Subject: [fem-women2000 746] PressRelease FINAL JUDGEMENT Webcast from Hague by FIRE
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 12:38:42 +0900
Seq: 746

Press Release -- November 30, 2001

Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE) will WEBCAST LIVE
>from The Hague in The Netherlands (webcast site:  www.fire.or.cr)

December 3-4, 2001

FINAL JUDGMENT 

WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL OF JAPAN'S MILITARY
SEXUAL SLAVERY OF THE "COMFORT WOMEN"

A new page of history will be written when the final judgment
of the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal of Japan's
Military Sexual Slavery, held last December, is delivered at
the Peace Palace in the Hague December 3-4, 2001.

FIRE will webcast live this historic event involving former
"comfort women", lawyers, judges, scholars and activists. On
December 3rd, prosecutors from the nine victimized countries,
including China, The Philippines, North and South Korea,
Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Netherlands, will 
present condensed versions of the charges brought against
Japan at the Tribunal in December. The official judgment will
be issued the next day, December 4, and will be followed by a
press conference at 14:30.

The judgment comes more than fifty years after the Japanese
Imperial Army sexually enslaved over 200,000 women during the
World War II. These women, who were often kidnapped from their
homes, were trafficked throughout Asia and kept in "comfort
stations" where they were brutally and continuously raped
throughout the war by Japanese soldiers. Even today, the
government of Japan refuses to acknowledge its state
responsibility for instituting this atrocious system -- a
system that has devastated the lives of countless women, their
families and communities.

The Tokyo Tribunal was convened as an addendum to the
International Military Tribunal for the Far East which was
established in 1946 at the insistence of the Allied Powers to
try war crimes committed by the Japanese Military. Although
there was overwhelming evidence of the system of sexual
slavery, the IMTFE did not address this institutionalized
enslavement and Japan was never forced to publicly acknowledge
its wrongdoing in this regard or pay reparations to the women
harmed.

The Tokyo Tribunal, the first portion of which took place in
December, 2001, was a collaborative effort initiated by Asian
women and men from civil society to end impunity for war
crimes of sexual violence. Evidence was presented at the Tokyo
Tribunal to four eminent judges, Judge Carmen Argibay, Judge
Christine Chinkin, Judge Willy Muntunga and presided over by
Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, a former presiding judge of the
International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The judges
presented a preliminary summary of findings on the last day of
the tribunal. Judge McDonald will deliver the highly
anticipated final judgment in The Hague.

Be with us on this momentous occasion when the "comfort women"
survivors will finally be able to see justice being done or
listen to it live via WEBCAST at http://www.fire.or.cr/ during
the final judgement presentation.

Organizations sponsoring the Tribunal:

VAWW--Japan
Asia-Japan Women's Resource Center
Women's Caucus for Gender Justice

This press release is based in part on a press release from
the Women's Caucus on Gender Justice.

> 



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