Workers prepare to remove graffiti on a pillar at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo in June. --Photo: Kyodo via AP
TOKYO: A Tokyo court on Wednesday sentenced a Chinese national living in Japan to eight months in prison over his involvement in a May graffiti incident at the capital’s war-linked Yasukuni Shrine.
Jiang Zhuojun, 29, was on trial at the Tokyo District Court on charges of damaging property and disrespecting a place of worship.
According to the ruling, he and two other Chinese men vandalised a stone pillar at the controversial shrine by spray-painting the word “toilet” on it on May 31.
Prosecutors had sought a one-year sentence.
In handing down the ruling, Judge Yasushi Fuke said Jiang had played a crucial role by buying the spray paint and that it is “unforgivable to turn to illegal actions to express one’s views”.
The court deemed imprisonment appropriate, citing a lack of reparations for the damage.
It dismissed Jiang's claims that his actions were a protest against the release of treated radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, which began in 2023.
The two other Chinese nationals involved in the case left Japan for China. Japanese police have placed them on a wanted list.
Yasukuni enshrines Japan's war dead.
It has long been a source of diplomatic friction with China and other Asian countries for honoring wartime Japanese leaders, who were convicted as war criminals in a post-World War II international tribunal. - Kyodo/SCMP
