Home>News Center>China
       
 

Japan govt told to compensate Chinese WW2 workers
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-03-26 15:55

In a landmark ruling, a Japanese court ordered the government and a transport firm on Friday to pay 88 million yen (US$830,300) compensation to a group of Chinese who were forced to work in Japan during World War Two, Kyodo news agency said.

Ten Chinese former labourers and two relatives of a deceased worker had demanded that the government and regional transport firm Rinko Corp pay 275 million yen in redress.

The ruling by the Niigata District Court in northern Japan was greeted by a roar of applause from the plaintiffs and their supporters, Kyodo said.

Court officials were not immediately available for comment.

But an official at Rinko said: "We do not think that the ruling by the Niigata District Court is appropriate. We will consider whether to appeal after studying the details of the ruling with our lawyers."

The company is listed on the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Dozens of wartime compensation suits have been filed against the government and companies related to Japan's aggression in the first half of the 20th century.

Most have been rejected by Japanese courts, and Friday's ruling is the first say the state should pay compensation.

According to the suit, the plaintiffs in the case were brought forcibly to Japan from China in 1944 and made to work in the coal transport business in Niigata, Kyodo said. They were subjected to abuse and received no wages, it said.

Tens of thousands of Korean and Chinese were brought to Japan before and during World War Two to work in factories and mines as forced labourers for little or no pay to help keep Japan's war machine going.

The Japanese government's stance on war reparations is that they were settled once and for all in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty that formally ended the Pacific War and in subsequent bilateral treaties.

 
  Today's Top News     Top China News
 

Japan told to release Chinese unconditionally

 

   
 

Lien-Soong join 'election' protest

 

   
 

Lunar satellite to be launched in 2007

 

   
 

US vetoes UN measure on Yassin's death

 

   
 

China refutes US censure on human rights

 

   
 

UN sees problems, progress in China's path

 

   
  AIDs, HIV test free for pregnant women
   
  Taiwan "election" protesters keep vigil
   
  China refutes US censure on human rights
   
  Improving minimum living subsidy mechanism
   
  Book exposes Japan biowar program in China
   
  Inner Mongolia quake injures 100
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Related Stories  
   
War-era Japanese bomb found in China city
   
Chinese sue Japan, firm over slave labour
   
Japanese camp for US POWs to be preserved in NE China
   
Victims win compensation in toxic lawsuit
   
Japan says it regrets recent leak; China lodges solemn representations
  News Talk  
  Are the Chen-Lu shootings a fabricated hoax or an amateurish bungling  
Advertisement