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Results of CNN “Quick Vote” on Japanese Sex Crimes Apology Controversial

Results of CNN “Quick Vote” on Japanese Sex Crimes Apology Controversial

Posted March. 09, 2007 05:41,   

한국어

“Should Japan apologize again for its World War II military brothels?”

As of March 8, 5:00 p.m., 2,040,000 people had participated in a survey conducted by CNN in its “Quick Vote” format which started on March 5, 1:00 p.m. (March 4, 11:00 p.m. local time): 75 percent have voted “No” and 25 percent have voted “Yes.”

The opinion poll has caused a stir in many ways. First of all, despite only being three days old, more than 2 million people have already taken part. Before the New York Times wrote an editorial criticizing Japan in the middle of this week, most of the U.S. media kept silent about a resolution demanding Japan’s apology for its World War II military brothels. So, the issue was not well-known among Americans. Considering that, the number is suspicious.

Moreover, the poll was posted at the lowest part of a webpage (www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/03/04/japan.sexslaves.ap) that can be barely found by Internet searches.

CNN’s wording of its question is also controversial. Seo, Ok-ja, the president of the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women, said, “The fact that CNN asked if Japan should apologize ‘again’ itself is not objective and biased.”

As the content of the poll became known, angry Korean netizens are encouraging people to take part in the poll by posting articles on portal site boards and blogs.

At first, the yes and no ratio was half and half. But as the number of participants surpassed the half a million mark, a whopping 90 percent was in favor of “No.” Because of that, some believe that the results are suspicious.

Many netizens have raised the possibility that Japanese netizens may have systematically stuffed the ballot box.

As Japanese netizens opposing a Japanese apology for sex crimes committed by its military during World War 2 started to counter Korean netizens, the poll has become a confrontation between Korean and Japanese netizens. “2Channel,” a Japanese anti-Korean wave site, and portal sites such as Yahoo Japan are seeing more and more postings that encourage the Japanese to vote in the poll, saying, “As Korea is catching up, the number of ‘Yes’ votes is increasing.”



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