'Comfort women' show goes on in Tokyo despite protests

Infuriated protesters shouted. Guards searched warily through bags. The whole thing might not have happened if not for a court injunction. But in Tokyo, the show went on, as Japanese visitors braved angry demonstrators and tight security to see photographs of Korean “comfort women.”   

The uproar over the black-and-white images taken by South Korean photographer Ahn Sehong in recent years underscores the sensitivity, decades later, concerning the plight of Korean women forced to serve the Japanese military as sex slaves during World War II. The women have repeatedly demanded that Japan punish the surviving members of the army responsible for the crime and pay government reparations for their suffering.

Japan apologized two years ago for the wartime abuses, but some Japanese conservatives still deny there was an organized campaign of sexual slavery. Protesters deluged the Nikon company after it agreed to host the photographs in a Tokyo salon, prompting the company to cancel the show earlier this year.

But a court ordered Nikon last week to honor its original commitment and to let the exhibit run as planned. As it opened Tuesday, protesters denounced the show as a defamation of the Japanese, holding up signs such as, “The forcible carting-off of ‘comfort women’ is the biggest fabrication in history,” according to Asahi Shimbun....