‘Japanese orgy’ trial opens in China

A TRIAL has opened in China against 14 people accused of organising a sex party for hundreds of Japanese tourists on a sensitive wartime anniversary.

Up to 900 people were said to have been involved in what is being called the “Japanese orgy”.

The incident in the southern city of Zhuhai in September caused an uproar in China and prompted an official Chinese complaint to the Japanese government.

All of the defendants in the Zhuhai Intermediate Court were Chinese and were charged with organising prostitution.

According to news reports, about 400 Japanese men and as many as 500 Chinese hostesses had sex at a Zhuhai hotel over a three-day period that ended on September 18.

That date was the anniversary of a Japanese attack on a city in China’s northeast in 1931 that many Chinese regard as the start of Japan’s Second World War invasion and occupation.

The defendants include two employees of the Zhuhai International Conference Centre Hotel and 12 organisers of prostitution known in Chinese as “mami” or “mothers”, the New Beijing Newspaper reported.

The timing of the event in Zhuhai prompted outrage as word spread over the Internet in China, where many feel that Japan has failed to atone for its wartime brutality. Yesterday, expressions of disgust were posted on message boards.

“Japanese people are detestable!” said one unsigned note left on the sina.com website. “But the Chinese who arranged the prostitution are worse! They are scum”.

“Why are only Chinese being tried and not Japanese?” said another unsigned note on the same site. “Didn’t the Japanese commit the crime of organising the prostitution?”

A notice from the court published in the Beijing Times newspaper said the proceedings were closed to the public because it involved matters of “personal privacy”.