The Tokyo High Court on Thursday denied compensation to the
family of a deceased forced laborer from China who escaped from a
work site toward the close of World War II and hid in mountains for
about 13 years unaware the war had ended.??
The high court overturned a 2001 Tokyo District Court decision
that marked the first time a Japanese court had awarded
compensation to a foreign national forcibly brought to Japan for
labor during the war.
The lower court had said it awarded the redress not to
compensate for forced labor but rather to acknowledge the state's
negligence in finding and protecting Liu Lianren, who continued to
hide in the mountains in Hokkaido following Japan's surrender.
The high court acknowledged the government's failure to protect
him was wrong but rejected the family's demand for compensation for
damages from the state, saying there was no mutual agreement
concerning state redress between Japan and China.
The Japanese government appealed the July 2001 ruling, arguing
that it did not have an obligation to rescue Liu because he ran
away.
The government also argued that the plaintiff had lost his right
to seek compensation in the case as he failed to file a suit before
a 20-year statute of limitations expired, as stipulated in Japan's
Civil Code.
After Japan's defeat, the government was obliged to protect
people forcibly brought to Japan, with the General Headquarters of
the Allied Forces ordering Japan to send them home, the district
court said in July 2001.
According to the 2001 ruling, Liu was forcibly brought to Japan
in September 1944 from his home in east China's Shandong Province.
He was taken to Japan through Qingdao with some 800 other
Chinese.
Liu was forced to work at a mine in the town of Numata,
northwestern Hokkaido, from where he ran away with four other
forced Chinese laborers in April 1945 and continued to hide in the
mountains until being found in February 1958.
Liu lodged a suit in March 1996. His eldest son, Liu Huanxin,
took over the suit after he died in September 2000 at the age of
87.
The family of Liu and their lawyers expressed disappointment and
protest against the high court ruling, urging the Japanese
government to make comprehensive efforts in solving the issue of
forced Chinese laborers.
"We have decided to appeal to the supreme court of Japan until a
just ruling is obtained," Liu Huanxin said.
(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2005)