SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- A "comfort women" memorial in San Francisco on the west U.S. coast has recently become the target of vandalism ahead of the first anniversary of its installment, and activists said the act may have been motivated by hate.
The statue, called "Column of Strength," depicts a grandmother looking up at three Asian girls standing on a pedestal and holding hands together. They represent "comfort women," the hundreds of thousands of women from China and other Asian countries who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.
In the past few weeks, paint was splattered on the statue and the grandmother's eyes were painted white, while the panel that bears the description of the statue was scratched up at least four times.
"We have sent the tape to the video camera surveillance department (of the San Francisco Police Department). They will look to the manager of the building which hosts the memorial and look over the tape," said Julie Tang, co-chair of "Comfort Women" Justice Coalition (CWJC), a local grassroots advocacy group, on Saturday.
Tang said it hasn't been determined when exactly the act of vandalism happened.
"The deep scratches and the four separate incidents of vandalism look to me very intentional. It looks to me like a hate crime, not like some young kids coming around, having fun and painting the eyes. It's not that simple," she said.
"The act itself speaks for the intent and I think it's an intentional vandalization against the purpose and meaning of the statue, which is to promote peace and honor the courage of these women," said Tang.
The memorial had sparked protests from Japanese rightists even before it was installed at St. Mary Square in the city's downtown area last September.
The most pronounced opposition came from Japan's Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura, who threatened late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee last November that he would sever the 60-year-old sister-city relationship with San Francisco if Lee accepted the statue on public land.
But Lee pushed back and went ahead with the plan to erect the statue in Chinatown in San Francisco.
Less than two weeks after San Francisco's new Mayor London Breed formally took office on July 11, Yoshimura wrote to her, saying he would terminate the relationship if the statue isn't removed from public land. He gave her a deadline until the end of September to respond.
"I think it (the vandalism) has something to do with Osaka mayor's letter, because the information has been propagated," said Tang.
The "comfort women" statue in San Francisco is the first of its kind in a major U.S. city. The project was launched with grass-roots efforts spearheaded by the CWJC.
The group has also organized a photo exhibition on the history of "comfort women" at the California State Building in San Francisco, which is on view till Sept. 20.
"We are not going to let people forget history, because history forgotten is history repeated," Tang said.
