Media Monitor

Jewish Center Seeks Apology from MTV Japan

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Tokyo- (PanOrient News) The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center asked MTV Japan to apologize for airing an interview with the popular Japanese pop band Kishidana appearing in uniforms resembling wartime Germany's SS, or the Nazi Party's armed units.

The Center, known as a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO, said it feels ''shock and dismay'' that ''such garb like the uniform worn by Kishidan during an interview aired on MTV Japan on Feb. 23, disrespects Holocaust victims and is never tolerated in the mainstream of any civilized country outside of Japan,'' and that the‘Network should interview Holocaust Survivor’instead.

''As someone who has visited Japan over 30 times, I am fully aware that many young Japanese are woefully uneducated about the crimes against humanity committed during World War II by Imperial Japan in occupied-Asia, let alone about Nazi Germany's genocidal 'Final Solution' against the Jews in Europe,'' Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the center said in the statement.

He added, ''But global entities like MTV and Sony Music should know better,'' referring to the cable channel affiliated with U.S. media conglomerate Viacom Inc. and the band's management agency, Sony Music Artists Inc.

The pop group comprising six male members is known for often wearing Japanese school uniforms in the style of ''bosozoku'' motorcycle gangs.

"It's not so much that they are wearing 'Nazi' uniforms per se, but that the uniforms include the insignia used by the SS units that operated the concentration camps in Poland and other places during the war," an American journalist based in Tokyo told PanOrient News.

"For example in the photos it can be clearly seen that they are wearing 'death's head' skull-and-bones symbols on their collars, which I understand was not used in fighting units, but only in the SS brigades responsible for killing Jews, (Roma) Gypsies and other 'subhumans' in the occupied areas of eastern Europe,” the journalist explained adding that “the average person may not be able to make the distinction, but of course anyone who survived the camps or who has studied the war would recognize those motifs immediately. It's pretty insensitive and tasteless, even for a rock group."

Below is the full text of the statement:

Simon Wiesenthal Center: MTV Japan should apologize for airing Interview with rock group dressed in Nazi Garb; Urges Kishidan to Drop SS-like uniforms

‘Network should interview Holocaust Survivor’

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO has expressed its shock and dismay over the appearance of the Japanese rock group Kishidan on a recent MTV-J program,"Megavector".

Members of the band were wearing SS-like uniforms during an interview on the February 23rd prime time broadcast. “There is no excuse for such an outrage”, said rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. In protests to MTV-J, SONY Music Artists, and the Avex Group, Cooper wrote in part, “As someone who has visited Japan over 30 times, I am fully aware that many young Japanese are woefully uneducated about the crimes against humanity committed during World War II by Imperial Japan in occupied-Asia, let alone about Nazi Germany’s genocidal “Final Solution” against the Jews in Europe. But global entities like MTV and Sony Music should know better.”

“Such garb like the uniform worn by Kishidan is never tolerated in the mainstream of any civilized country outside of Japan. In spite of all the efforts made by democracies to combat bigotry, racism and hate crimes, there are young people who are attracted to a racist ideology and the symbols of Nazism like those that inspired the uniforms worn by Kishidan. It is wrong for anyone, including people in Japan to dismiss such marketing as mere “faux-rebellion,” rabbi Cooper explained.

The Wiesenthal Center is also urging that the group drop its Nazi attire and apologize to its fans and to the victims of Nazism. In addition, “the Simon Wiesenthal Center is prepared to bring an aging survivor of the Nazi Holocaust to Japan so that MTV Japan can interview someone who spent their teen years suffering starvation, depravation and torture and seeing their families being murdered for the “crime” of being born Jewish”, Cooper concluded.

Photo: The group Kishidan during the interview

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