Tag Archives: Koichi Mera

News

Historical revisionist estabilshes “Princeton Institute for Asian Studies” to mislead California schools

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Koichi Mera, a retired USC economics professor turned Japanese nationalist and historical revisionist who has founded Global Alliance for Historical Truth and unsuccessfully sued the City of Glendale to force the Los Angeles suburb to remove a memorial dedicated to the victims of Japanese military “comfort women” system (Gingery et al. v. City of Glendale) is now sending unsolicited “educational” materials to over a thousand schools in California under misleadingly named entity, “Princeton Institute for Asian Studies,” according to GAHT.

The “Princeton Institute,” which (obviously) is not affiliated with the Princeton University, states “two sides of a controversy must always be analyzed,” then goes on to offer Japanese nationalist and revisionist perspectives on the attack on Pearl Harbor (it was a conspiracy by FDR), comfort women (they were willing and well-paid prostitutes), Nanking massacre (all made up by the Chinese Communist Party), and the Tokyo Tribunal (racist and unfair).

Mera’s new campaign to mislead and misinform California students comes in response to the new common curriculum in the state, which includes teaching about the Japanese military “comfort women” issue in tenth grade. Through the “Princeton Institute,” says Mera, he plans to counter “them Korean and Chinese influences.”

In September 2015, Mera testified against the proposal to establish a “comfort women” memorial in San Francisco, in which he challenged historical consensus about the comfort women issue and directly questioned the earlier testimony by Yong-soo Lee, a “comfort women” survivor who had traveled from Korea to tell her story and was sitting in the room.

Updated on 12/17/2019: After Princeton University protested Mera’s use of the name “Princeton Institute,” Mera apparently changed the name of the website to “Pacific Institute for Asian Studies” with the new URL, www.pacificifas.org

Events

NYC: Urgent Protest Against Japanese Far-Right Historical Revisionists

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Update: VICTORY! Japanese American Association of New York canceled the right-wing historical revisionist event planned for March 9th. If you were planning to join the protest, please still show up to celebrate with the community! Also, please don’t miss the legitimate panel about “comfort women” hosted by Human Rights Now in the afternoon (see below for info).

Protest Against Japanese Far-Right Historical Revisionists!

Anti-nuclear activist group Sloths Against Nuclear State and others are planning to protest an upcoming panel organized by Japanese far-right historical revisionists in New York City. The event–and the protest–is held at Japanese American Association of New York (49 W 45th Street, NYC) on March 9th, 2015 at 5:30pm. The panel is apparently being held in conjunction with the meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Speakers for the far-right event include:

  • Yumiko Yamamoto, the president of “comfort women” denialist group Nadeshiko Action and formerly of notoriously racist Zaitokukai, which routinely held (and still holds) explicitly hateful anti-Korean demonstration in public spaces, including in front of a Korean elementary school.
  • Tony Marano, a.k.a. “Texas Daddy,” a video blogger and “comfort women” denier (see our exchanges with him).
  • Shiro Takahashi, a mainline conservative education scholar who have been involved with Japan Society for History Textbook Reform which has successfully lobbied to remove mentions of “comfort women” in Japanese history textbooks.
  • Mitsuhiko Fujii, the president of “comfort women” denier group Rompa Project, which is considered a front group of the far-right religious group Happy Science (Koufuku no Kagaku).
  • Shunichi Fujiki, a.k.a. “Shun Ferguson,” a businessman who recruited Marano and became his “Japanese representative,” orchestrating Marano’s books and lectures in Japan. (See how he used a pseudonym to post hate comments on our blog and got caught because he used the same IP address.)

Also at noon on March 10th, “comfort women” denier group Global Alliance for Historical Truth (GAHT) is holding a press conference at Westin Hotel Grand Central New York (212 East 42nd Street). GAHT has filed multiple lawsuits against the City of Glendale, California for enacting a memorial dedicated to victims and survivors of the “comfort women” system during the WWII. GAHT’s state case against the City was recently dismissed under the State’s anti-SLAPP statute.

GAHT’s press conference is led by Koichi Mera, the president of GAHT-US and a plaintiff in the Glendale case, and is joined by Tony Marano and other usual suspects.

But it’s not all bad: Tokyo-based international human rights group Human Rights Now is also holding a panel on the “comfort women” issue to coincide with the UN Commission meeting. HRN’s panel, titled “Truth and Justice for ‘Comfort Women’,” is scheduled on the same day (March 9th) as the right-wing panel, but it is held at noon as opposed to in the evening so you can go to the HRN panel first and then protest the right-wing panel later in the day.

For more information about the HRN panel, see their website. For more information about the protest against the right-wing panel, please see the facebook page.

Japan-U.S. Feminist Network for Decolonization (FeND) stands in solidarity with our friends and colleagues in New York City confronting the far-right historical revisionists from Japan.

History

“Comfort Women” denier alleges threats and bullying by attorneys representing the City of Glendale; Japanese government admits to working closely with revisionists

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In an article published in the conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper, Koichi Mera, the leader of the Japanese historical revisionist group Global Alliance for Historical Truth suing the City of Glendale over its “comfort women” statue now alleges that attorneys for the defendant City of Glendale threatened and bullied the plaintiff’s attorneys, forcing them to withdraw from representing the revisionist group.

We are not lawyers ourselves, but this does appear to be an actionable libel. Glendale should at least demand that Sankei and Mera retract the statement and apologize for making such an outrageous claim.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Minister under Prime Minister Abe’s administration admits that the Japanese government has been working closely with the plaintiffs in the suit. Japanese government had not been publicly involved with the lawsuit, but it is now official that the Japanese government is actively attempting to suppress the right of a U.S. city to memorialize victims of Japanese military’s system of enforced prostitution during the WWII.