Protesters from Chinese community are seen in a demonstration against visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Stanford University, California, the United States, on April 30, 2015. Over one hundred Chinese and Korean Americans gathered outside Stanford Unviersity's Bing Concert Hall and urged visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to stop distorting history when he arrived there for a speech on campus. (Xinhua/Xu Yong)
Demonstrators gathered on Thursday outside of a Stanford University facility on the U.S. west coast and urged Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to stop distorting history.
Initially asked to stay away within an area designated by police, the over 100 demonstrators surged toward the entrance of Bing Concert Hall upon seeing Abe's arrival and shouted "liar" toward the visiting prime minister.
They were referring to Abe's continued denial of Japanese imperial army's role in forcing up to 400,000 women, mostly Korean and Chinese nationals, into sex slavery in the Second World War before it was defeated in August 1945.
In the question and answer session after a speech at Harvard University on Monday, Abe labeled comfort women as "victims of human trafficking," a sign that he blamed the suffering of the women on local people other than the Japanese army.
For a moment, apparently hearing the demonstrators' chanting, Abe turned his head toward the direction of the crowd.
Meanwhile, a group of seven Korean American students put up signs and stood along the line of Stanford students ready to get into the concert hall.
Obviously targeting Abe's speech at Stanford, supposedly about "innovation issues", one of their signs reads: "Innovation Starts from Not Repeating the Same Mistake."
The demonstration was organized by Global Alliance (GA) for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia and at least another Chinese American community group along with some Korean American groups.
Allen Ho, chairman of GA, vowed to continue demonstration and follow Abe wherever he goes in north California, including an electric car plant in Palo Alto near Stanford and a hotel in downtown San Francisco where the prime minister stays.
