Japan Institute for National Fundamentals (国家基本問題研究所) is a conservative think tank founded and led by Yoshiko Sakurai. The Institute has close ties to Japan Conference, and many of its board members, advisors, and fellows are members come from Japan Conference and/or textbook reform movement. Its priorities include a revision of the pacifist clauses of Japan’s constitution, continued use of nuclear power, and comfort women denial.
Affiliated individuals include, in addition to Sakurai:
- Tadae Takubo (田久保忠衛), Japan Conference
- Shintaro Ishihara (石原慎太郎), fmr Tokyo governor
- Takashi Ito (伊藤隆), Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
- Taro Yayama (屋山太郎), Nippon Foundation, Society to Improve Textbooks
- Kazuo Ijiri (井尻千男), Japan Conference, Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
- Shohei Umezawa (梅澤昇平)
- Masato Ushio (潮匡人), Japan Education Rebirth Institute
- Koichi Sugiyama (すぎやまこういち), Committee for Historical Facts, Society to Improve Textbooks
- Tsutomu Nishioka (西岡力)
- Akira Momochi (百地章), Japan Conference
- Yuzou Kabashima (椛島有三), Japan Conference
Website: https://jinf.jp/
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/
“Yes, we remember the facts.” is a paid advertisement published in the November 6, 2012 edition of The Star-Ledger, a daily newspaper in New Jersey, by a group of Japanese comfort women deniers calling itself the Committee for Historical Facts. It is a revised version of The Facts (2007) ad, published in the June 14, 2007 issue of The Washington Post.
The ad recycles the same old comfort women denier arguments. The publication took place six months after Palisades Park, New Jersey turned down Japanese officials’ offer of one hundred cherry blossom trees in exchange for removing a small plaque memorializing comfort women.
Committee for Historical Facts is made up of:
The ad also included a long list of endorsements.
From Democratic Party of Japan (民主党)
- Nobuyuki Fukushima (福島伸享)
- Hiroki Hanasaki (花崎宏基)
- Yoichi Kaneko (金子洋一)
- Jin Matsubara (松原仁)
- Noboru Miura (三浦昇)
- Koichi Mukoyama (向山好一)
- Takashi Nagao (長尾敬)
- Masanao Shibahashi (柴崎正直)
- Kenji Tamura (田村謙治)
- Shu Watanabe (渡辺周)
- Izumi Yoshida (吉田泉)
From Liberal Democratic Party (自由民主党)
- Shinzo Abe (安倍晋三)
- Haruko Arimura (有村有子)
- Seiichi Eto (江藤晟一)
- Keiji Furuya (古屋圭司)
- Tomomi Inada (稲田朋美)
- Yoshihiko Isozaki (磯崎仁彦)
- Yoshitaka Ito (伊東良孝)
- Yasushi Kaneko (金子恭之)
- Kouichi Kishi (岸宏一)
- Nobuo Kishi (岸信夫)
- Seigo Kitamura (北村誠吾)
- Yutaka Kumagai (熊谷大)
- Hirokazu Matsuno (松野博一)
- Shoji Nishida (西田昌司)
- Hiroshige Seko (世耕弘成)
- Hakubun Shimomura (下村博文)
- Yoshitaka Shindo (進藤義孝)
- Sanae Takaichi (高市早苗)
- Naokazu Takemoto (竹本直一)
- Ichiro Tsukada (塚田一郎)
- Michiko Ueno (上野通子)
- Junzo Yamamoto (山本順三)
- Yuji Yamamoto (山本有二)
- Eriko Yamatani (山谷えり子)
- Hiroyuki Yoshiie (義家弘介)
From the Sunrise Party of Japan (たちあがれ日本)
- Takeo Hiranuma (平沼赳夫)
- Kyoko Nakayama (中山恭子)
Professors:
Political commentators:
Journalists:
Movie & TV Producer:
Hideaki Kase (加瀬英明) is a foreign affairs commentator and the director of Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women, a revisionist group. He also leads Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact and is a leader of Japan Conference. Kase was interviewed in a 2007 documentary film about Iris Chang, the author of “The Rape o Nanking,” in which he argued that Nanking massacre did not take place.
Kase is said to be the author of “Minikui Kankoku-jin (Ugly Koreans),” which was published under the name of a fictitious Korean journalist. The book glorified the Japanese colonial rule of Korean peninsula, criticizing Korean people for their faulty remembrance of history. Some of his books are published by the Happy Science.
“The Facts” is a paid advertisement published in the June 14, 2007 issue of The Washington Post by a group of Japanese conservatives calling themselves the Committee for Historical Facts in an attempt to dissuade the U.S. House of Representatives from adopting H.Res.121, a resolution urging Japan to “formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery.”
Co-signed by dozens of political and public leaders in Japan, the ad is often said to have accelerated the passage of the house resolution by giving credence to the notion that Japan had not fully accepted historical responsibility, rather than preventing it. Nonetheless, the group published a similar ad, Yes, we remember the facts. (2012) five years later.
The ad features five “facts” regarding comfort women, which are the same old denier talking points debunked long ago.
Committee for Historical Facts is made up of:
Below is the list of endorsements for the ad.
From Liberal Democratic Party:
- Kazuo Aichi (愛知和男)
- Masaaki Akaike (赤池誠章)
- Tomomi Inada (稲田朋美)
- Taku Etoh (江藤拓)
- Takashi Otsuka (大塚高司)
- Hideaki Okabe (岡部英明)
- Yuichi Ogawa (小川友一)
- Cyube Kagita (鍵田忠兵衛)
- Yoshitami Kameoka (亀岡偉民)
- Minoru Kihara (木原稔)
- Tsukasa Kobiki (木挽司)
- Manabu Sakai (坂井学)
- Yoshinobu Shimamura (島村宜伸)
- Motoshi Sugita (杉田元司)
- Keisuke Suzuki (鈴木馨祐)
- Kentarou Sonoura (薗浦健太郎)
- Masaaki Taira (平将明)
- Touru Toida (戸井田徹)
- Touru Doi (土井亨)
- Masaki Doi (土井真樹)
- Katsuko Nishimoto (西本勝子)
- Jun Hayashi (林潤)
- Yoshihisa Furukawa (古川禎久)
- Fumiaki Matsumoto (松本文明)
- Youhei Matsumoto (松本洋平)
- Youji Mutoh (武藤容治)
- Tomohiro Yamamoto (山本朋広)
- Atsushi Watanabe (渡部篤)
- Yoshio Nakagawa (中川義雄)
From Democratic Party of Japan:
- Kenko Matsuki (松木謙公)
- Hirofumi Ryu (笠浩史)
- Yoshio Maki (牧義夫)
- Izumi Yoshida (吉田泉)
- Takashi Kawamura (河村たかし)
- Takashi Ishizeki (石関貴史)
- Kenta Izumi (泉健太)
- Hideo Jinpu (神風英男)
- Kenji Tamura (田村謙治)
- Eiichirou Washio (鷲尾英一郎)
- Keirou Kitagami (北神圭朗)
- Jin Matsubara (松原仁)
- Sinpei Matsushita (松下新平)
Independents:
- Shingo Nishimura (西村眞悟)
- Takeo Hiranuma (平沼赳夫)
Professors:
- Hayaru Fukuda (福田逸)
- Kohichi Endoh (遠藤浩一)
- Masahiro Miyazaki (宮崎正弘)
- Shudo Higashinakano (東中野修道)
- Kazuhiro Araki (荒木和博)
- Youichi Shimada (島田洋一)
- Tsutomu Nishioka (西岡力)
- Nobukatsu Fujioka (藤岡信勝)
Political Commentators:
- Hideaki Kase (加瀬英明)
- Kanji Nishio (西尾幹二)
- Kouichirou Tomioka (富岡幸一郎)
- Hisahiko Okazaki (岡崎久彦)
Journalists:
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/
Nobukatsu Fujioka (藤岡信勝) is a founder, board member, and former president of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (新しい歴史教科書をつくる会) and a board member of Global Alliance for Historical Truth (GAHT).
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)
Kiyoshi Hosoya (細谷清) is a comfort women denier and self-styled “researcher” of modern Japanese history, even though his background is in business development and management. Hosoya is the secretary general of the Researchers of History on Modern Japan (HMJR, 日本近現代史研究会) and a board member of Global Alliance for Historical Truth (GAHT), both denier groups. He is also affiliated with the Japan Family Value Society (FAVS, 家族の絆を守る会), part of Japan Conference’s anti-feminist network.
Hosoya co-authored the booklet “Comfort Women Issue: From Misunderstandings to Solution” with Yumiko Yamamoto of Nadeshiko Action.
