Japanese Shinto priests attending a ritual at Yasukuni Shrine. Yasukuni has long been a source of diplomatic friction with China and other Asian countries because it honours Japan’s wartime leaders convicted as war criminals in the post-World War II international tribunal. - Reuters
TOKYO (SCMP): Police said Monday (Nov 11) they have launched an investigation after the kanji character for “death” was found graffitied on two spots of a stone wall at the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, after similar defacement incidents in June and August.
Following the June incident, in which a stone pillar bearing the shrine’s name was found to be defaced with the word “toilet” spray-painted in red, a Chinese man living in Japan was indicted in July for property damage and desecration of a place of worship, while two other Chinese men have been put on wanted lists.
