Japan's colonial rule of Korea not fact, says city education board head

Wow, Are you kidding me?


Saturday 28th June, 09:17 AM JST

KITAKYUSHU —
The head of the Shimonoseki city education board in Yamaguchi Prefecture has told officials of a Korean school that Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula ‘‘contradicts a historical fact,’’ the education board and the Korean school officials said Friday.

Tsuyoshi Shimakura made the remark on Thursday when he met the officials and students’ parents from Yamaguchi Korean school who visited Shimakura to ask for an increase of education subsidies, they said.

According to the Korean school officials and the education board, the officials made the request, saying, ‘‘We’d like the education board to respond based on the fact that children of Korean people who had no choice but to travel to Japan due to colonial rule are attending the school.’‘

Shimakura told them, ‘‘We cannot accept that because the part about colonial rule contradicts a historical fact,’’ they said.

Shimakura said he made the remark and said, ‘‘There is no relation between education administration and history, and it goes against the rules to bring the subject up.

‘‘It is free regarding how to express the annexation of Japan and Korea,’’ Shimakura added.

Kisaburo Tokai, minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, said at a news conference, ‘‘It is very regrettable if the remark contradicts the government’s recognition.’‘

Touching on that he does not know the detail of the remark, Tokai said, ‘‘The government has expressed recognition that it inflicted suffering and damage on the people of Asia due to colonial rule.’‘

Shimonoseki and the Korean Peninsula have a close relationship historically, with the city and South Korea’s Busan concluding a sister-city relationship.