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Three Japanese and Chinese social groups have issued a statement protesting the rejection by the Japanese Supreme Court of a lawsuit filed by three Chinese survivors of the 1932 massacre known as the Pingdingshan Tragedy.

A citizen group from Fushu in northeastern Liaoning Province, the Japanese lawyers group representing Chinese victims and a Japanese citizens group supporting the Chinese survivors jointly released the statement on Monday (June 5).

The Japanese Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the survivors on May 16. The three plaintiffs, 83-year-old Yang Baoshan, 77-year-old Fang Surong, and the late Mo Desheng, were all in their childhood when the massacre took place. They sued the Japanese government for 20 million yen (182,000 U.S. dollars) and an apology.

The lawsuit had dragged through Japanese courts since 1996 but it has now exhausted all legal avenues of appeal in Japan. The case had been previously rejected by Tokyo District Court and the Tokyo High Court. All the courts cited the Japanese government's immunity from responsibility for damage inflicted prior to the enactment of the State Compensation Law.

"We will always be with the Chinese plaintiffs and continue to try and get the Japanese government to admit the facts and offer an apology to all the victims of the massacre," said Izumisawa Akira, a representative of the Japanese lawyers group.

In the Pingdingshan Massacre, the invading Japanese troops rounded up some 3,000 civilians in the village and executed them using machine guns. There were only a handful of survivors.

Following the massacre, the Japanese soldiers burned the bodies and buried the remains by triggering a landslide with dynamite. China excavated part of the site in 1970.

Editor: Wing