Japanese shrine that honors war dead, convicted war criminals, vandalised

Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, including convicted World War II war criminals, was vandalized again overnight Monday.

It is deplorable that an act seeking to denigrate the shrine's dignity has happened again, the shrine said in a statement.

In May, a stone pillar at Yasukuni was spraypainted red. A Chinese suspect was arrested in July.

Neither the police nor the Shinto shrine would go into details of the latest vandalism, saying an investigation was ongoing.

Japanese media reports said graffiti reading toilet in Chinese, written with what appeared to be black markers, was found Monday morning on a stone pillar near the shrine's arch.

Asian nations that suffered from Japanese aggression before and during World War II see Yasukuni as a symbol of militarism.

Convicted Class A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, Japan's wartime prime minister, are among the 2.5 million Japanese war dead enshrined at Yasukuni. The shrine itself, a dramatic-looking building w