Berlin's comfort woman statue is expected to remain standing despite a local court's order to remove it, but a Korean civic group appeals.

On the 13th of this month, the local administrative court ordered the Korean civic group "Korea Council" to remove a statue of a girl symbolizing the suffering of comfort women that was installed on a public road in Berlin, Germany.
The Japanese government has repeatedly requested Germany to remove the statue. Following the court order to remove it, attention was focused on how the council would respond, but Kyodo News reported
According to the prefecture, the council has appealed to the administrative court. The dispute between the former Mitte district and the council over the statue has been ongoing since 2020, but five years have passed and no resolution has been reached. The council said:
The city has rejected a proposal from the ward to relocate the statue to private land. Regarding the statue of a girl symbolizing the comfort women issue, the Korean civic group "Memorial Society for Justice and Resolve the Issue of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery" which supports former comfort women,
Since the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Women and the Family (Korean Solidarity) established the statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul in December 2011, it has spread to countries around the world. According to a report compiled by the Korean National Assembly's Committee on Women and the Family in 2024, similar statues are expected to be erected in the future.
There are 154 statues in South Korea and 31 abroad, including in the United States, Canada, and Germany. The statue that Mitte is ordering to be removed was ordered to be removed by the Korean civic group "Korea Council" in September 2020.
Before the council installed this statue, there were already two other statues in Germany, but both were on private property. However, this statue, which has been ordered to be removed, is the first to be installed in a public place.
The statue's placement caused a stir. In October 2020, the Mitte district issued an order to remove the statue, but the council resisted. The district eventually withdrew the order and the statue was removed.
The council filed a provisional injunction seeking to halt the order, and in April of this year, the ruling was heard in administrative court.
The city government gave permission for the statue to remain in place until September 28th. The city government proposed to the council that it be relocated to private land, but the proposal was rejected. The city government has issued a new removal order, warning that if the request is not met by the 7th of this month, a fine will be imposed.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government has repeatedly requested Germany to remove the statue. The 2015 Japan-Korea agreement, which confirmed the "final and irreversible resolution" of the comfort women issue, drew criticism from the international community.
At the Japan-Germany summit held in April 2022, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he would refrain from making any public statements or criticizing the issue, and the installation of a statue symbolizing the comfort women issue in a third country would be incompatible with this position.
He asked then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany for cooperation in removing the statue. It was extremely unusual for a prime minister to make such a request himself. If Germany, a major European country, were to allow the statue to remain in place,
The reason behind this is believed to be the Japanese government's sense of crisis that a false history could take root in the international community. However, the statue is under the jurisdiction of the Mitte district, and the German government has no room to intervene.
Due to the limited number of participants, Scholz's reaction at the time was said to be weak. However, in May last year, when he met with then-Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, the mayor of Berlin said, "It is important to bring about change."
The council responded by saying that this was a move to remove the statues, and that they had "succumbed to pressure from the Japanese government."
Not only that, but they have also been installed in other countries, including the United States and Italy. The first one outside of Korea was installed in Glendale, California, in July 2013. According to a report by the Sankei Shimbun newspaper,
The movement to install these statues became active in the United States in the 2010s, and moved to Europe, including Germany, in the 2020s. Meanwhile, the council said that the statue in Mitte was a symbol of sexual violence.
"Our mission is to prevent the statue from being removed from its public location. The ward's proposal is merely a temporary measure, and we do not want it to be relocated," he said. On the 26th of last month, he filed a petition for a provisional injunction with the administrative court, demanding that the statue remain standing.
In the petition filed with the court, they asked for an injunction to suspend the obligation to remove the statue and for it to be allowed to remain upright after the deadline. They also filed an objection to the removal order against the ward.
On the 14th of this month, the Administrative Court dismissed the council's lawsuit, stating that "the civic group (council) has no right to use public land," and upheld the removal order.
The council also expressed the view that removal by legal means would be preferable, and there was speculation that they would take steps to remove the statue. However, the council appealed to the administrative court.
The matter will continue to be discussed at the Advanced Administrative Court, and the ward and the Japanese government have requested the statue be removed as soon as possible.
The situation remains difficult to achieve. Five years have already passed since the ward first issued the demolition order.