A local court on Wednesday ordered a South Korean scholar to compensate nine women who were sexually enslaved by Tokyo during World War II by giving them 10 million won each for mental distress that they suffered because of her controversial book.
The Seoul Eastern District Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, including Lee Ok-seon, 87, who filed the suit against Park Yu-ha, a professor of Seoul’s Sejong University, in June 2014 for her book “Comfort Women of the Empire.”
The book, released in August 2013, has been at the core of a controversy for disputing the coerciveness of the “comfort women” system. She has also been indicted on charges of defaming the victims.
The nine plaintiffs said the book denounces the victims as prostitutes or collaborators with the Japanese military, and sought a court injunction to ban its sale.
The court in February 2015 partly accepted the request and ordered Park to delete some passages from the book, including one that describes the victims as “voluntary prostitutes,” in order to continue sales of the book.
Park released a second version of the book after redacting 34 selections. (Yonhap)
