Shin Suk-ok debates comfort women issue on TV Asahi's 'Igi Ari!'

On 13 September 1996, Shin Suk-ok, a Zainichi Korean (an ethnic Korean born and raised in Japan), appeared as a panelist on the TV Asahi debate programme "Igi Ari!" ("I Object!"). The topic was the wartime "comfort women", the women who were forced into Japanese military brothels before and during the Second World War.

Shin faced Japanese right-wing figures who disputed or downplayed the issue, and she rebutted their arguments on air. In the mid-1990s the subject was highly charged in Japan. Debate over official responsibility had intensified after the early 1990s, and revisionist voices were campaigning against how the issue was described in school textbooks.

The broadcast mattered because a minority-community voice answered nationalist claims directly on national television, at a time when such confrontations were rare. The exchange left a lasting impression on viewers, and it later drew the attention of a director who went on to seek Shin out for a documentary profile.