A Japanese community group in Australia has lodged a legal complaint under racial vilification laws objecting to a statue commemorating wartime Korean "comfort women" in a Sydney church, the group's president said Thursday.
The memorial, a 1.5-meter statue imported from Korea, has been a flash point for tensions between Korean and Japanese communities in Sydney since it was unveiled in August.
The issue of comfort women, as those who were forced to work in Japan's wartime brothels were euphemistically known, has long plagued ties between Korea and Japan.