This article reexamines the formation of the comfort women issue through the activist network of Bae Soon-hee, Song Doo-hoe, and Atsuko Aoyagi. It explores the links between the Asahi Shimbun’s reporting, Kim Hak-sun’s public appearance, and the issue of Korean residents left behind in Sakhalin, showing how a false narrative expanded.

February 25, 2020
She was a doctor’s wife and had devoted herself to Song Doo-hoe, a Korean resident in Japan and an anti-discrimination activist.
Aoyagi was the very person who teamed up with Song and began a lawsuit against the Japanese government demanding an apology and compensation.
The following is a chapter I published on February 16, 2018, under the title:
From this series of events, one can see the network of resident Korean activists: Bae Soon-hee, Song Doo-hoe, and Atsuko Aoyagi.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
“Atsuko Aoyagi of Oita was a doctor’s wife and had devoted herself to Song Doo-hoe, a Korean resident in Japan and an anti-discrimination activist.
Aoyagi was the very person who teamed up with Song and began a lawsuit against the Japanese government demanding an apology and compensation” (Tsutomu Nishioka, The Comfort Women Issue Clearly Explained).
Ms. Aoyagi was the secretary-general of an organization called “The Committee of One Hundred: Official Apology to Korea and Koreans,” and in 1990 she went to South Korea and distributed leaflets recruiting plaintiffs to file a lawsuit against the Japanese government.
On the extension of this activity, Kim Hak-sun came forward, and as a result, Takashi Uemura, a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, reported that she had been “taken to the battlefield under the name of the Women’s Volunteer Corps” (Asahi, August 11, 1991).
From this series of events, one can see the network of resident Korean activists: Bae Soon-hee, Song Doo-hoe, and Atsuko Aoyagi.
Moreover, Mr. Song was involved not only in the comfort women issue, but also in activities concerning the repatriation of Koreans left behind in Sakhalin.
In other words, the origin of the comfort women issue is connected at its root with the Sakhalin issue.
In the Asahi Shimbun article on the establishment of an apology monument, titled “The Apology of Just One Person,” there is a caption that reads, “Mr. Seiji Yoshida prostrating himself before the bereaved families of Korean residents left behind in Sakhalin” (December 23, 1983).
This article continues.
As readers know, immediately after I appeared, I stated that “everything begins with one person.”
The proper noun Asahi Shimbun does not write.
The building called NHK does not speak.
Someone writes.
Someone speaks.
One person wrote a lie, and one person commented on a lie, and the false story began.
The Asahi Shimbun was the newspaper company with the highest quality in Japan, and NHK was the public broadcaster.
Those titles made lies look like truth, and the lies continued to expand.
Those who make use of Asahi and NHK are as countless as the sands on the beach.
China, the Korean Peninsula, opposition-party political operators, and the so-called cultural figures who make their living through Asahi and NHK.