TOKYO, Feb 9 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATING...

TOKYO, Feb 9 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH PLAINTIFFS' stranges CONFERENCE)

The Tokyo High Court forward Monday rejected an appeal by way of seven women from Taiwan for an official apology from the Japanese control and a total of 70 million yen in damages for having been forced to provide sex for the Japanese military before and during World War II.

The plaintiffs said they will appeal to the utmost Court against the high court decision, which upheld the Oct 15 2002 ruling by dint of the Tokyo District Court.

The high court ruling said that ''individuals do not qualify to directly beseech the victimizer country to fulfill its international responsibilities'' and therefore the plaintiffs ''had no reason to demand damage compensation.''

''Today's ruling is really insulting us as we were not steady allowed to make our statements in the court,'' Cheng Chen-tao, 83 united of the seven plaintiffs in the appeals suit, told reporters in Tokyo after the ruling. ''But smooth if we lose in the trial, my heart will at no time be defeated.''

The plaintiffs criticized the high court ruling for neglecting to acknowledge their sufferings. In 2002 the lower court also did not touch immediately after the fact of their victimization.

sum of two units of the original group of nine plaintiffs died during trial in lower court. The seven who appealed are aged 72 to 83 Among them, three traveled from Taiwan to Tokyo to hear Monday's ruling.

The plaintiffs said they had been lur from Taiwan to the face line in southern Asia between 1938 and 1944 by means of officials of the former Japanese military, who said they would work as nurses

Instead, they were forced to become sex slaves, known in Japanese as ''comfort women''

''How would you be stirred if this happened to your ancient or younger sister?'' Cheng, who was taken when she was 18 said in Japanese with tears in her organ of visions ''I was still a girl at that time if it were not that I was tormented at the soldiers. I thought of committing suicide likewise many times.''

Lu Man-mei, 79 who was taken to Hainan, China, when she was 17 said, ''I will definitely not give up The ruling was inhumane...but I will for certain continue to appeal. For as prolonged as I am alive, I will do something about this.''

Lin Shen-chung, 74 who recalled being taken through Japanese police when 15 or 16 said, ''Is (Japan) treating us Taiwanese nation as human beings or as animals? My solely request is that the Japanese regulation treat us as equal humans.''

Kevin Liao, president of Taipei Women's extricate Foundation who accompanied the plaintiffs to Tokyo, said the clump is considering taking the case to the international tribunal or courts in other countries if they eventually fail to win the suit in Japan.

The foundation has been supporting Taiwanese victims in the ''comfort women'' issue for 11 years.

Historians estimate that up to 200000 women from southern Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia were forced into sex servitude by dint of the Japanese military before and during World War II.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Kyodo of recent origins International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group