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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 actual souls of the dead as ''kami'', or "spirits/souls" as loosely defined in the English words. This activity is strictly a religious matter due to the religious 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 International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) war criminals and the nationalist approach to the war museum, the Yasukuni Shrine and the Japanese Government have been criticized by China, South Korea, and Taiwan as being revisionist and unapologetic about the events 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").〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Yasukuni Shrine )〕 The war crimes tribunals were carried out by the IMTFE, which comprised the victors of World War II including Australia, Canada, the Republic of China, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The main problems arose from how the IMTFE used a method of information collection called "Best Evidence Rule" that allowed simple hearsay with no secondary support to be entered against the accused. The Indian Justice Radha Binod Pal found that due to the significant procedural flaws of the proceedings, that the court was an invalid form of victor's justice. As these problems with the tribunals left much to be argued about convicting the accused, and that the living convicted criminals were all released from prison by 1958 gave many Japanese people a reason to believe that they were not war criminals. Furthermore, Justice Pal's position was that he found all the defendants not guilty of Class A war crimes, even though he condemned the Japanese war-time conduct as "devilish and fiendish". While he fully acknowledged Japan's war atrocities – including the Nanjing massacre – he said they were covered in the Class B and Class C trials. No judge on the court disagreed as to the scale and horrifying nature of the atrocities of the war. A more recent source of controversy concerns visits to the shrine by Japanese Diet cabinet members in general and Prime Ministers in particular, which have been a cause of protest in Japan and abroad. China, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan have protested against various visits since 1985. Despite the controversy, the former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made annual personal (non-governmental) visits from 2001 to 2006. ==Release of documents== On March 29, 2007, a book of documents was released by Japan's National Diet Library called "A New Compilation of Materials on the Yasukuni Shrine Problems"〔http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070329a5.html〕 including declassified documents from the Occupational Government, the Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry and Yasukuni Shrine. The documents purportedly draw a connection between the Japanese Government and the war criminal enshrinement.〔http://www.korea.net/News/News/LangView.asp?serial_no=20070329019&lang_no=1&part=110&SearchDay=〕 According to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the government had no say in who is enshrined. In addition, Vice Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare Tsuji Tetsuo told reporters that the former ministry was "in charge of keeping the personal records of soldiers and civilian employees of the military, and with presenting records as the need arose."〔http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/0702qjapan_china.pdf〕 "A New Compilation of Materials on the Yasukuni Shrine Problems"〔http://lccn.loc.gov/2007553672〕 has been entered into the Library of Congress. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Controversies surrounding Yasukuni Shrine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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