesterday,
Hong Kong trade union groups staged a protest against Koizumi's
visit. Dozens of members from leading labour unions, shouting
slogans denouncing Japanese wartime atrocities in China, marched to
the Japanese consulate to deliver a letter denouncing Koizumi's
visit.
(China
Daily April 23, 2002)