Guilty verdict upheld for two Chinese trespassers at Yasukuni Shrine

File photo: The view of the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Japan, August 14, 2019. /Reuters

Japan's Supreme Court on Friday upheld the guilty verdict for two Chinese nationals charged for trespassing on the grounds of the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo in December 2018, Japanese media reported.

According to the Tokyo police, a 57-year-old male allegedly held a banner that read "Protest the Nanjing Massacre" and burned a replica of the headstone of war criminal Hideki Tojo. While a 28-year-old female was suspected of filming the scene.

The two were sentenced in 2019 to eight and six months in jail respectively by the Tokyo District Court; both got three years' probation for trespassing at Yasukuni Shrine in their first trial.

The Shinto shrine, seen by neighboring countries as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, has long been a source of diplomatic friction between Japan and its neighbors as it honors convicted war criminals together with the war dead.

Yasukuni Shrine: Controversy, history and peace