Commentary: Japanese rightists' denial of Nanjing Massacre devoid of humanity

It is inhumane that a Japanese rightist daily recently released a four-day reports in which it denies the occurrence of the horrendous Nanjing Massacre during WWII, at a time when the world gears up to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the war.

In attempt to deny the massacre, the Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese rightist loudspeaker, rabbled several Japanese veterans, who claimed to be in the then Chinese capital after its fall in 1937.

With the headline "An empty city with no army or resident" and the subject heading "No people, no massacre," the paper even flammed that the captured city was "so peaceful", quoting the few veterans.

Its outrageous subversion of the ironclad historical facts, which have been repeatedly proved by the international community, has impudently stripped the dignity of over 300,000 Chinese victims massacred in Nanjing by Japanese invaders.

In fact, it is not the first time the newspaper has released such disgraceful stories. It recently carried a column praising apartheid policy as a reference for Japan's immigration issue, drawing protest from South Africa. Besides, last year it ran a deplorable anti-Semitic advertisement and was later forced to apologized for it.

Worse still, Tomomi Inada, policy chief of Japan's ruling party, questioned on Thursday the legal basis of the Tokyo Tribunal, which described the atrocities committed in Nanjing as an unprecedentedly brutal record in modern history, based on abundant testimonies and material evidence.

It is utterly regrettable that many ultra-right-wing politicians and figures like Inada, who denies the occurrence of the Nanjing Massacre, and president of Japan's public broadcaster NHK Katsuto Momii, who doubts the comfort women issue, are becoming increasingly powerful and influential under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration.

The international community has hailed the pacifist road Japan pursued in the postwar period, with its high-ranking officials reiterating the point and admitting that it has been based on profound remorse for the war.

However, notable foreign leaders and authorities have urged Japan to conduct a thorough self-examination on the whitewash of its wartime history by rightists, including Abe, a well-known historical revisionist reluctant to uphold previous and internationally-accepted official statements to offer an apology to China and other invaded countries.

It is high time for the Japanese government to stop any right-wing speeches which undermines Japan's reputation in the international arena. Compared to European countries, Japan has been left far behind on the crackdown of attempts trying to whitewash or deny its war crimes.

Japan should learn that it is not about freedom of speech, but about the protection of and respect for human dignity.

For starters, the Abe administration should abandon its attempts to gloss over past villainies and stop Japan from sliding further along an alarmingly right-leaning and even militaristic path.

Tomiichi Murayama, then prime minister who offered the benchmark apology for Japan's wartime atrocities in 1995, warned Saturday that if Japan breaches its commitment to reflecting its wartime past, it will lose credit worldwide and face isolation internationally. Endi