Texas Night in NYC (2016) is a comfort women denier event held on March 23, 2016 at the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral in New York City. This is the second consecutive year a “Texas Night” event is held in New York, after Texas Night in NYC (2015).

Speakers are:

• Tony Marano (Texas Daddy)
• Yumiko Yamamoto (Nadeshiko Action)
• Shunichi Fujiki (Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat)
• Mitsuhiko Fujii (Rompa Project)
• Norimasa Suzuki (New York Seiron-no Kai)

Sponsors include:

• Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women
• Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat
• New York Seiron-no Kai
• Japan Mahoroba Support Agency

“Comfort Women Issue: From Misunderstandings to Solution (慰安婦問題 誤解から解決に向けて)” is the title of a 2016 booklet published in both English and Japanese by Nadeshiko Action authored by Yumiko Yamamoto and Kiyoshi Hosoya and translated (badly) by Kiyoshi Hosoya and Sharon Isac.

The booklet starts with a revisionist overview of Japanese history which claims that “Japan is classless society. We have no history of slavery. We have very little sense of discrimination. We treat people at disadvantage with compassion and warmth, as did the Japanese military during WWII.” It reproduces the same old denier arguments that have been thoroughly debunked decades ago.

Hosoya and Yamamoto have been distributing copies of this booklet at the UN Commission on the Status of Women NGO Parallel Events (2016) and elsewhere.

Sharon (Mikiko) Isac is a Japanese woman who lives in Canada. Isac is a member of far-right Canadian Patriotic Society and a frequent contributor to anti-Islamic hate sites. She is also a comfort women denier who spoke at a denier panel organized by Nadeshiko Action at the UN Commission on the Status of Women NGO Parallel Events (2016) and helped to translate (badly) Nadeshiko Action’s publication, “Comfort Women Issue: From Misunderstandings to Solution,” authored by Yumiko Yamamoto and Kiyoshi Hosoya.

Japanese Women for Justice and Peace is an Orwellian doublethink for Nadeshiko Action, a comfort women denier group founded and led by a former leader of violently racist Zaitokukai.

United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) NGO Parallel Events are a series of events held around the United Nations building by non-governmental organizations from around the world working on women’s rights while the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women meets at its headquarters in New York.

In 2016, Japanese right-wing groups infiltrated the NGO Parallel Events by submitting innocuous-looking proposals to the organizers of NGO Parallel Events with the goal of promoting comfort women denial and Japanese nationalism. Two such events were held.

March 16, 2016 – “Misunderstood Comfort Women”

On March 16th, denier group Global Alliance for Historical Truth presented a panel titled “Misunderstood Comfort Women” which denied the history of comfort women. The panel was facilitated by Terumi Imamura and speakers were Koichi Mera, Kiyoshi Hosoya, and Mio Sugita.

March 24, 2016 – “Women’s Rights under Armed Conflict: Japan’s Approach to Respect Women”

Denier group Nadeshiko Action (Japanese Women for Justice and Peace) sponsored a panel titled “Women’s Rights under Armed Conflict: Japan’s Approach to Respect Women” on March 24th. The panel was facilitated by Shizuko Culpepper and speakers included Yumiko Yamamoto, Koichi Mera, Sharon Isac, Kaoli Koyasu, Mieko Green, and Charlotte Meyer.

Himawari Japan (ひまわりJapan) is a comfort women denier group made up of Japanese women living in New York/New Jersey area, many of whom are followers of Happy Science. It was founded by Yoko Nagato in June 2016 and held a first lecture event featuring Mio Sugita, Shiro Takahashi, Yasuhiro Takasaki, and Shinichi Tokunaga.

In 2018, Himawari Japan was awarded a contract by the Japanese Consulate General in New York to set up a “help line” for Japanese residents in the area whose children are “bullied” due to “historical issues.” In addition, Himawari Japan solicits information about any use of “anti-Japanese” materials at schools including the film Unbroken or any events in the community related to the “comfort women” issue and any other topic connected to Japan’s history. The contract, which runs from May 2018 to March 2019 at $1,000 per month, is widely criticized because of the group’s political slant and lack of expertise on addressing bullying.

Website: http://himawarijapan.org/

Yoko Nagato (永門洋子) is a certified nurse-midwife practicing at Japanese Women’s Center, a general OB-GYN clinic for Japanese and other women in Teaneck, New Jersey. Since 2015, Nagato collaborated with Nadeshiko Action to use Japanese Women’s Center as a vehicle to promote comfort women denial, publishing revisionist ads in Japanese language publications in New York/New Jersey area.

In 2016, Nagato founded Himawari Japan, a nationalist group for Japanese women in the area. Members of the group met with Mio Sugita and Yoshi Taguchi in June 2016, which led to the first Himawari Japan lecture on August 23, 2016 featuring Sugita, Shiro Takahashi, Yasuhiro Takasaki, and Shinichi Tokunaga.

Nagato is a staunch supporter of Makoto Sakurai, the founder of Zaitokukai as well as Japan First Party. During the 2016 Tokyo gubernatorial election in which Sakurai ran, Nagato wrote that those who criticize Sakurai are “not real Japanese.”

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Terumi Imamura (今村照美) is a migrant from Sasebo, Japan to Los Angeles and a comfort woman denier. She has been in the leadership position at True Japan Network, a denier organization of Japanese people in the greater Los Angeles area. She spoke out against the proposal to enact a comfort women memorial in San Francisco at the Board of Supervisors meeting in summer 2015 (along with Koichi Mera, Yoshi Taguchi, and Mariko Okada-Collins) and facilitated a denier panel at the UN Commission on the Status of Women Parallel Events (2016) featuring Mio Sugita, Koichi Mera, and Kiyoshi Hosoya.

Michico Shirota Gingery et al. v. City of Glendale et al. refers to a series of lawsuits filed by Global Alliance for Historical Truth (GAHT) and Los Angeles area Japanese migrants against the City of Glendale seeking the removal of a comfort women memorial in Glendale within its Central Park in summer 2013. The lawsuit was initially filed in the U.S. District Court of Los Angeles, but was later also filed in the California State Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles.

Federal Case

Federal case (docket nuber #2:14-cv-01291-PA-AJW) was brought by Glendale resident Michiko Shirota Gingery (who passed away during the trial), GAHT president Koichi Mera, and GAHT-US Corporation on February 20, 2014. The plaintiff was initially represented by Mayer Brown, which removed itself after facing criticisms for promoting historical revisionism. Defendant City of Glendale and its city manager were represented by City attorneys and Sidley Austin, which took the case on pro bono.

While maintaining that they were not arguing over historical accuracy of the comfort women story, plaintiffs alleged that Glendale’s decision to enact the memorial violated the U.S. Constitution by infringing on the federal government’s exclusive authority to conduct foreign affairs. Plaintiffs also argued that the City violated administrative rules by failing to vote on the text of the plaque accompanying the statue.

On August 4, 2014, Judge Percy Anderson ruled that plaintiffs lacked the standing to bring a case on the basis of the alleged violation of the U.S. Constitution. On the question of the violation of administrative rules, the judge ruled that the issue belonged in the state court, no federal. Plaintiffs appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on September 4, 2014 (docket nuber #14-56440) and also filed another case in the state court.

In the August 4, 2016 ruling, the federal appellate court partially reversed the district court ruling by acknowledging the plaintiff’s standing, but nonetheless ruled that the City of Glendale had not exceeded its role in establishing a comfort women memorial, which was considered similar in nature to other cities’ expressive resolutions and memorials on various international issues. The plaintiffs appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

GAHT’s request for rehearing en banc was denied by the appellate court on October 13, 2016. GAHT appealed the decision to the Supreme Court on January 9, 2017 (docket number #16-917).

In a highly unusual move, the Government of Japan filed an amicus curie brief on February 22, 2017 in support of GAHT’s petition, as did a couple of Japanese far-right groups.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied plaintiff’s petition to review the circuit court ruling on February 27, 2017, ending the suit.

State Case

California State case (docket number #BC556600) was filed in the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles on September 3, 2014. On February 24, 2015 the judge granted the defendant’s special motion to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) statute, dismissing the case and granting attorney fees to the defendants. The plaintiffs were ordered to pay about $150,000 to Sidley Austin, which they did on August 25, 2015.

The case was appealed to the Second Appellate Court of California on May 21, 2015 (docket number #B264209). On November 23, 2016 the appellate court ruled in favor of the defendant City of Glendale, ordering GAHT to pay additional damages under the anti-SLAPP statute. GAHT filed a petition for rehearing, but it was denied on December 23, 2016.

GAHT did not file for the California Supreme Court to review the Appellate Court ruling, and the verdict became finalized on February 1, 2017.

Jason Morgan is a graduate of University of Wisconsin with Ph.D in modern Japanese legal history and a comfort women denier. While he was a research assistant at University of Wisconsin, Morgan made news by refusing to participate in diversity trainings required for all teaching assistants, arguing that they were discriminatory toward white people. He nonetheless received a Fulbright scholarship to study in Japan.

In Japanese right-wing publications, Morgan not just denies the history of comfort women, but goes so far as to claim that Japan was the righteous side in the WWII, which he characterizes as a war against the “communist” regime of President Franklin Roosevelt. He criticizes U.S. academia as far-left and unobjective, arguing that the Japanese academy is superior in its objectivity and respect for academic freedom.

Morgan is a 2016 fellow at Mises Institute, which “encourage[s] critical historical research, and stand[s] against political correctness.” He is also a fellow at the nationalist think tank Japan Forum for Strategic Studies (日本戦略研究フォーラム), which funded his effort to translate conservative historian Ikuhiko Hata’s book on comfort women for publication in the U.S.

In 2016 Morgan published a book in Japan titled “America ha naze nihon wo mikudasu noka? (Why does America look down on Japan?)” (アメリカはなぜ日本を見下すのか？間違いだらけの「対日歴史観」を正す) which challenges American historians’ view of Japan’s past. Soon after, he was appointed as an assistant professor of foreign languages at Reitaku University, which also boasts other conservative big names including Shiro Takahashi, Hidetsugu Yagi (Japan Education Rebirth Institute), Yoshihisa Komori (Sankei Shimbun), and others among its faculty.

In his ongoing campaign against American historians and other scholars, Morgan is known to file Freedom of Information Act requests to public universities that employ academics he dislikes in wild fishing expedition in search of incriminating emails.

In addition to supporting historical revisionism and bashing U.S. academics, Morgan writes prolifically on “pro-life” (anti-abortion) politics.