Around 900 citizens from Japan and South Korea gathered Sunday to call on the Japanese government to offer complete compensation for the damage it inflicted on the Korean people during its 35 years of colonial rule from 1910 to the end of the war.
The meeting, cohosted by citizens groups from the two countries, was held at a public hall in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, as the centenary of Japan's forced annexation of the Korean Peninsula approaches on Aug. 29.
The participants sought state compensation for the thousands of former "comfort women" who were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers, the Koreans who were left behind in Sakhalin after the war, the Koreans who survived the atomic bombs, and the Koreans who perished in the air raids on Tokyo. All have been excluded from full redress.