By P.C. Staff
Following recent written remarks by Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin that described the prosecution of Jan. 6 insurrectionists as the “greatest failure of legal judgement since FDR and his Attorney General put American citizens of Japanese descent in prison camps- and seized their property,” the Japanese American Citizens League on April 9 issued a statement calling for an end to “inappropriate, inaccurate, and offensive comparisons of Capitol rioters to the mass incarceration of innocent Japanese Americans during World War II.”
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), meantime, issued a statement of his own about Martin’s comments, which were contained in an email. “I am appalled by Mr. Martin’s remarks. To compare violent insurrectionists to innocent families imprisoned without due process because of their ancestry is offensive and detached from reality,” said Rep. Takano.
“It diminishes both the seriousness of the January 6th insurrection and the injustice of Japanese American incarceration. A U.S. Attorney should know that justice is based on accountability, not wild distortions of the facts.” Takano’s parents and grandparents were among the more than 125,000 ethnic Japanese, the majority of whom were U.S. citizens, who were forcibly removed from the West Coast during World War II and were herded into concentration camps.
In its statement, JACL asserted: “To compare the decision to incarcerate over 125,000 people only because of their Japanese ancestry, the majority of whom were United States citizens who remained loyal to our Constitution and the rule of law, to the decision to prosecute and obtain convictions of individuals who broke the law in such a violent fashion is disrespectful to the history of what Japanese-Americans endured.”
The entirety of the JACL’s statement may be read at tinyurl.com/yt5fsszt.
