Toshiko Hasumi (蓮見都志子) is an illustrator/cartoonist and a comfort women denier. She has drawn cartoons for the Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat and the right-wing magazine JAPANISM founded by Kohyu Nishimura.
In September 2015 her illustration depicting Syrian refugees as “fake” refugees seeking economic opportunities was met with international condemnation. In response, Hasumi stated that the cartoon was intended to criticize only the “fake” refugees and not the real ones, arguing that Japan has received far too many “fake” Korean refugees during the Korean War resulting in the persecution of Japanese nationals by the Koreans in Japan. Her message echoes those from Zaitokukai and other anti-Korean hate groups.
The collection of her political cartoons was published in December 2015 by Seirindo, the publisher of JAPANISM and other far-right publications. Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat and its director Shunichi Fujiki are credited with editorial assistance.
Hasumi accompanied Fujiki in September 2016 to Geneva, Switzerland as part of the Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women Geneva Delegation (September 2016) to attend the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Hasumi is identified as the President of the Society of Japanese Nationals in Canada to Protect Japan’s Honour (日本の名誉を護る在カナダ邦人の会) in petitions protesting various events or public acknowledgement of comfort women across Canada, although her connection to Canada is unclear.
Kohyu Nishimura (西村幸祐) is a journalist who has covered sports until the 2002 World Cup Soccer co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, which apparently turned him into a critic of Korean culture and society. He has contributed nationalistic articles to conservative magazines such as Seiron and WiLL and was the founding editor in chief of far-right nationalist magazine JAPANISM.
Nishimura is a member of Committee for Historical Facts, the group responsible for comfort women denier opinion ads The Facts (2007) and Yes, we remember the facts. (2012). He characterizes international criticisms against Japan’s handling of the comfort women issue as the “intelligence warfare” conducted by “anti-Japanese fascists.”
Nishimura is credited as the supervising editor for the comfort women denier Tony Marano’s 2014 book, “Okore! Wana ni kakatta nihonjin (Get enraged! Japanese people caught in a trap).”
Kaoli Koyasu (子安香) is the founder of the New York City-based Japan Mahoroba Station (JMS) and a comfort women denier. She has spoken at various comfort women denier events, including Texas Night in NYC (2015) and the Nadeshiko Action panel at the UN Commission on the Status of Women NGO Parallel Events (2016).
Koyasu is also a member of the U.S. branch of Texas Daddy Japan Secretariat.
Norimasa Suzuki (鈴木規正) is a licensed massage therapist in New York City specializing in seitai shiatsu massage and a comfort women denier. As the president of Seiron-no Kai NY (also New York Seiron-no Kai), Suzuki spoke at comfort women denier events Texas Night in NYC (2015) and Texas Night in NYC (2016). It is unclear if Seiron-no Kai is an actual organization, as evidences of its activity cannot be found beyond Suzuki’s appearances on these panels.
In December 2015, Suzuki wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticizing the Japan-ROK Agreement (2015) on the comfort women issue, which was widely shared among Japan’s right-wing.
Website: Doin Seitai Center
Hiromichi Moteki (茂木弘道) is the secretary general of the Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact and a comfort women denier. He is also the owner of Sekai Shuppan, a publisher specializing in translating Japanese books to English, which aligns with Moteki’s and SDHF’s goal of translating Japanese historical denier literature such as Shudo Higashinakano’s The Nanking Massacre: Fact Versus Fiction, which Sekai Shuppan published in 2005.
Website: Sekai Shuppan
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.
Makoto Sakurai (桜井誠) is the founder and former president of anti-Korean extremist group Zaitokukai and a comfort women denier.
In 2016, he ran unsuccessfully for the governor of Tokyo, and founded Japan First Party (日本第一党) afterwards.
Makoto Sakurai has no relation to Yoshiko Sakurai.
Shigeharu Aoyama (青山繁晴) is a conservative political commentator turned politician and a comfort women denier.
After visiting San Jose, California, Aoyama claimed to have heard first-hand testimonies about bullying experienced by Japanese children in the U.S. resulting from the construction of comfort women memorial in Glendale, California, which is over 300 miles away from San Jose. When the group of Japanese parents in San Jose who had sponsored Aoyama’s visit publicly contradicted his statement, he backtraced the comment, saying that the bullying stories were from elsewhere, even though he had not visited Glendale or anywhere near comfort women memorials in the U.S. by that time.
In June 2016, Aoyama ran for the House of Councilors and won a six-year term.
Koichi Sugiyama (すぎやまこういち) is a composer most known for creating music for popular video game series Dragon Quest and a comfort women denier. As a member of the Committee for Historical Facts, he singlehandedly financed the paid advertisements The Facts (2007) and Yes, we remember the facts. (2012).
Tsutomu Nishioka (西岡力) is a professor of Korean language at Tokyo Christian University and a comfort women denier. Nishioka is the author of many articles and booklets distributed by the Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact and appears in Yujiro Taniyama’s denier film, Scottsboro Girls. He is also the president of the National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea (NARKN).
Nishioka is the chair of the Historical Research Laboratory at the right-wing Reitaku University and Vice President and Secretary General of the Historical Awareness Research Committee.
