A group of Japanese scholars has issued a statement to voice their support for the South Korean top court's rulings on Japan’s wartime forced labor. 

In a statement released on Tuesday to mark the first anniversary of the first of a set of the related decisions made by the South Korean Supreme Court, the Japanese academic society (http://www.chosenshi.gr.jp) advocated Koreans’ individual rights to claim restitution on the matter. 

They accused the Japanese government and major Japanese media outlets of repeating the false claim that the 1965 normalization treaty settled all colonial-era grievance claims and refusing to discuss Japan’s wartime atrocities and its violation of human rights. 

The scholars said numerous studies so far have clearly exposed that many Koreans were mobilized forcefully under Japan’s colonial rule and coerced to work under harsh conditions and stringent surveillance, adding the illegality of labor mobilization was even acknowledged in a Japanese court. 

Around 400 scholars focusing their research on Korean history or relations between North Korea and Japan are registered as members of the society.