Do not select Tokyo to host the 2020 Summer Olympics

During WWII, more than 200,000 women and girls were forced into sexual slavery (so-called “comfort women”) by the Japanese Imperial Army. During approximately a six-week period starting on 12/13/37, about 300,000 Chinese (including many women and children) were slaughtered and about 20,000 women and girls were raped in the city of Nanking alone. During WWII, thousands of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction were deployed in more than a dozen provinces in China killing more than hundreds of thousands of Chinese, and permanently maiming many more.

Yet Mr. Shinzo Abe, Japan’s current prime minister and her prime minister during 2006-2007 has repeatedly said that “there was no coercion of women into sexual slavery during WWII, and there is no testimony from anyone in Japan.” Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo, said in an interview in 1990 that the Nanking Massacre “is a story made up by the Chinese.” Takashi Kawamura, mayor of Nagoya, said in 2012 that “there was no Nanking Massacre, only the results of conventional acts of combat.”

All of these are lies, as these atrocities were well documented by many eye witnesses, including western journalists, businessmen, diplomats, missionaries, educators, and other international observers. Furthermore, the Japanese teacher and journalist Tamaki Matsuoka has interviews of over 250 former Japanese soldiers, with many of these interviews video-recorded, confirming the Nanking Massacre.

Sixty seven years have elapsed since the end of WWII. The Japanese government still has not officially acknowledged and apologized for the massive and inhumane atrocities that the Japanese Imperial Army inflicted on Asia during WWII. Furthermore, their leaders, including prime ministers, have regularly paid tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo where 14 convicted and executed Class A war criminals are enshrined. This is analogous to German chancellors paying tribute at a memorial for Hitler. In addition, starting in the early 1980s, the Japanese government has rewritten their textbooks so that generations of Japanese already do not know about this part of WWII history.

Many governments have already passed resolutions condemning Japan’s position on the comfort women issue, including resolutions passed in 2007 by U.S. House of Representatives, Canadian Parliament, Lower House of the Dutch Parliament, and European Parliament. Apparently words alone are not sufficient to change Japan’s position.

If we don’t learn from history, then history can repeat itself, in the form of another Pearl Harbor attack, Nanking Massacre, Bataan Death March, sexual slavery, germ warfare, etc. For the sake of world peace, the world must take more serious actions than just words.

Therefore, we petition the International Olympic Committee not to select Tokyo, one of three finalists (together with Istanbul and Madrid), to be the host city for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

We ask all peace loving people of the world to sign this petition to urge the International Olympic Committee and the various national Olympic Committees not to select Tokyo to host the 2020 Summer Olympics, unless the Japanese government officially acknowledges and apologizes for their WWII atrocities.