The following is from the serial column of Ms. Yoshiko Sakurai, who brings the weekly Shincho released yesterday to a successful conclusion.
This article also proves that she is a "national treasure" as defined by Saicho and a supreme national treasure.
NHK is a history faker, just like Asahi.
They lie about the comfort women spread to the world because of the false story of a fraudulent storyteller named Seiji Yoshida that the Asahi Shimbun propagated.
The lie that wartime Korean laborers were forcibly hunted down and were slave laborers who did not receive any wages can be said to have originated from NHK's reporting.
In 2014, the Asahi Shimbun rescinded all of its articles on Seiji Yoshida, claiming they were wrong.
NHK, on the other hand, continues to refuse to correct their report "Island Without Greenery," which depicts Hashima Island in Nagasaki Prefecture, commonly known as Gunkanjima, and is the source of the ongoing issue of conscription.
Island Without Greenery" is a 20-minute documentary that was broadcast in 1955.
Ms. Yasuko Kato, a leading researcher on the Meiji Industrial Revolution Heritage Sites, including Hashima Island, pointed out the problems with the 66-year-old documentary.
The footage from inside the coal mine was faked. It must have written the narration to be dramatic.
The in-pit footage of the Hashima coal mine depicted in "Island Without Greenery" is strange to anyone who sees it.
First, the miners enter the mine one after another.
They are all dressed in full work clothes, helmets with lamps, and sturdy-looking shoes.
However, in the next scene where they are actually digging for coal, they are all naked and wearing only loincloths.
While the helmet lamp is gone, it is not properly paired that only the wristwatch is fitted tightly.
Mitsubishi Mining, the owner of the coal mine on Hashima Island at the time, strictly forbade anyone from entering the mine without working clothes and a helmet with a lamp. It would have been impossible to mine coal naked. Also, the tunnels are dug deep into the sea. Without a lamp, it would be pitch black. In 1955, watches were expensive and valuable. It was unheard of to bring personal belongings, including watches, to a coal mining site," Ms. Kato said.
On the Island Without Greenery, the tunnels are not very high, and all the miners have to crawl.
But this was also not possible on Hashima Island.
Historical falsification from Japan
As mentioned above, it dug Hashima Island deep into the sea bed in a diagonal shaft 1100 meters deep.
According to Mitsubishi's regulations, the tunnels had to be at least 1.9 meters high, but in the video, the tunnels are not high, but instead a horizontal space where naked men crawl and work.
However, the actual tunnels on Hashima Island did not have such a flat mining site.
Clearly, this could not be footage of the Hashima coal mine.
Ms. Kato's suggestion that it was a "fake" is probably correct. Switching to the old version
In fact, all of the former islanders who saw the footage testified that this was not Hashima Island.
This video, which NHK reported as a fake, was transmitted to South Korea and led to the "recognition" that Korean miners were mistreated in this way.
One example of this is a photograph on display at the National Museum of Korean History.
It is a photo of a nude man digging for coal in an unheated mine shaft.
It is a symbolic image of how Koreans were forced to work as slaves in this way.
However, the man in the photo is not Korean but Japanese.
It has been confirmed that a Japanese photographer took the photo while he was digging in a coal mine that was abandoned after the war.
The contact print is still available.
NHK's reporting 66 years ago created a false image that was clearly impossible in real coal mines where it strictly enforced strict safety management rules.
Despite its factual inaccuracies, it began to walk on its own as documentary footage.
Korea was inspired and jumped on the aforementioned photo of a naked man digging.
It displayed the photo in New York's Times Square and anti-Japanese slogans during the South Korean campaign against UNESCO's listing of the country as a Meiji Industrial Revolution Heritage Site.
And in October 2018, it led to an outrageous ruling by the South Korean Supreme Court ordering Japanese companies to pay compensation for what they call the "conscription" issue.
The "Island Without Greenery" scam reported by NHK 66 years ago is directly related to the current issue.
But that's not all," said Mr. Tsutomu Nishioka, a visiting professor at Reitaku University.
In 1974, there was the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bombing case. Although the perpetrators were Japanese, they had studied "Records of Forced Conscription of Koreans" written by Park Kyung-suk when they were in university and thought that Japan had mistreated Koreans and had to carry out terrorist attacks in retaliation against the Japanese company. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was targeted because it was using Korean wartime workers.
The bombing took place on August 30, 1974.
However, they were planning to take revenge on September 1, the same day that "Koreans were massacred" in the Great Kanto Earthquake.
But it was Sunday, and there were no people in the office district of Marunouchi. Nor would there be on Saturday. So Friday, August 30, was chosen as the day of the attack.
In other words, it convinced the perpetrators that Japanese companies had indeed forced Koreans to work as slave laborers. A lie that began 66 years ago and originated in Japan has been passed down, spread, and become more serious. It is a historical fabrication originating in Japan, just like the comfort women.
The image of the "bad guy."
Thanks to Ms. Kato's efforts, it opened the Industrial Heritage Information Center in Shinjuku, Tokyo, in March last year.
At the center, life on Hashima Island is displayed along with the testimonies of many former islanders.
Through VTR footage and former islanders' voices, we can learn that both Japanese and Koreans lived in peace and harmony on Hashima Island.
Perhaps in reaction to this, NHK has made another move.
As if to say that the slave labor portrayed in "Island Without Greenery" 66 years ago was the island's actual situation, NHK made another move. The Island of Remembrance: A Shaky Historical Inheritance," which seemed to suggest that the slave labor depicted in "Island Without Greenery" 66 years ago was the actual situation on the island, was aired on October 16 last year in Kyushu and Okinawa.
NHK interviewed Ms. Kato and the islanders, but they resented that they were not taken seriously but instead were portrayed as "bad guys."
The former islanders sent a letter of protest and questions to NHK on November 20 last year.
There were four main points of contention.
(1) Verification of the footage of the coal mine.
(2) Correcting the footage for the whole world, including Korea.
(3) Complete removal of the footage without leaving any copies.
(4) To apologize to the former islanders for trampling on their pride and self-respect.
NHK's response was to give us a curt reply, "We have not been able to confirm that it used footage taken in another coal mine."
All the former islanders who saw the documentary testified that it was not filmed at the coal mine on Hashima Island. As a news organization, if you're going to deny that it was a hoax, you have to show the evidence.
Ms. Kato's indignation is understandable.
Why should we be forced to pay subscription fees to NHK?
It is said that the reason is that NHK is a public broadcaster. Still, we should not allow NHK to continue broadcasting falsehoods that damage the national interest and Japanese people's reputation.
