Hashima Island, nicknamed “the Battleship Island” due to its appearance, was a small island off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan, that served as a coal mine, forced labor camp, and comfort station before and during World War II. Koreans were abducted, “conscripted,” or tricked by the promise of safety and better lives — many men, including young boys, were sent to Japan and worked in dangerous conditions in labor camps, factories, and mines, while women and young girls were sent to “comfort stations” throughout Japan and Asia, where they were sex slaves, or “comfort women,” for Japanese soldiers.
In addition to Koreans, Imperial Japan also targeted people from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, among others. An estimated 450,000 male laborers were sent to Japan, while as many as 500,000 women were abducted throughout the war. Estimates of the total number of civilian deaths throughout Asia due to mass killings, rape, forced labor, starvation, and human experimentation at the hands of Imperial Japan goes as high as fourteen million.
Around 80% of comfort women were Korean. Most women were between ages 14-18, though many were described as being abducted before they could menstruate. Survivors have described being raped twenty to thirty times a day, every day, day and night. Many women died from sexual trauma, diseases, or beatings or stabbings from Japanese soldiers, or were massacred at the end of the war. One Japanese soldier described: “The women cried out, but it didn’t matter to us whether they lived or died. We were the emperor’s soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance.”
Much of the rightwing population and media of Japan, including Japan’s current prime minister Shinzō Abe, believes that comfort women never existed or that their stories are exaggerated, and that forced labor was not used. The city of Osaka ended its sister city designation with San Francisco last year when a memorial to comfort women was erected in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Many rightwing journalists have attempted to disprove survivors of forced labors camps, saying that they lied or exaggerated. Politician Tōru Hashimoto said that violence and coercion were never used by the Japanese military on civilians, while also describing the use of comfort women as “necessary” — all of this, despite the accounts of survivors, confessions from Japanese soldiers, and the existence of incriminating photographs and Imperial Japanese documents. One survivor named Kang Il-chul, who was 16 when she was abducted, said, “The prime minister says there is no proof that we existed, but I am living proof.”
In 2015, Japan submitted Hashima Island as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to “its role in the rapid industrialization of Japan.” South Korea opposed this, but a compromise was reached, where Japan promised to include descriptions of how Koreans were “forced to work under harsh conditions” on the island. However, after the island was made a World Heritage Site, Japan said that “the remark ‘forced to work under harsh conditions’ did not mean ‘forced labor.’” While UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee required that the victims of Hashima are remembered, the island’s official tourism website and tour program do not currently acknowledge this.
The South Korean film The Battleship Island sparked outrage in Japan among rightwing viewers, who say that the film is exaggerated and false, anti-Japan, and distorts history to demonize Japan. Rightwing Japanese critics also joyfully bragged that the film didn’t even do well (despite it being praised by critics, setting the record for biggest opening in South Korea, being the first film in South Korea shown at more than 2,000 movie theaters, and winning more than a dozen awards at film festivals).
JERUSALEM—Describing the terrifying yet valiant experience to his fellow battalion members, Israel Defense Forces soldier Yossi Saadon recounted Tuesday his harrowing, heroic war story of killing an 8-month-old Palestinian child during a violent attack against protesters. “It was a heart-pounding experience—there was smoke and gunfire all around me, and I made a split-second decision to hurl that canister of tear gas at the encroaching infant cradled in her father’s arms,” said Saadon to the group of awed soldiers, describing the chills that went up and down his spine as he realized that all he had was his M16 assault rifle and some tear gas to defend himself against the unarmed Palestinian family standing only dozens of yards away. “I could see the whites of the baby’s eyes and hear her terrifying cries, and I knew it was either her or me. And this wasn’t some newborn infant, you know? This was a baby who could probably sit up independently. I was scared, but I acted quickly to throw that tear gas at her and her older sister. And who knows how many lives I saved when I shot the women trying to help her?” At press time, Saadon’s battalion commander informed him that he was submitting his name for the Medal of Valor, the IDF’s highest honor.
The fact of the matter is, men who have an obsession with sexual violence against women, and fill their novels with excessive rape, are all misogynists. Doesn’t matter if they’re ~making a commentary~ or ~exploring society~. Men are fixated on women’s suffering no matter how they manifest that fixation, and it shows. That’s why books about sexual violence written by women are very different from books written by men.
The father stopped the vehicle and raised his arms to show he was unarmed
ONE OF THE ARRESTED OFFICERS WAS ACTIVELY STALKING THE FATHER’S FIANCE
They are trying to claim self defense AND claim they didn’t know there was a child in the truck
They fired “no less than 18 rounds” into the truck
The father was hit but still alive. The boy ended up being shot in the head multiple times.
There is bodycam footage of the incident and every official/lawyer that has seen and spoken on it has called it horrific.
50% of all police violence victims are autistic or mentally ill. If an autistic person starts screaming or can’t look a cop in the eyes, they use that as an excuse to shoot. I hope Black Lives Matter starts talking about that, too.
Police violence hurts the mentally ill a lot and of course that also means black autistic / mentally ill kids are getting hurt and killed. Ableism is deadly.
“For months after my assault, I had to stop myself before saying (what seemed accurate at the time), ‘I was murdered in France last summer’”
—-Susan J. Brison, Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self, xii
“I am not the same person who set off, singing, on that sunny Fourth of July in the French countryside. I left her in a rocky creek bed at the bottom of a ravine. I had to in order to survive.”
Water Witches 