Lawsuit seeks to force Glendale to remove 'comfort women' statue

Opponents of the statue in Glendale commemorating World War II "comfort women" victimized by the Japanese military have filed suit in federal court to force the city to remove it. 

A Glendale resident joined with an organization that fights recognition of comfort women in filing the suit in US District Court on Thursday. They argued that by installing the controversial 1,100-pound statue last July, Glendale illegally infringed upon the federal government's exclusive power to conduct foreign affairs. 

The lawsuit was first reported Friday in the Glendale News-Press.

The suit also contends that Glendale violated its own city code because the city council, while approving the statue, did not separately approve the text etched into a plaque next to the monument that recounts the story of the comfort women.

The statue has sparked months of angry debate and protests, along with a petition to the White House. Several senior Japanese government officials have expressed their unhappiness with the Glendale statue. 

The uproar motivated Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who represents the area in Congress, to step in last month to say that the anti-monument movement threatens to destabilize relations between Japan and its neighbors. He signed a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking him to press Japan to issue a formal apology to the comfort women.

Historians estimate that during World War II the Japanese military forced as many as 200,000 women - most of them Korean but including residents of China and other Asian countries - to work in military brothels serving Japanese soldiers.

Japan has expressed sympathy for the comfort women about what they endured, but it has denied that it ever coerced anyone into sexual slavery. 

Glendale resident Michiko Shiota Gingery joined with GAHT-US Corporation and its president, Koichi Mera, in filing the suit. Mera has helped organize visits of  Japanese delegations to Glendale seeking the statue's removal. Gingery said in the suit that she "suffers feelings of exclusion, discomfort and anger" because of the statue. GAHT-US said its members are experiencing similar emotions.

Glendale officials told the News-Press on Friday that they would not comment on the suit because they had not yet had time to review it.

Phyllis Kim, spokeswoman for the Korean American Forum of California, which helped pay for the statue, told the News-Press that the lawsuit will have no impact on the Forum's efforts to educate the public about comfort women. 

"The root cause of this wasteful dispute is the fact that the government of Japan has never taken the full responsibility for its crimes against humanity," Kim said in a statement. "To this day, it is trying to cover up, downplay and justify their past crimes instead of offering an official, sincere apology."