Four Japanese lawyers met Sunday with more than 20 people in Fushun City in northeast China to protest against the ruling of a Japanese court on the massacre committed by invading Japanese troops in 1932.

In response to the no-compensation-for-massacre ruling made Friday by a local court in Tokyo, Mo Desheng, 78, described the ruling as unfair and vowed to appeal to a higher Japanese court.

In the ruling, the Japanese court acknowledged the massacre, but turned down the demand for compensation on the grounds that there was no State compensation law in Japan when the massacre took place.

Izumisawa Akira, one of the four Japanese lawyers acting since 1996 on behalf of the survivors, said Sunday it was the first time a Japanese court acknowledged the massacre, which he described as a step forward. However, he said the court's no-compensation ruling is unfair and unjust.

On September 16, 1932, 3,000 people in Pingdingshan Village in rural Fushun City were herded together and shot by Japanese troops with machine guns. Mo, who was eight years then, survived.

Mo and two other survivors of the Massacre began suing the Japanese government in 1995 for a compensation 60 million Japanese yen US$ 500,000), but it was not until August 14, 1996, that the court began to accept the case.

The four Japanese lawyers said Sunday they and 300 Japanese lawyers would work together with the three survivors until justice was done.

They would appeal to a higher court and lobby Japanese members of parliament to pressure the Japanese government to legally acknowledge the massacre as soon as possible.

(Xinhua News Agency July 2, 2002)