Tokyo, 30 June, /AJMEDIA/
South Korean civic groups that support plaintiffs in lawsuits against Japanese firms over wartime labor during Japan’s colonial rule said Thursday they will start raising funds for those who have refused to receive compensation from a South Korean government-backed foundation.
Of the 15 plaintiffs who have won the lawsuits, some of whom were represented by their bereaved families, 11 have accepted compensation from the foundation, while the remaining four have refused and urged an apology and payment from Japan.
“The fundraising is a promise that the history of forced labor can never be erased and that civic groups will stand not only for the victims but for our people,” Lee Kuk Eon, chairman of Citizens Association on Imperial Japan’s Labor Mobilization, told a press conference, calling for attention to the issue.
In 2018, South Korea’s top court ordered two Japanese firms — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel Corp. — to compensate the plaintiffs over the issue, significantly worsening bilateral relations.
Japan has maintained that all issues stemming from the 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula were settled “completely and finally” under a bilateral agreement in 1965.
In March, the South Korean government announced that a government-affiliated foundation would take over compensation payments.
