The president of a university in Hokkaido said Friday he is considering not renewing the contract of a part-time lecturer for the school year starting April following threats to the university linked to the lecturer's involvement in controversial reporting on the wartime sex slavery issue.
At a press conference, Shinichi Tamura, president of Hokusei Gakuen University in Sapporo, referred to the possibility of not rehiring the ex-reporter. The school said in a statement it has "not made a final decision" but stressed that it regards "protecting the safety of the students as a top priority."
As a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the lecturer, who has taught international students at the university since 2012, wrote articles about the mostly Asian women who were forced into the Japanese military's wartime brothels. Japan euphemistically calls them the "ianfu," or comfort women.