Australia-Japan Community Network (AJCN) is a group formed by Japanese residents in Australia in opposition to an effort by Korean community to establish a comfort women memorial in Australia. The group was founded by Tetsuhide Yamaoka (山岡鉄秀), who was ousted from the organization in late 2019 and is currently led by Sumiyo Egawa (江川純世). It works closely with members of Happy Science including Tetsuya Sato (佐藤哲也), who was the director of Happy Science Oceania HQ during the anti-memorial campaign, but AJCN and HS have opted to obscure the involvement of HS, according to their right-wing allies in Japan.
Under the leadership of Yamaoka, AJCN pursued a two-faced strategy emphasizing in English the need for harmony among various ethnic communities in Australia, while in Japanese it boosted comfort women denial and anti-Korean racism. The two-faced strategy was apparent when AJCN criticized in English that Korean community’s effort to erect a comfort women memorial because it “threatens to undo” Japan-ROK Agreement (2015), while in Japanese it bashed the agreement and called for its nullification. Egawa even bragged about this “innovative” strategy in social media in Japanese. After Yamaoka returned to Japan, the group began publishing more transparently denialist and anti-Korean articles in English as well, such as “why do Korean children bully Japanese children?”.
In December 2016, Australia-Japan Community Network filed a complaint under Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 against the Uniting Church of Sydney, which has installed a memorial dedicated to the victims of Japanese military comfort women, claiming that the memorial “offends, insults, humiliates, or intimidates” Japanese Australians. Racial Discrimination Act however protects “artistic works, scientific debate and fair comment on matters of public interest” so long as they are expressed “reasonably and in good faith.”
AJCN’s complaint was dismissed in January 2017, but the organization filed yet another complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Website: http://jcnsydney.blogspot.com/
Japan Education Rebirth Institute (Nippon Kyoiku Saisei Kiko, 日本教育再生機構) is a right-wing Japanese group promoting revisionist history and civil textbooks that do not mention the comfort women system and other atrocities committed by the Japanese military while offering narratives glorifying Japanese expansionism. It was founded by Hidetsugu Yagi (八木秀次) after he and others left the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform due to an internal division. Board members include Shiro Takahashi and others who are affiliated with the powerful Japan Conference. As of 2018, the Institute’s website disappeared, and it is unclear whether the Institute still remains active.
Website: http://www.kyoiku-saisei.jp/
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/
Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi, 日本会議) is a powerful conservative organization described by New York Times as “largest nationalist organization, which rejects postwar pacifism, embraces the imperial system and defends Japan’s past wars in Asia.” In addition, Japan Conference opposes policies aimed at promoting gender equality as the organization views them as a threat against traditional Japanese families. Many leaders of Japan Conference, including Shiro Takahashi, Hideaki Kase, and Yoshiko Sakurai are also active in comfort women denial.
Japan Conference has an affiliated parliamentary caucus within the parliament (Nippon Kaigi Kokkai Giin Kondan Kai, 日本会議国会議員懇談会) with hundreds of members, mostly from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. In 2014, 15 out of 19 members of the administration of Shinzo Abe were members of the Japan Conference caucus including Deputy Prime Minister (and former Prime Minister) Taro Aso (麻生太郎), Minister of Internal Affairs and Communication Sanae Takaichi (高市早苗), and Cabinet Minister Yoshihide Suga (菅義偉) in addition to Abe himself.
Website: http://www.nipponkaigi.org/
Rompa Project (論破プロジェクト) is a historical revisionist group supported by Happy Science and led by Mitsuhiko Fujii, who is himself a follower of Happy Science. The group uses manga (comics) as well as panels to spread its messages, and often works closely with Tony Marano and Shunichi Fujiki.
Rompa Project boasted endorsements from the following individuals and groups (among others), which has since been deleted from its website:
Website: http://rom-pa.com/
Above: A cut from Rompa Project’s comic, “The J Facts.” The bear character depicted fantasizing about demolishing a memorial for victims of Japanese military comfort women system is Tokkuma, a mascot for the Happiness Realization Party in 2012 and 2013 named after its candidate Tokuma.
Happy Science (幸福の科学) is a new Japanese religious organization founded in the 1980s by Ryuho Okawa, who claims to be the incarnation of the supreme being. Along with the Happiness Realization Party, the group’s attempt to enter electoral politics, Happy Science promotes far-right nationalist political views, including military expansion and historical revisionism.
With chapters in several cities in the U.S., Happy Science is said to coordinate and bankroll some of the Japanese nationalist activities in the U.S. For example, the organization’s former San Francisco director and current New York director Yoshi Taguchi spoke at the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors against the proposed comfort women memorial in the city in summer 2015. Happy Science also supports Rompa Project, a historical revisionist group using manga (comics) and other means to spread its message.
In April 2016, members of Happy Science led by James Iwase, a minister of Happy Science, showed up at the board meeting of the San Francisco Unified School District to oppose statewide curriculum revision that includes teaching about comfort women.
Members of Happy Science actively promoting comfort women denial in the U.S. include Yoshi Taguchi, Mitsuhiko Fujii, and Kiminobu Kimura. In addition, several core members of the revisionist group Himawari Japan are known to be members of Happy Science.
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Happy Science openly supported the candidacy of Republican Donald Trump (whom it claims is the reincarnation of George Washington), with Taguchi and members of Himawari Japan volunteering at the campaign headquarters at Trump Tower. Jikido “Jay” Aeba, the founding president of Happiness Realization Party, went on to found Japanese Conservative Union, which is spending over $400,000 to lobby the U.S. government and has sponsored events supporting Trump.
Website: https://happy-science.jp/ (Japanese)
website: http://happy-science.org/ (English)
Zaitokukai (在特会) or Zainichi Tokken o Yurusanai Shimin no Kai (在日特権を許さない市民の会) is a far-right extremist group known for violent rhetorics and actions against ethnic Korean communities and other minorities in Japan. Ever since its founding in 2006, Zaitokukai is also known for racist and misogynist attacks on former comfort women. The most notorious incident occurred in 2010 in which members of Zaitokukai and allied groups showed up in front of a Korean elementary school in Kyoto, banging on its gate and screaming racist epithets.
The group was founded by Makoto Sakurai, the president of the organization until 2015, who later ran for the governor of Tokyo in 2016. Another prominent leader of Zaitokukai was Yumiko Yamamoto, who served as the vice president and the secretary general until 2011 when she decided to focus her energy on Nadeshiko Action, a “women’s” organization focusing on comfort women denial.
After Sakurai founded Japan First Party in late 2016, some chapters of Zaitokukai transformed themselves into chapters of the party.
Nadeshiko Action (“Japanese Women for Justice and Peace,” なでしこアクション), also spelled Nadesiko Action, is a comfort women denier group founded by Yumiko Yamamoto, the former secretary general and vice president of the extremist anti-Korean group Zaitokukai. Nadeshiko Action mobilizes campaigns against the movement for comfort women redress outside of Japan by coordinating with Japanese residents in the U.S., Australia, Canada, and other countries.
Nadeshiko Action is also the source of the massive wave of form letters and petitions sent to municipalities that have considered a resolution or other action on comfort women issue. As part of the Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women, Nadeshiko Action has actively participated in its lobbying efforts at the United Nations level, holding meetings at the UN Commission on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
See also:
Website: http://nadesiko-action.org (Japanese)
Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (新しい歴史教科書をつくる会) is a Japanese nationalist group founded by Nobukatsu Fujioka (藤岡信勝) in 1996, mainly in response to the inclusion of the comfort women history in Japanese history textbooks in the early to mid-1990s.
After a series of in-fighting and schisms among conservative intellectuals throughout 1990s and 2000s, more mainstream conservative leaders (especially those affiliate with Japan Conference) left the organization to form the Society to Improve Textbooks (教科書改善の会), leaving Fujioka and his followers behind. Fujioka’s group continues to publish textbooks, but it has been less successful than the splinter group in getting its textbooks adapted by schools. Both groups’ textbooks are similar in their nationalist (and often revisionist) tendencies, but Fujioka and his group have been more vocal in comfort women denial and criticisms of Abe administration’s handling of the issue.
Website: http://www.tsukurukai.com/
Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact (SDHF, 史実を世界に発信する会) is a Japanese nationalist group that exists to publish English translations of Japanese revisionist materials on the internet and to send those materials to opinion leaders in politics and academia in the United States (without their consent).
Leadership
In addition, many prominent members of Japan’s conservative establishment, mostly those affiliated with Japan Conference, are listed as board members and advisors.
Website: http://hassin.org/ (Japanese)
Website: http://www.sdh-fact.com/ (English)
