Yasukuni Shrine Controversy

There are major controversies surrounding Yasukuni Shrine, a Japanese Shinto shrine to war dead who served the Emperor of Japan during wars from 1867–1951. This eligibility includes civilians in service and government officials. Yasukuni is a shrine to house the dead as kami, or "spirits/souls". This activity is claimed to be merely a religious matter due to the separation of State Shinto and the Japanese Government. The priesthood at the shrine has complete religious autonomy to decide to whom and how enshrinement may occur. It is thought that enshrinement is permanent and irreversible by the current clergy. Due to the enshrinement of individuals found to be war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and an approach to the war museum considered by some to be nationalist, China, South Korea, North Korea and Taiwan have called the Yasukuni Shrine a microcosm of a revisionist and unapologetic approach to Japanese crimes of World War II.

Of the 2,466,532 people contained in the shrine's Book of Souls, 1,068 were convicted of war crimes by a post-World War II court. Of those, 14 are convicted Class A war criminals ("crime against peace"). The war crimes tribunals were carried out by the IMTFE, which comprised the victors of World War II including Australia, Canada, China, France, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, United Kingdom, United States, and the Soviet Union. Of the 12 judges appointed to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East's trials of Japanese war crimes committed during the Second World War, all of them agreed with regards to the wide scale of atrocities committed by the Japanese army and the conviction of the Class B and Class C criminals. However, the Indian Justice Radha Binod Pal felt that the trial of Class A war criminals had significant procedural flaws. Radha Binod Pal also argued that the United States had clearly provoked the war with Japan and expected Japan to act. Some of these accusations were later used to argue about convicting the accused. In addition, most of the living convicted criminals were released from prison by 1958, citizens of war torn countries argued that the release of Japanese war criminals were a sign of Japan's denial and non-repentance while the Japanese people often used the release to argue that those convicted were not war criminals.

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