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Japanese Court Rejects Suit By Relatives of War Victims Enshrined At Yasukuni

By Howard M. Friedman

In Naha, Japan on Tuesday, a three-judge district court panel rejected claims by relatives of war victims against the government and a Shinto shrine in a lawsuit alleging unauthorized "collective enshrinement" of plaintiffs' relatives. The enshrinement took place at the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo. Yasukuni has enshrined most of the 2.5 million Japanese soldiers and civilian employees who died in various wars since the mid-19th century. However, the shrine is controversial because included among those are 14 Class-A World War II war criminals, such as Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. In its decision this week, the court concluded that even if the enshrinement took place without the consent of the deceased victims' relatives, the action did not damage plaintiffs' reputations or infringe their freedom of religion. According to Tuesday's Mainichi Daily News, plaintiffs sought to have their deceased relatives removed from the list of those enshrined at Yasukuni because they objected to their identification with the war criminals also honored there. The court also rejected plaintiffs' demand for damages for the mental suffering they experienced. The government in the lawsuit claimed that it was not involved in the collective enshrinement, but merely furnished names of war dead to the shrine. (See prior related posting.)

Full post as published by Religion Clause on October 28, 2010 (boomark / email).