Japan’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine vandalised with kanji for ‘death’

Police said Monday 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.

The incident in August mainly consisted of Chinese characters and some letters from the Latin alphabet, with words such as “toilet” written in Chinese, likely with a black felt-tip pen, police said.

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, along with other war dead.

Carvings resembling Chinese characters, along with scratches, have also been found on a torii gate at Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward, investigative sources said the same day. Local police are investigating the case as suspected property damage.