Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, said today that the organizing committee had fired director Kobayashi just one day before the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
`We discovered that Mr. Kobayashi in his solo performance used a phrase that mocked a historical tragedy,` Hashimoto said.
Director of the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony Kentaro Kobayashi.
Tokyo has been entangled in many scandals since being awarded the right to host the Olympics in 2013. French investigators are looking into accusations that Tokyo bribed members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) during the voting process.
The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics is scheduled to take place on July 23.
`We will hold the opening ceremony tomorrow and certainly many people feel it is not easy that the Olympics are still going ahead,` Hashimoto said.
Kobayashi is a former member of the famous two-man comedy team with Rahmes.
`Any person, no matter how creative, has no right to mock victims of the Nazi genocide,` said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, vice principal and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights organization based in Germany.
Japan still promotes the Olympics despite the majority of domestic medical experts opposing it, partly due to pressure from the IOC.
The cost of organizing the Tokyo Olympics is 15.4 billion USD, but audits show that this number is actually higher.
`We have been preparing since last year to send a positive message,` Hashimoto said.
Toshiro Muto, executive director of the organizing committee, admitted that this international sporting event suffered a lot of damage to its image.
