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Updated May 29th, 2020 at 16:14 IST

South Korean activist denies misusing survivor funds

A prominent South Korean activist who was recently elected to the National Assembly denied on Friday that she misused public donations for Korean survivors of Japanese wartime sexual slavery.

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A prominent South Korean activist who was recently elected to the National Assembly denied on Friday that she misused public donations for Korean survivors of Japanese wartime sexual slavery.

Yoon Meehyang, who begins her four-year term as a lawmaker for the ruling liberal party on Saturday, responded in a news conference to questions raised by a 92-year-old survivor that prompted a probe by prosecutors and angry calls for her to resign from the legislature.

The survivor, Lee Yong-su, has also said in recent media interviews that Yoon and a survivor support group she led until March preached hatred during nationalistic weekly rallies in front of the Japanese Embassy.

Lee said the deep animosity between the two nations over their history can only be resolved through education and more exchanges with younger Japanese people.

Historians say tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to front-line Japanese military brothels during World War II.

Reading a statement at the National Assembly, Yoon bowed and apologized for causing supporters of the movement "for hurting you and causing concerns" and for failing to resolve what she described as misunderstandings with Lee.

Yoon adamantly denied allegations by local media that she and the group refused to help the survivors and used the funds instead for private gain, such as real estate purchases or financing the overseas studies of Yoon's daughter.

Yoon promised to cooperate with prosecutors, who recently searched the Seoul office of her former group, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.

She also denied speculation that she pressured victims not to accept money from a Tokyo-funded foundation that was established after a 2015 agreement between the countries to settle their decades-long dispute over the sexual slavery.

The 2015 deal, negotiated by South Korea's previous conservative government, was hugely unpopular among South Koreans, many of whom said the government settled for far too little and accused Tokyo of attempting to silence the victims with money.

There is also criticism that Japan still hasn't fully acknowledged legal responsibility for atrocities during its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The public rift between Yoon and Lee shocked many because they for years led rallies in front of the Japanese Embassy demanding that Tokyo more fully acknowledge the suffering of the "comfort women," the euphemism given by Japan to the women and girls enslaved by the Japanese army during the war and the term embraced by some of the dwindling number of survivors instead of "sex slave."

Relations between South Korea and Japan recently plunged to their lowest point in years amid their continuing disputes over history, which also include Japan's refusal to compensate forced Korean laborers during its colonial rule.

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Published May 29th, 2020 at 16:14 IST

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