Academics’ Alliance for Correcting Groundless Criticisms of Japan (不当な日本批判を正す学者の会, AACGCJ) is a group of conservative scholars founded in May 2017 to refute criticisms of Japan’s human rights records and historical responsibilities at United Nations and beyond, including U.N. special rapporteur David Kaye’s report on the suppression of freedom of press in Japan as well as various U.N. committees’ finding on the comfort women issue. Academics’ Alliance is a member of Japan NGO Coalition against Racial Discrimination (JNCRD), a fake human rights coalition of far-right groups.
Alliance board member and secretary general Eiji Yamashita (山下英次) frequently accompanies overseas delegations of the Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women.
Officers include:
- Hidemichi Tanaka (田中英道), president
- Eiji Yamashita (山下英次), board member and secretary general
- Takashi Ito (伊藤隆), board member
- Keiichiro Kobori (小堀桂一郎), board member
- Kanji Nishio (西尾幹二), board member
- Toshio Watanabe (渡辺利夫), board member
- Terumasa Nakanishi (中西輝政), board member
Akiko Okamoto (岡本明子) is a conservative writer and activist previously affiliated with Japan Conference who served as the founding secretary general of Japan Family Value Society. As a writer, she was influential in the anti-feminist (or anti- so-called “gender free” movement) backlash in the mid-2000s. She was one of the first Japanese conservative activists to lobby at various United Nations committees, and assisted other conservative activists and groups including comfort women deniers to do the same.
Okamoto was also among the first to call attention to the establishment of comfort women memorials in the U.S. as a threat to Japan’s national pride. In the May 2012 issue of Seiron, a conservative opinion magazine, Okamoto warned how Japan was losing ground in the U.S. and in the United Nations on the issue of comfort women as evidenced by the establishment of a comfort women memorial in Palisades Park, New Jersey, even as the Japanese conservatives consolidated their dominance over domestic discourse over comfort women. Her article served as a rallying cry for Japanese conservatives and comfort women deniers to begin propagating “Japan’s position” regarding comfort women at the United Nations and in foreign media.
Okamoto herself appears to be largely retired from public involvement in conservative politics, but her successor Kiyoshi Hosoya of FAVS and other conservative activists continue to lobby against comfort women at the United Nations level.
Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women (「慰安婦の真実」国民運動) is a network of comfort women denier groups and individuals in Japan founded in 2013. The Alliance frequently sends delegations to United Nations functions, including the Human Rights Council (HRC), the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
Associated groups and individuals include:
The mailing address for the Alliance is the same as that of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform.
See also:
Website: http://ianfu-shinjitu.jp
In July 2014, Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women sent its first overseas delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva, Switzerland. Members (pictured below) included:
In July 2015, Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women sent its second overseas delegation to Geneva, Switzerland to participate at the pre-session meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and to lobby at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) against the inclusion of Nanking atrocities and comfort women in its Memory of the World Register.
Delegation member Mio Sugita successfully obtained an opportunity to speak to the CEDAW to dispute the historical orthodoxy of comfort women by using the UN consultative status of International Career Support Association, which has become a vehicle to promote Japanese historical denial at the UN level.
Delegations included:
In August 2018, Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women sent its delegation to Geneva, Switzerland to attend the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which met to conduct the member state review of Japan over such issues as the rights of indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, burakumin, and victims of military comfort women.
Over the last few delegations, the Alliance has expanded its mission to deny the indigenous status of Ainu and Okinawans at United Nations meetings, bringing members such as Hokkaido prefectural assembly member Masaru Onodera (小野寺まさる) and Satoru Nakamura (仲村覚) of Okinawa Policy Research Forum of Japan (日本沖縄政策研究フォーラム). During a lunch briefing at UNCERD, Nakamura gave a speech demanding the U.N. to retract the recognition of Okinawan people as an indigenous people.
The delegation included, among others:
In February 2016, Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women sent its third overseas delegation to Geneva, Switzerland to dispute the historical orthodoxy of comfort women at the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Prior to the meeting, eight Japanese right-wing groups submitted their opinions to the CEDAW. They are:
The “Coalition of Three Parties” is made up of Researchers of History on Modern Japan, Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact, and Nadeshiko Action.
In June 2017, Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women and its affiliated groups sent its delegation to Geneva, Switzerland to attend the United Nations Human Rights Council, taking advantage of the UN consultative status of the International Career Support Association. Mitsuhiko Fujii of Rompa Project (Happy Science) spoke at the meeting demanding a re-evaluation of the 1996 report by the UN Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy.
The delegation included, among others:
In March 2017, Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women sent its fifth overseas delegation to Geneva, Switzerland to dispute the historical orthodoxy of comfort women at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
At the UNHRC, Tony Marano (a.k.a. Texas Daddy) gave a speech on behalf of the Alliance, taking advantage of the UN consultative status of the the International Career Support Association.
The delegation included, among others: