South Korea removes banners in Olympic Village after IOC decision

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South Korea’s Olympic Committee said Saturday it has removed banners from the Olympic Athletes’ Village in Tokyo referring to the 16th century war between Korea and Japan after the International Olympic Committee decided it was provocative.

With the South Koreans agreeing to remove the banners, they said they had received a promise from the International Olympic Committee that displaying the Japanese “Rising Sun” flag would be banned in stadiums and other Olympic venues. The flag, which depicts a red sun with 16 rays extending outward, displeases many people in South Korea and other parts of Asia who see it as a symbol of Japan’s wartime past.

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South Korean banners, which sparked protests by some Japanese far-right groups, were hung on the balconies of South Korean athletes’ rooms and collectively wrote a message that read: “I still have the support of 50 million Koreans.”

This was borrowed from the famous words of the 16th century Korean naval admiral Yi Sun-sin, who according to historical traditions said by King Seonju of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea “I still have 12 warships left” before achieving a decisive victory over a larger Japanese fleet during the 1592-1598 Japanese invasions. for Korea.

South Korea’s Olympic Committee said it was told by the IOC that the banners invoked war images and violated Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, which says “No kind of political, religious or ethnic demonstration or propaganda is permitted at any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

The committee said it agreed to remove the banners after the International Olympic Committee promised to apply the same rules to the rising sun flags and ban them at all Olympic venues.

“Under the agreement, the committee will not raise any further discussion to allow athletes to focus fully on competition, while the IOC prohibits the rising of the rising sun flag at all Olympic venues so that political problems do not arise,” South Korea said. The commission said in a statement.

Toshiro Muto, chief executive of the Tokyo Organizing Committee, said the IOC believed the South Korean banners were “inappropriate” and had requested that they be removed.

Seiko Hashimoto, chair of the organizing committee, admitted that “there may be many ways of thinking” about the issue.

“If the message is considered political, it goes against the message of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to unite the world as one,” she said.

Japanese officials have not commented on South Korea’s announcement that the International Olympic Committee has also banned the Rising Sun flag at the Games.

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South Korea in 2019 formally asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the Rising Sun flag at the Olympics, comparing it to the Nazi swastika. Then South Korean Olympic officials said the Tokyo organizing committee had rejected their demands to ban the flag, saying it was widely used in Japan and not considered a political statement.

Many South Koreans still feel hostile to Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, and the two countries have seen their relations deteriorate to new post-war lows in recent years due to disagreements over history and commercial and military cooperation.

The two countries have been trying to improve relations since the inauguration of US President Joe Biden, who has called for stronger trilateral cooperation with traditional US allies in the face of North Korean nuclear threats and challenges posed by China. But progress has been slow.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday summoned Japanese Ambassador Koichi Ibushi to protest remarks made by another senior Japanese diplomat who, according to a local radio, used vulgar language to ridicule South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s efforts to improve bilateral relations while meeting with its reporters. .

The two countries were discussing the possibility of Moon visiting Tokyo to participate in the opening ceremony of the Olympics and holding talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on improving relations.

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