Six members of a local citizens' watchdog group have filed a civil suit against the city of Osaka, demanding that Mayor Toru Hashimoto repay the nearly ¥700,000 bill the city footed after he canceled a trip to the U.S. last June.
Hashimoto scrapped the visit to San Francisco and New York following an international uproar in May when he said that Japan's wartime "comfort women" system had been necessary at the time, and suggested that U.S. Marines in Okinawa could curb sexual violence by making use of "fuzoku" establishments, a euphemism for paid sex clubs.
Hashimoto's remarks were condemned by the U.S. State Department and the San Francisco City Council, while the city's mayor said he was disappointed in Hashimoto's remarks. Nobel laureates and human rights' groups in Japan and South Korea also criticized him.