Abe’s secrets law undermines Japan’s democracy

On December 2014. the Doraconian law called "special secrets law" became effective in Japan. (for details, please refer to the below JT article.)
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Last year, 43 independent journlists filed a lawsuit against the State, claiming "the law deprives of their freedom to investigate and report, therefore it violates the constitution." They demanded to make void the law and asked for compensation. However, Tokyo district court dismissed the case. Then, 37 journalists appealed to Tokyo High Court. Yesterday, the case was again dismissed. In Japan, the case for "violation of constitution" shall be proved by concrete incident and "visible" victim(s). So far, no journalist was arrested under this law. The plaintiff is willing to appeal to the Supreme Court.
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Meanwhile, about 500 civil activists (led by lawers and former judges)filed lawsuit to Tokyo district court, and 200 in Fukushima, alleging "new security bill violates the constitution" yesterday.
.http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201604270035.html
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Abe’s secrets law undermines Japan’s democracy
The Japan Times : 13 December 2014
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On Dec. 10, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new special secrets law took effect despite overwhelming public opposition. The new law gives bureaucrats enormous powers to withhold information produced in the course of their public duties that they deem a secret — entirely at their own discretion — and with no effective oversight mechanism to question or overturn such designations. The law also grants the government powers to imprison whistle-blowers, and prohibits disclosure of classified material even if its intention is to protect the public interest. This Draconian law also gives the government power to imprison journalists merely for soliciting information that is classified a secret.
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But if the designation is itself secret, how is a journalist to know if they are courting arrest? The constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press now confronts the discretionary powers of an unaccountable bureaucracy swathed in secrecy. In the course of doing their job, journalists could unwittingly solicit secret information and thereby be in violation of the new law and subject to imprisonment. The government maintains that the new law would never be applied in such a way, but the wording of the law remains vague enough that it could be.
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It is not terribly reassuring that journalists from media outlets that “properly serve the public interest” (presumably this excludes the Asahi Shimbun) are exempted from prosecution unless they “break the law or use especially unjust means.”Susumu Murakoshi, president of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, says the law should be abolished because it jeopardizes democracy and the people’s right to know.
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Meiji University legal scholar Lawrence Repeta agrees with Murakoshi.
“Establishing a balance between national security secrecy and the people’s right to know is a monumental task,” Repeta says, but suggests that such a balance is embodied in the Open Society’s “Tshwane Principles,” which provide for the protection of whistle-blowers who disclose information in the public interest.
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Abe understands that the public is against the secrecy legislation and tried to reassure us in an interview on TBS last month. “If there is a case where news reporting is suppressed, I will quit,” he said, adding that the law is “aimed at terrorists and spies. Citizens have nothing to do with it.” But the enforcement of law should not depend on good intentions and a politician’s promise. Laws outlast the former and the latter are repeatedly broken. The current legislation grants the government too much discretion to decide what is secret and hide inconvenient information from public scrutiny. This is a recipe for bad governance and abuse of power.
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Americans know this all too well. The Freedom of Information law in the United States did not become an effective tool for transparency until after President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal in the 1970s. More recently, Americans learned about a massive government data collection program regarding their phone calls, web searches and emails involving the secret cooperation of private sector service providers. We know this because of a whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, who exposed the sweeping extent of this illegal surveillance.
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Japan’s new secrecy legislation provides for imprisonment of up to 10 years for leaking or seeking classified information deemed damaging to Japan’s national security. Nixon also invoked the nebulous concept of national security to block publication of the Pentagon Papers, but the Supreme Court rejected this sophistry and the public discovered what the government didn’t want them to know about the calamitous Vietnam War.
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Japan’s media-muzzling initiative has drawn criticism from domestic civil-society groups and Reporters Without Borders because the people’s right to know and freedom of the press — essential pillars of a democratic society — are at risk. “The right to know has now officially been superseded by the right of the government to make sure you don’t know what they don’t want you to know,” wrote Jake Adelstein in The Japan Times last year.
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There are good reasons why 80 percent of the public opposes this bill. Would the investigations into the causes of the Fukushima nuclear accident and the collusive relations between coopted regulators and the utilities that compromised reactor safety have been made public under the new law? The reason why the public and media pressured the government to enact the national Information Disclosure Law in 2001 was because similar prefectural and local ordinances had exposed extensive malfeasance by bureaucrats and their squandering of vast sums on lavish wining and dining in the 1990s.
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The grass-roots spread of such ordinances was prompted by the experience of survivors’ families who wanted to find out about the 1985 Japan Airlines crash that claimed 520 lives. They did so by using the U.S. Freedom of Information Law to access crash investigation reports that they couldn’t get from their own government. People supporting greater transparency are also mindful of the government’s role in knowingly allowing the distribution of HIV-tainted blood products in the 1980s to support Japanese pharmaceutical firms at the expense of hemophiliacs.
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Bureaucrats are not so keen about disclosure. Back in 2002, the Defense Agency was caught illegally investigating and maintaining dossiers on 142 people requesting information. The press was tipped off about this surreptitious surveillance, again showing the value of whistle-blowers and the need to protect, rather than persecute, journalists helping the public exercise oversight.
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Responding to public criticism, the Abe government has established a toothless oversight mechanism. The “public document inspector” will be based in the Cabinet Office, raising questions about how independent the review process will be. Moreover, ministers can turn down requests by the inspector to declassify material and need not submit documents for inspection at their own discretion. This perfunctory oversight mechanism will ensure a cocoon of impunity that threatens Japanese democracy.
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So who gets to handle the state’s precious secrets? The Cabinet Secretariat has warned government offices that such sensitive tasks should not be assigned to staff that have studied or worked abroad or attended foreign schools in Japan. Huh? So after years of spouting off about the benefits of internationalization and encouraging young Japanese to study abroad, the government is now penalizing those who have done so? Apparently the state is suspicious that such people might pose a greater security risk.
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Based on this logic, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be a hotbed of spies and will be reduced to recruiting diplomats with no international experience whatsoever. With all these special secrets to protect, won’t Japan now need a special police unit to keep them safe and round up the globalized subversive elements lurking within the bureaucratic labyrinths?
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Satoko Norimatsu of the Peace Philosophy Centre worries about a climate of fear. “One of my blogger friends told me he was going to close his political blog because of the law coming into effect,” she says. “I told him that such self-censorship is exactly what the government wants.”Professor Repeta further warns that excessive secrecy leads to war.
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“The Japanese people should not forget that the same U.S. officials who pressured Japan to adopt a law that imposes heavy penalties on whistle-blowers and others who may seek to release secret information have also demanded that Japan revise Constitution Article 9,” he says. Abe’s re-election gives him more time to expand on the bitter legacy he is intent on bequeathing, one that many Japanese already rue.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/12/13/commentary/japan-commentary/abes-secrets-law-undermines-japans-democracy/#.Vx-sqLlwXIX

Japan’s Double Standard on Freedoms and Rule of Law

PM Shinzo Abe is maintaining a double standard on democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

The Diplomat : 20 April 2016

A number of domestic and international developments have revealed a glaring disconnect between the Japanese government’s preaching and its practice on the issue of universal values.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proudly declared a values-based diplomacy for Japan in both his first (2006-07) and second administrations (2012-), emphasizing universal values such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law. In January 2013, not long after the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) regained power, he outlined the basic principles on which his government’s diplomacy would be based. One of these fundamental principles was the concept of “universal values.” A month later, he publicly repeated this commitment to “diplomacy that places emphasis on universal values.”

As a diplomatic tool, rhetoric such as “democracy, human rights and the rule of law” justifies the Abe government’s continuing alignment with Japan’s long-standing democratic allies and with other semi-democracies in Asia that share his strong reservations about China’s unpeaceful rise. It also pointedly excludes China by definition from any putative coalition of democratically aligned states.
On the other hand, several recent actions and policies of the Abe administration, particularly in the domestic domain, suggest that the prime minister’s declarations of a commitment to universal values are primarily a diplomatic device for international consumption. They do not represent a guide to the government’s stance at home on a number of key issues. Quite the contrary, the prime minister’s record clearly shows that his government is taking Japan in an authoritarian direction that is unprecedented in the postwar era. What is more, these steps seriously question Abe’s commitment to universal values.

Among a series of deleterious developments, the Abe administration’s record in dealing with the media demonstrates that it is falling well short of observing first principles of democratic accountability. Amongst the most egregious examples of media-muzzling are attempts to silence media critics, including creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation amongst journalists and other commentators who dare to question the government’s and ruling party’s policies, personnel and actions. In addition to the administration’s explicit actions to control the message, the 2013 State Secrets Law compounds the threat to freedom of news reporting by hanging over journalists’ heads like the sword of Damocles.

In the education sector, the Abe government has censored school textbooks, ensuring that the latest versions for students follow the government’s uniform line on history and territorial issues. The bottom of this slippery slope will land Japanese students in the same position as those in China, for whom only official accounts of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre are available and who are taught that the Dalai Lama is a terrorist.

The Abe government has also heavied universities to rid themselves of humanities and social science departments, arguably, amongst other things, to discourage the training of students’ critical thinking skills, thus silencing another potential source of criticism of the government.

Yet another and possibly the most disturbing example is the proposed content of the LDP’s May 2012 draft revisions to the 1947 Constitution. In glaring contrast to the human rights Abe cites internationally as “universal,” the draft explicitly rejects this notion. It states that human rights derive from a country’s history, culture, and traditions, and are, therefore, qualified to the extent that they are influenced by these factors. Indeed, the maintenance of so-called “public order” is elevated over all individual rights, raising the question, “public order” as defined by whom? Presumably “the government of the day.” Instead of universal human rights, Japanese citizens will be given “duties and obligations” (unspecified) – no doubt, once again, to be defined by public authorities. At the same time, the prime minister has undermined the rule of law by claiming in the Diet to be the ultimate source of authority regarding interpretation of the Constitution, an act for which he will be judged by the electorate. In short, the meaning of the constitution is what the prime minister says it is, which would potentially remove the Japanese constitution’s safeguards against the rise of authoritarianism.

Last but not least is the Abe government’s flouting of the ruling of the highest court of the UN, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Japan’s whale hunt in the Southern Ocean. In March 2014, ICJ ruled that Japan’s Antarctic whale hunts were unscientific and ordered it to stop hunting. Only three months after this ruling, in June 2014, Prime Minister Abe told the Japanese parliament that he wanted to aim for the resumption of commercial whaling by conducting whaling research. He thus personally endorsed the resumption of commercial whaling, which Japan had been conducting on spurious scientific grounds under the politicized term “research whaling” (chōsa hogei) used ubiquitously by Japanese authorities and in the media.

Japan has since resumed lethal research whaling under the much publicized heading of NEWREP-A and stated that it will not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ on marine living resources, reflecting a clear double standard in its stance on the rule of law internationally. Nor does Japan recognize the Australian Antarctic Territory’s EEZ, or its Whale Sanctuary, or the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The reality is that Japanese whaling is neither scientific nor commercial. It is a government-subsidized and sponsored industry conducted for the benefit of the Japanese whaling industry-cum-lobby and is certainly not for the benefit of Japanese consumers. This lobby is headed by the semi-governmental Institute of Cetacean Research, charged with propagandizing the virtues of whaling and an affiliated organ (gaikaku dantai) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). Apart from providing plum positions for retired bureaucrats, many such groups play key roles in the ancillary apparatus of government intervention by undertaking regulatory and/or allocatory functions as well as participating directly in markets.

Whaling is defended against international attack on spurious cultural grounds, traditionally the last defense of the protectionists. The Japanese government tried the same defense of its rice industry at the Uruguay Round of the GATT, proselytizing the notion of rice as quintessentially a cultural good in Japan. Here it was considerably more successful, extracting a concession that allowed rice to be spared from tariffication under the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA).

http://thediplomat.com/2016/04/japans-double-standard-on-freedoms-and-rule-of-law/

U.N. rights expert sees threats to Japanese press independence

AJW by Asahi Shimbun : 19 April 2016



A U.N. rights expert warned Tuesday of "serious threats" to the independence of the press in Japan, including laws meant to protect coverage fairness and national security that he said could work as censorship. U.N. Special Rapporteur David Kaye, finishing a weeklong visit to Japan in which he interviewed journalists and government officials, said many Japanese journalists were feeling pressured to avoid sensitive topics, and that some told of being sidelined because of complaints from politicians.
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"The independence of the press is facing serious threats--a weak system of legal protection, persistent government exploitation of a media lacking in professional solidarity," Kaye told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo. He said he was taken aback by a widespread fear among journalists in Japan, many of whom requested anonymity to talk to him, fearing repercussions.
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The picture of Japanese journalism he painted was unflattering, including newspapers delaying or killing stories critical of the government. He also said a reporter was demoted and given a salary cut after writing an article on the nuclear plant in Fukushima, which went into meltdowns in 2011.
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Among Kaye's concerns is a law meant to ensure media-coverage fairness that allows the government to revoke broadcasting licenses over perceived violations. He also said the so-called "secrets act" law, meant to protect national security and public safety, is so broad it could obstruct people's right to know. Japan's government has repeatedly said freedom of the press is protected in the country, and sees nothing wrong with the law about the broadcasting license. That penalty has never been carried out on a broadcaster, but Kaye noted such measures can work as a threat to keep outspoken journalists in check. He said he decided to visit Japan after hearing about well-known broadcasters quitting, fueling speculation that they had been forced out.
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Kaye, whose report Tuesday was preliminary, is making a full report next year to the U.N. Human Rights Council. He said his job is not to take action but to identify problems, and urged reporters and activists in Japan to work together to change the climate for journalists. Japan needs to pass anti-discrimination laws, instead of focusing on hate speech, which could backfire and curb the freedom of expression, he said. It also needs to protect whistle-blowers, crucial for providing reporters with information about nuclear power, disaster response, national security and other topics of public interest, Kaye said.
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http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201604190063.html

RSF concerned about declining media freedom in Japan

Reporters without Border : 11 April 2016

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has evaluated the current state of media freedom and freedom of information in Japan ahead of this week’s visit by David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression.

RSF draws Kaye’s attention to the decline in media freedom in Japan since Shinzo Abe became prime minister again in December 2012. The Abe administration’s threats to media independence, the turnover in media personnel in recent months and the increase in self-censorship within leading media outlets are endangering the underpinnings of democracy in Japan.

The latest disturbing sign of government pressure on the media is public TV broadcaster NHK’s dismissal of current affairs presenter Hiroko Kuniya, which has caused widespread dismay among journalists. She hosted “Close Up Gendai,” one of the few NHK programmes to contain investigative reporting and analysis. Her interview of chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga in July 2014 has been cited as one of the reasons for her contract’s termination last month.

Other journalists have been the subjects of presumably forced departures. They include Shigetada Kishii, a Mainichi News journalist and anchor of the “News 23” programme on the TBS channel, who criticized the proposed security legislation at the end of last year, and Ichiro Furutachi, a well-known government critic who presented TV Asahi’s “Hodo Station” programme.

“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government seems to be taking less and less account of media freedom and the public’s right to information,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.

“The special rapporteur must raise the issue of government meddling in the editorial policies of Japan’s public broadcasting service. We also urge him to examine the legislative framework governing the media, the law on state secrets and the constitution, whose revision could pose an additional threat to media freedom.”

The government has not hidden its hostility towards critical coverage. Addressing parliament on 8 February, communication minister Sanae Takaichi threatened to shut down broadcasters that continue to air “biased political reports.”

Questioned by journalists the next day, Takaichi reiterated her threat, citing article 4 of the TV broadcasting law, which prohibits distorting the facts, and article 76 of the law on radio broadcasting, which allows the communications minister to issue closure orders without reference to a judge.

Conservative businessman Katsuo Momii’s appointment as NHK’s president in 2014 was seen as a government attempt to control news coverage. Momii caused a controversy when he said NHK should not “deviate from the government’s position in its programming.” He also supported adoption of the law on the protection of state secrets.

In June 2015, members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party urged the government to punish critical media outlets by pressuring advertisers to withdraw business from them.
Finally, inclusion of the concept of “harming the public interest and public order” in a proposed constitutional amendment could provide a mechanism for curbing free speech and media freedom. Introduced with any further details, this notion could be exploited by officials to arbitrarily brand media reports and opinions as threats to the nation.

The special rapporteur was originally supposed to have visited Japan in December 2015 but the government asked him to postpone the visit. Many observers suggested that this was because the government wanted to avoid any discussion of the law on the “Protection of Specially Designated Secrets.”

This law provides for sentences of up to 10 years in prison for whistleblowers who leak “state secrets” and for journalists and bloggers who report information they obtained “illegally” or sought from whistleblowers.

Japan is ranked 61st out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

https://rsf.org/en/news/rsf-concerned-about-declining-media-freedom-japan

LDP keeping close watch on foreign media reports on Japan

AJW by Asahi Shimbun :  11 April 2016

Sensitive to media coverage of its policies, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is monitoring foreign reporting on Japan and rebuking some journalists in a section on its online site.
The move comes despite frequent criticism over remarks by ruling party politicians about keeping the media in line. LDP Upper House member Ichita Yamamoto, who serves as Internet strategy adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his capacity as LDP president, defended his actions as the section's emcee. "It is normal to respond in a civil manner to those individuals who say incorrect things about Japan, and it by no means represents pressure," Yamamoto told The Asahi Shimbun. "There are no journalists who will stop writing because they feel cowed."

However, others, such as Martin Fackler, the former Tokyo bureau chief for The New York Times, have a different view. "While debate is important, a stance that considers opinions different from one's own as wrong is not an appropriate way to conduct debate," he said.

Yamamoto's section on the LDP site responds through social networking services such as Twitter to foreign reporting on Japan. It began on Feb. 17. Yamamoto not only takes up responses sent in by foreign journalists, but he has also reported on what he has written through his personal SNS accounts to the Twitter and Facebook accounts of foreign journalists. He has, so far, written about 18 articles that have appeared in Western newspapers and magazines. He touched upon, for example, an Internet article published by The Wall Street Journal, dated Feb. 10, which was titled "How Japan's 'Abenomics' Reached an Impasse."

Yamamoto directed remarks to the writer saying he disagreed with the article because it was still too early to make an appraisal about the Abenomics package of economic measures. According to Yamamoto, about 30 foreign journalists who have a large number of followers on their SNS accounts were selected, and their articles written in English, German and French are being monitored. If any writer responds to the comments sent by Yamamoto, those remarks are taken up on Yamamoto's Internet program. Yamamoto said he also informs Abe about such remarks.

The LDP has also asked TV networks based in Tokyo to conduct fair reporting of elections. One LDP lawmaker said at a party study session that the mass media "had to be taught a lesson."
Communications minister Sanae Takaichi, a close ally of Abe, stirred up a hornet's nest recently when she threatened to shut down broadcasters over "biased" political programming.
Yasuhiko Tajima, professor of media law at Sophia University, is a critic of the pressure being applied on the media.

"Politicians and others in authority should hold the position of accepting why counter-arguments emerge. It is putting the cart before the horse for those in authority to keep an eye on the media that must keep an eye on those in authority." Meanwhile, Iwao Osaka, a lecturer on political communications at Komazawa University, referred to the Japanese system of "kisha" press clubs in which member reporters from media outlets cover certain beats attached to government agencies and political parties.

"Debate in the open is not necessarily a bad thing, and I do not think those in foreign media organizations that are not part of the kisha clubs in Japan will feel any sort of pressure," Osaka said.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201604110035.html

Textbook says Okinawa reliant on U.S. bases, uproar ensues

AJW by Asahi Shimbun : 23 March 2016

Okinawa prefectural officials expressed outrage over a government-approved high school social studies textbook that suggested the Okinawa economy is excessively dependent on U.S. military bases.

“The contents differ from the views held by the prefectural and central governments,” a high-ranking Okinawa government official said. “Rather than a misunderstanding of the facts, it approaches the level of a vicious rumor. We have to wonder if the education ministry conducted a thorough screening.”

Teikoku-Shoin Co., publisher of the textbook, is considering filing a request to revise the questionable contents. The textbook is scheduled to be used in courses about modern society taught at high school from the 2017 school year.

A boxed column titled “Okinawa and U.S. military bases,” which takes up about two-thirds of a page in the textbook, explains the current situation of Okinawa and the large concentration of U.S. military bases in the southernmost prefecture. It also touches upon the plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, now in Ginowan, in central Okinawa Prefecture, to Nago, also in the prefecture.
The column mentions payments of rent for use of base land and consumer spending by those with the U.S. military.

“The level of dependence of the prefectural economy on the bases is extremely high,” it says. “The Japanese government is also paying Okinawa Prefecture a huge amount in economic promotion funds as a virtual exchange for allowing the bases to continue to remain there.”

The current social studies textbook published by the company has no such passages. The new textbook was approved by the education ministry’s screening committee on March 18 with no recommendation for revisions.

“We wanted to include various opinions related to the bases, but we have to apologize for inaccurate descriptions that could lead to misunderstanding,” an official with Teikoku-Shoin said. “We plan to revise what can be revised after consulting with the education ministry.”

According to Okinawa prefectural government officials, when Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972, U.S. military-related revenues accounted for about 15 percent of gross prefectural income.
However, that ratio has fallen to about 5 percent in recent years. In fiscal 2012, the amount was about 216 billion yen ($1.9 billion), about half the revenues from the tourism industry.

“There are many aspects of (Okinawa’s current situation) that are still not adequately understood,” Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga told reporters. “We must continue to state our case.”
The Abe administration has clearly stated that it has no intention of linking economic promotion expenditures with the U.S. military bases.
(This article was written by Go Katono and Koshin Shisui.)

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201603230031

Into the Valley of the Trolls

Is growing online harassment just part of the job or should it be confronted? And when does it cross the line?

Number 1 Shimbun by FCCJ : 27 December 2015

The targets of on-line harassment by Trolls are not limited to the foreign correspondents in Japan. The prominent civil activists who lead the demonstration on streets and appear on media are also attacked. Online harassment against young ladies activists are especially nasty and violent. 

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For most correspondents, it has become an unpleasant morning ritual: opening the laptop and wading through abusive tweets and mail. One of my recent articles, on Japan’s plunging press-freedom rankings provoked this response: “You’re anti-Japanese scum. Japan grows weaker because left-wing traitors here mix with the likes of you. Get out, moron.”

That’s mild compared to the slurs that percolate on the Twitter feeds of star reporters. Hiroko Tabuchi, former Tokyo correspondent for the New York Times, recalls a stream of invective laced with sexual and ethnic smears (see sidebar).Justin McCurry, Tokyo correspondent for the Guardian has been branded an “ultra-leftist North Korean spy” and repeatedly invited to “Fack off.”

Many reporters trudge the path taken by McCurry, from engagement to frustration, and resignation. “I have tried several different ways to deal with trolls, from snapping back to taking the time to dream up what, in my mind at least, is a rejoinder so withering that it will surely be the final word on the matter. It never is, of course.” Increasingly, he says, he reaches for the Twitter mute button: When trolls send an abusive message now “they are simply pissing into cyberspace.”

But McCurry says it’s important to understand the difference between legitimate criticism and trolling. “I’ve had my share of critical emails, tweets and Facebook postings,” he says. “When the point is made in a temperate manner and, more importantly, with a real name attached, I take in what has been said and, if necessary, respond. But I regard this as reader feedback, not trolling.”

Cyber abuse is a serious issue, notes a recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review. “There’s far from any kind of consensus on how to deal with it and what journalists’ roles are,” says author Lene Bech Sillesen. Law enforcement struggles to deal with the proliferation of anonymous online harassment. Platform providers often “suck” at dealing with trolls, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo memorably admitted this year.

Increasingly, the consensus seems to be shifting toward confrontation. The Review cites a growing genre of stories about unmasking trolls. In the Swedish TV show Troll Hunters, journalist Robert Aschberg tracks down and confronts offenders on camera. “It’s a huge problem,” says Aschberg, “and it’s no different from exposing, let’s say, corrupt politicians, or thieves.”

THE RISE OF THE troll, and the shifting terrain it represents in our networked society, is a particular dilemma for journalists. For decades, virtually the only rejoinder available to print readers was the carefully moderated letters page, but the internet has opened up multiple channels of feedback. Many bloggers view journalists as fair game because they are public figures.

Inevitably, the result is a steady river of bile, but most journalists are understandably wary of trying to block it. As Martin Fackler, a former Tokyo bureau chief of the New York Times notes: “You’re walking a fine line. Journalists dish out criticism, and need to take it with the same grace. Otherwise, we look hypocritical. And we need to support freedom of speech, even for our critics.”

In practice, most journalists follow Fackler in not feeding the trolls, and many don’t even block them to avoid the providing the veneer of cyber-street cred. Fackler, who says he has yet to block any troll accounts, advocates only shutting down those that cross boundaries of decency. “Short of that, I think everyone deserves the same freedom of speech that we demand in our own work.”

Where, however, do these boundaries lie? Perhaps the only line everyone agrees on is the one dividing incivility from threats of violence. 
 
The debate is about to get a legal airing in North America in a case that involves reporting on Japan’s nuclear accident. As most correspondents are only too aware, Fukushima has triggered terabytes of outraged online commentary by anti-nuclear activists alleging a cover-up by the establishment media. Some have attacked journalists and experts, and at least one, Dana Durnford, has threatened the lives of two scientists: Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and Jay Cullen of the University of Victoria (British Columbia).

Durnford used Facebook, YouTube and other social media to reach a large audience with a disturbing – and deluded - message: much of the Pacific Ocean is dying from the impact of Fukushima’s payload. Scientists who disagreed were “mass murderers.” In one of about 300 YouTube messages he declares: “Every university, every academic, every nuclear scientist will be hunted down and fucking murdered. We want you dead.” Ironically, Buesseler agrees that governments and journalists have done a poor job of documenting the impact of radiation. But there came a point where he felt enough was enough.

“I can put up with being called a liar,” he says. “Lots of people don’t agree on radiation. But when you get these threats to thousands of followers, it became a bit cult-like. We counted four death threats.” Buesseler and Cullen called in the authorities and Durnford has been charged with two counts of criminal harassment. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, he claims he is being silenced and has appealed to his followers for money to pay legal costs.

Buesseler insists that the abuse had to be confronted. Durnford has been forced to expunge his videos and commentary from the Net. “In the short term it has brought more attention to him and has taken a lot of time and energy to deal with – but it has slowed him down,” he says. “I can see the reluctance to tackling it head-on but these people need to be told that there are rules against threatening people for doing science.”

SUCH EXTREME EXAMPLES ARE rare. For most correspondents, the problem is limited to irritating but mostly harmless nitpicking. Still, popular Twitter accounts (one attacking the FCCJ and specific journalists recently boasted 18,000 followers) can creep up Google searches, leaving freelancers more vulnerable. As Michael Penn of Shingetsu News Agency says: “Anyone searching my name on Google in either English or in Japanese is going to find this garbage among the top results.”

Female journalists are particularly vulnerable, says the NYT’s Tabuchi. “Trolls elicit eye-rolling from our male colleagues and advice to ‘just ignore them,’ rather than any acknowledgement that this is a critically serious and deep-rooted problem that’s threatening to silence prominent female voices online.” Michelle Ferrier, an African-American journalist, felt strongly enough about her harassment to create Trollbusters, a platform that allows women suffering from online harassment “to type in the URL of an offensive message in order to locate the troll,” according to the International Journalists’ Network.

Still, says Ferrier, the best advice for journalists being insulted – but not threatened – is to often simply step away from the computer. Trolls are simply not worth bothering about. ❶

FIGHT OR FLIGHT: Correspondents weigh in

Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times correspondent formerly based in Tokyo: “I talked to several journalists I respected for advice on the harassment I was receiving, and was basically advised to ignore, grin and bear it. I think the (let’s be honest, basically still white male-dominated) world of foreign media in Japan has very little understanding of how sick, personal, and sexual online attacks on women can be – in a way they usually aren’t for men. Being a local journalist also means there is little escape. I was personally very disillusioned by the lack of any collective rage or even public support among the foreign journalist community for female journalists (not just me) who were publicly harassed online.”

Julian Ryall, the Telegraph: “I’m firmly in the ‘ignore them and hope to hell they go away’ faction. I just have too much to do to start a conversation with someone who, firstly, almost certainly has plenty of time on their hands – they’re unemployed (for good reason), they’re students of the issue I’ve written about and want to nit-pick over a 300-word article that I’ve written, or they’re some sad foreigner who has lived in the middle of nowhere in Japan for 20 years and assume that gives them the right to pontificate about all things Japanese and to tell everyone how much more intelligent they are than anyone else. The desk in London tells us to basically ignore the comments section on the bottom of stories. I get the impression they’re there to generate traffic and keep people coming back.”

Michael Penn, Shingetsu News Agency: “I agree that smaller trolls should be ignored. However, certain trolls have gained large followings and can wield an uncomfortable degree of public influence. When confronted by one of these more formidable trolls, simply remaining silent can eventually become a counterproductive strategy. It is a regrettable fact that a certain percentage of people tend to view dignified silence in the face of public accusations as some kind of an admission of guilt. If you are holding a position in which public perceptions about you can have a significant effect on your career or status, you simply have to defend yourself publicly in these cases, though different opponents may call for varied strategies to counter them.”

Teddy Jimbo, Videonews.com: “I’ve been in this business for a long time so the abuse doesn’t bother me any more, unless there are physical threats to me, my family or staffers. It’s just toilet graffiti and people give it too much attention because they don’t know how to deal with it. Shutting down abusers works in one way, however: instead of sitting back and just bearing the attacks, you do something and feel better. It makes it easier to cope.”

Tim Hornyak: “Because of the endless torrent of stupidity and abuse online, comments on news sites are on the way out. They’ve been eliminated at sites like Popular Science, Reuters, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Beast, CNN and others. More and more people are recognizing that there’s little value in allowing anonymous users on websites and social media. I expect the online landscape will move toward more of a Facebook-style basis of real names for dialogue as it matures.”

 
David McNeill writes for the Independent, the Economist and other publications. He has been based in Tokyo since 2000.

http://www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun/item/724-into-the-valley-of-the-trolls.html

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Squelching bad news in Japan

Washington Post : 5 March 2016

SO FAR, not so good for Abenomics, the ambitious program for reviving Japan’s stagnant economy introduced by Shinzo Abe upon his election as prime minister three years ago. Mr. Abe promised to fire “three arrows”: fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms. He has delivered most dramatically in the monetary area, where the Bank of Japan has tried radical anti-deflation measures, including, most recently, negative interest rates on commercial bank deposits at the central bank. Yet in view of the underwhelming results — including another three months of negative growth at the end of 2015 — Japanese are worried and the prime minister’s approval ratings are falling. Meanwhile, China and North Korea agitate militarily nearby.

Surrounded by bad news, many leaders resort to blaming the bearers of it; alas, Mr. Abe may be no exception. In fact, formal and informal pressure on Japan’s media, by the government and its allies, has been a sore point almost since Mr. Abe took office. To many, his disposition to rein in critical coverage was behind the rise of a loyalist to run NHK, Japan’s publicly supported television network, in January 2014. The new boss promptly gave a press conference observing that the World War II-era Japanese army’s forcing of women into its sexual service “could be found in any nation that was at war.” Since then, officials of both NHK and a rival, Asahi, have been dressed down by a commission of Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, and a member of Mr. Abe’s parliamentary bloc has threatened two Okinawan papers’ advertising revenue. Mr. Abe apologized for that.

Recent weeks have seen the resignation of three television journalists, all known to be out of favor with the government, in circumstances suggestive of pressure from Mr. Abe’s friends in network management. The resignations coincided with a flap over comments Feb. 8 by Japan’s minister of internal affairs, to the effect that broadcasters who fail to show “fairness” in political coverage could lose their licenses, under previously little-used laws requiring neutrality in the news. The Japan Federation of Commercial Broadcast Workers condemned that as “intimidation.” Japan’s media remain powerful and robust, yet in 2015, Japan fell to 61st place among 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ global press freedom rankings, down from 11th in 2010.

Mr. Abe’s upset with the media seems to revolve mainly around their coverage — tepid by U.S. standards — of his national security policy, such as his plans to permit Japan’s military more latitude abroad. Japan does face challenges both economically and in the security realm. Mr. Abe is trying to modernize his nation to meet them, an inevitably controversial project. Nevertheless, the proudest of Japan’s post-World War II achievements was not its economic “miracle” but the establishment of free institutions, including independent media. None of Mr. Abe’s goals for Japan, however worthy, can, or should, be pursued at their expense.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/squelching-bad-news-in-japan/2016/03/05/497b7be8-da60-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html

 

Japanese TV anchors lose their jobs amid claims of political pressure

Supporters of the three news broadcasters say prime minister had private dinners with top media executives before the departures
The Guardian : 17 February 2016

Many British politicians would doubtless rejoice at the news that Andrew Marr, Emily Maitlis and Andrew Neil were to leave their jobs almost simultaneously.

That is the fate that has befallen what could loosely be described as their counterparts in Japan – Ichiro Furutachi, Hiroko Kuniya and Shigetada Kishii – three respected broadcasters with a reputation for asking tough questions.

Their imminent departure from evening news programmes is not just a loss to their profession; critics say they were forced out as part of a crackdown on media dissent by an increasingly intolerant prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his supporters.

Only last week, the internal affairs minister, Sanae Takaichi, sent a clear message to media organisations. Broadcasters that repeatedly failed to show “fairness” in their political coverage, despite official warnings, could be taken off the air, she told MPs.

Under broadcast laws, the internal affairs minister has the power to suspend broadcasting that does not maintain political neutrality.

“This is nothing but intimidation against broadcasters,” the Japan Federation of Commercial Broadcast Workers’ Union said in a statement. “[Takaichi’s] remarks represent a glaring misinterpretation of the law and we demand that she promptly retract her remarks.”

What passes for a probing interview in Japan would be unlikely to set political pulses racing in Britain. But the three Japanese anchors have all courted controversy for refusing to follow the anodyne approach many of their colleagues take towards political coverage.

As the host of Hodo Station, a popular evening news programme on TV Asahi, Ichiro Furutachi was at the centre of a row last spring over claims by one of the show’s regular pundits, Shigeaki Koga, that he had been forced to quit under pressure from government officials angered by his criticism of the Abe administration.

Shigetada Kishii, who appears on News 23 on the TBS network, angered government supporters last year after criticising security legislation pushed through parliament by Abe’s Liberal Democratic party (LDP).

Perhaps most striking of all is the departure of Kuniya, the veteran presenter of Close-up Gendai, a current affairs programme on public broadcaster NHK.

Her “crime” had been to irritate Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary and a close Abe ally, with an unscripted follow-up question during a discussion about the security legislation.

While the anchors themselves have refused to comment, experts say Abe and his allies had made their feelings known about the broadcasters during secretive dinners with top media executives.
“It was not their decision to leave,” said Sanae Fujita of the Human Rights Centre at Essex University. “But their bosses gave in to pressure from their senior colleagues, who are ‘friends’ with Abe.

“It is very worrying that the Japanese media are practising self-censorship in this way. They do not seem to be aware of their role as a watchdog.”

Koichi Nakano, a politics professor at Sophia University, said it was impossible to prove a direct link between the government and the termination of the anchors’ contracts.

“But there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that shows that Abe, and Suga in particular, have been very active in applying pressure and wining and dining media bosses,” Nakano said.

Critics cite the LDP’s decision last April to summon TV Asahi and NHK before a commission, where party officials accused the former of failing to be impartial in its political coverage – a reprimand Tatsuro Hanada, a professor of media studies at Waseda University in Tokyo, calls “de facto intimidation”.

Hanada said it was “no accident” that the trio of broadcasters had been targeted, since they all believed in the role of journalism as a guardian of the public interest against the abuse of power. “It was obvious that all three were unwilling to leave their jobs voluntarily,” he added.
It is not the first time that Abe has been embroiled in controversy over broadcasters’ editorial independence. In 2005, he admitted he had urged NHK staff to alter the contents of a documentary about wartime sex slaves.

When he called a snap election in late 2014, the LDP wrote to TV networks in Tokyo demanding that they “ensure fairness, neutrality and correctness” in their coverage.

Abe has also been accused of attempting to influence editorial decisions at NHK by hand-picking Katsuto Momii, a fellow conservative, as chairman.

Momii caused consternation after his appointment when he suggested that NHK would toe the government line on key diplomatic issues, including Japan’s territorial dispute with China. “International broadcasting is different from domestic,” he said. “It would not do for us to say ‘left’ when the government is saying ‘right’.”

Attempts to intimidate the media as well as the passage of a state secrets law in 2013 under which reporters can be imprisoned for up to five years have battered Japan’s international reputation.
Last year it came 61st out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ global press freedom rankings. That compares with 12th place in 2010.

Fears that Japan’s government is resisting international scrutiny arose last December when it abruptly cancelled a visit by David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression, saying it had been unable to arrange meetings with officials. Kaye is now scheduled to visit Japan in April.

“The ongoing attack on media freedom in Japan by the government and its rightwing associates is not about being on the right or the left — it is about destroying the foundations of a liberal democracy,” Nakano said.

“I find it very disappointing that the press is incapable of presenting a united front. It is as if the media are accepting the government’s position that anything critical of the government is politically biased, and that reporting factually about government policies is commendable, neutral journalism.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/17/japanese-tv-anchors-lose-their-jobs-amid-claims-of-political-pressure

 

Anchors away - Media freedom in Japan

Criticism of government is being airbrushed out of news shows
The Economist : 20 February 2016

FOR a decade, millions of Japanese have tuned in to watch Ichiro Furutachi, the salty presenter of a popular evening news show, TV Asahi’s “Hodo Station”. But next month Mr Furutachi will be gone. He is one of three heavyweight presenters leaving prime-time shows on relatively liberal channels. It is no coincidence that all are, by Japanese standards, robust critics of the government.

Last year another anchor, Shigetada Kishii, used his news slot on TBS, a rival channel, to question the legality of bills passed to expand the nation’s military role overseas. The questioning was nothing less than what most constitutional scholars were also doing—and in private senior officials themselves acknowledge the unconstitutionality of the legislation, even as they justify it on the ground that Japan is in a risky neighbourhood and needs better security. But Mr Kishii’s on-air fulminations prompted a group of conservatives to take out newspaper advertisements accusing him of violating broadcasters’ mandated impartiality. TBS now says he will quit. The company denies this has anything to do with the adverts, but few believe that.

The third case is at NHK, the country’s giant public-service broadcaster. It has yanked one of its more popular anchors off the air. Hiroko Kuniya has helmed an investigative programme, “Close-up Gendai”, for two decades. NHK has not said why she is leaving, but colleagues blame her departure on an interview last year with Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top spokesman and closest adviser to Shinzo Abe, the prime minister.

Mr Suga is known for running a tight ship and for demanding advance notice of questions from journalists. In the interview Ms Kuniya had the temerity to probe him on the possibility that the new security legislation might embroil Japan in other countries’ wars. By the standards of spittle-flecked clashes with politicians on British or American television, the encounter was tame. But Japanese television journalists rarely play hardball with politicians. Mr Suga’s handlers were incensed.

It all shows how little tolerance the government has for criticism, says Makoto Sataka, a commentator and colleague of Mr Kishii’s. He points out that one of Mr Abe’s first moves after he returned to power in 2012 was to appoint conservative allies to NHK’s board. Katsuto Momii, the broadcaster’s new president, wasted little time in asserting that NHK’s role was to reflect government policy. What is unprecedented today, says Shigeaki Koga, a former bureaucrat turned talking head, is the growing public intimidation of journalists. On February 9th the communications minister, Sanae Takaichi, threatened to close television stations that flouted rules on political impartiality. Ms Takaichi was responding to a question about the departure of the three anchors.

Political pressure on the press is not new. The mainstream media (the five main newspapers are affiliated with the principal private television stations) are rarely analytical or adversarial, being temperamentally and commercially inclined to reflect the establishment view. Indeed the chumminess is extreme. In January Mr Abe again dined with the country’s top media executives at the offices of the Yomiuri Shimbun, the world’s biggest-circulation newspaper. Nine years ago, when Mr Abe resigned from his first term as prime minister, the paper’s kingpin, Tsuneo Watanabe, brokered the appointment of his successor, Yasuo Fukuda. Mr Watanabe then attempted to forge a coalition between ruling party and opposition. Oh, but his paper forgot to alert readers to all these goings-on. The media today, says Michael Cucek of Temple University in Tokyo, has “no concept of conflict of interest.”

It has all contributed to an alarming slide since 2011 in Japan’s standing in world rankings of media freedom. Mr Koga expects a further fall this year. He ran afoul of the government during his stint as a caustic anti-Abe commentator on “Hodo Station”. On air last year he claimed that his contract was being terminated because of pressure from the prime minister’s office. His aim, Mr Koga insists, was to rally the media against government interference. Yet TV Asahi apologised and promised tighter controls over guests. Now Mr Furutachi is quitting too. The government is playing chicken with the media, Mr Furutachi says, and winning.

From the print edition: Asia

TV journalists slam minister’s threat against ‘biased’ programming, fear media self-censorship

The Japan Times : 2 March 2016

Journalists and academics have joined forces to openly criticize recent remarks by communications minister Sanae Takaichi that the government might suspend broadcasters’ operations if they air programs it considers politically biased.

Takaichi’s Feb. 8 remarks on the Broadcast Law, which includes a call for political neutrality, have since sparked a widespread outcry that they are tantamount to the repression of free speech and run afoul of the nation’s democratic principles.

On Wednesday, a group of scholars unveiled a statement protesting the remarks, calling them emblematic of what they say is the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe-led government’s “blatant” willingness to abuse power.

“Unlike its predecessors, the current administration doesn’t hesitate at all to openly pressure the media,” Osamu Nishitani, a professor of philosophy at Rikkyo University, told a Tokyo news conference organized by a group of academics called “Save Constitutional Democracy Japan.”
Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party reportedly urged Tokyo-based TV networks to keep their programs politically neutral ahead of the 2014 Lower House election.

A series of impending resignations involving newscasters known for their candid critiques of the powers that be — such as Hiroko Kuniya from NHK and Ichiro Furutachi from TV Asahi — are also a sinister indication that the government may be stepping up a crackdown on the media, Nishitani said.

Takaichi’s remarks, then, shouldn’t be considered a mere gaffe, but rather an encapsulation of the Abe administration’s overall attitude toward the media, Nishitani said.

What is peculiar to Japan, the scholars further pointed out in the letter, is that the government not only draws up a broadcasting law but has the authority to implement it against broadcasters. This, they said, puts Japan in stark contrast with the United States and many European nations, where an agency independent of government influence has the ultimate power to effect such laws.
Brushing aside the widespread outcry over her remarks, Takaichi, for her part, stands by her affirmation that the government can suspend operations of politically biased broadcasters in accordance with existing laws.

Although she initially denied she would resort to such a measure during her tenure, the minister appeared to ratchet up her rhetoric a notch Tuesday.

Asked whether she would order suspensions of broadcasters’ operations deemed to be politically unfair, Takaichi said: “Japan is a country governed by law. So I believe it’s the duty of the Cabinet to faithfully execute a law if need be.”

She was responding to a question from Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Junya Ogawa.
On Monday, meanwhile, prominent newscasters including Soichiro Tahara, Shuntaro Torigoe and Shigetada Kishii held a news conference in Tokyo in which they vehemently criticized the minister’s comments.

One of them, veteran TBS anchor Shigenori Kanehira told The Japan Times on Wednesday that he is worried about negative impacts stemming from the Abe government’s pressure on media.
“Some of us may succumb to government pressure and decide to censor ourselves. That’s the nature of the crisis we’re up against,” Kanehira said.

Staff Writer Ayako Mie contributed to this report

Journalists’ group in statement urges internal affairs minister to step down for her remarks
Japan Press Weekly: 13 February 2016

The Japan Congress of Journalists (JCJ) on February 12 released a statement in protest against Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Takaichi Sanae’s remarks that suggested a possible order for broadcasters to stop airing programs, and demanded her resignation.

The minister in meetings of the House of Representatives Budget Committee on February 8 and 9 mentioned the possibility that broadcasters will be ordered to suspend their transmission on radio waves if they are judged that they repeatedly air programs lacking political neutrality.

In the statement, the JCJ insisted that the core of Takaichi’s remarks is that she argues that government authorities can screen broadcasting programs in terms of what they say and cover, and can issue penalties depending on their findings. Criticizing Takaichi for attacking the constitutional right to free speech and expression, the JCJ said that she has no qualification to act as the minister having control over broadcasting.

Citing the fact that Takaichi had a photo session with the leader of a Japanese neo-Nazi organization, the JCJ expressed their alarm following her remarks.

http://www.japan-press.co.jp/modules/news/index.php?id=9252






 

Communications minister draws outrage over ‘threat’ to broadcasters

Communications minister draws outrage over ‘threat’ to broadcasters
The Asahi Shinbun: 9 February 2016

Amid complaints that she’s threatening freedom of speech, communications minister Sanae Takaichi repeated her assertion that the government can legally shut down broadcasters that continue to air “biased political reports.”

The controversy started at the Lower House Budget Committee on Feb. 8, when Takaichi, a close associate of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was asked if a broadcaster could be ordered to suspend its operations simply for showing a report critical of the administration.

“We cannot promise not to take any response when a broadcaster shows no improvement and repeatedly airs (politically unfair news reports) despite (the ministry’s) administrative instructions,” she said.

Takaichi cited Article 4 of the Broadcast Law, which dictates that TV news programs must not distort facts, and Article 76 of the Radio Law, which authorizes the communications ministry to issue suspension orders.

Broadcasters reacted sharply to Takaichi’s remarks.
“It is tantamount to placing controls on free speech if the minister or the administration is the one to judge what is fair,” said an official with a commercial broadcaster.
Takaichi, however, did not back down from her stance.
“Since it is spelled out in the law, I cannot rule out the possibility that it can be applied someday,” Takaichi told a news conference on Feb. 9.
“Laws stipulate that when a broadcaster violates the Broadcast Law, an order to suspend its operations and suspend broadcasts can be issued under the Broadcast Law and the Radio Law, respectively,” she said.

Critics say the Abe administration has put pressure on the Japanese media to silence any criticism against the government’s policies by, for example, mentioning the authority of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to issue operating licenses to broadcasters.

Legal experts agree that Article 4 of the Broadcast Law is an “ethical norm” for self-regulation and autonomy by broadcasters.

But the Abe administration argues that the law’s provisions are “legal norms” that serve as the basis for the government to issue administrative instructions.

Soichiro Okuno, a Lower House member of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, raised the issue with Takaichi in the Diet on Feb. 8, asking if she thought that suspensions of broadcasters’ operations because of critical reports were possible under the Broadcast Law.

“Laws are there to protect the legal order,” she said. “I believe the effectiveness of the law is ensured since it also comes with a penalty for a violator.”

Okuno also asked for examples of programs “lacking political fairness.”

Takaichi said in response: “A broadcaster airs a program in which it goes out of its way to continue to devote much air time on discussing only one view and supporting it when public opinion is split over the political issue.

“In an extreme case, a broadcaster is judged to have failed to secure political fairness by blatantly deviating from a position of political neutrality.”

Takaichi issued an administrative instruction last April to Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) over its “Close-up Gendai” news program. Authorities concluded the program included excessive dramatization and other problems based on the results of the in-house investigation.

As for a possible next step against a defiant broadcaster, Takaichi said in the Diet: “It is unlikely a suspension order can be issued while I am in office. But the minister in charge will decide whether to apply the law in the future.”

An official with another broadcaster took Takaichi’s words as intimidation and a threat.
“But it is not worth commenting on because it is so unrealistic,” the official said.

However, Hiroyoshi Sunakawa, an associate professor of media theory at Rikkyo University, warned that Takaichi’s way of thinking could end up causing serious problems for broadcasters.

“It would be nothing but intervention if a broadcaster can be ordered to suspend operations after it does not comply with (administrative instructions) over a program that goes against the administration’s grain,” he said.

Hiro Otoyoshi, professor of media theory at Sophia University, said, “It could lead to broadcasters cowering in fear of authorities.”

Abe moves to boost control of bureaucrats

Abe moves to boost control of bureaucrats
The Japan Times: 27 May 2014

Abe and Suga (Chief Cabinet Secretary) himself will be directly in charge of screening and appointing those senior bureaucrats, while Inada will oversee other aspects of the bureau’s work, Suga said.". (Extract from below article)
.
According to the expert journalist (as per the Japanese article), Abe administration members are keeping close eyes on the privacies of these senior bureaucrats, to raise a scandal or blackmail if they do not obey.
...........................................................................................

The government formally decided Tuesday to launch the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs on Friday and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato will serve as its director general, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.

The creation of the new bureau and the appointment of Kato, one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s the closest aides, is seen as another political maneuver by Abe to tighten his grip on powerful government bureaucrats.

The bureau will serve as the secretariat for the prime minister to decide the appointments of about 600 elite bureaucrats at ministries and agencies of the central government, including vice ministers and bureau chiefs.

Under the current system, the prime minister and chief Cabinet secretary have overseen appointments of about 200 elite bureaucrats. The new personnel bureau will greatly expand the clout of politicians in power.

“We’d like to establish a system to cope with various issues quickly and in a united manner” through “strategic appointments of personnel,” Suga told a news conference.
Suga announced that Tomomi Inada, now minister in charge of administrative reforms, will also oversee the bureau.

But Abe and Suga himself will be directly in charge of screening and appointing those senior bureaucrats, while Inada will oversee other aspects of the bureau’s work, Suga said.

Since Abe’s inauguration in December 2012, the prime minister and Suga have interfered in the appointments of a number of key elite officials to strengthen their power base, while past Cabinets have largely avoided doing that to maintain political neutrality over the autonomy of the powerful bureaucratic system.

For example, last August Abe tapped Ichiro Komatsu, a former Foreign Ministry official, as director general of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, to push for his drive to reinterpret the war-renouncing Constitution to allow Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense.

Under the long-held government custom, a senior official of the bureau has been promoted to the director general’s post, but Abe broke this tacit arrangement to push for his ambition to change the interpretation of the Constitution.

Then, last fall, Abe appointed four right-leaning people whose political interests are close to his to the 12-member board of governors of NHK, the country’s influential public broadcasting organization.
The four then helped appoint Katsuto Momii as NHK’s new chairman, who later caused a big stir by saying he will not challenge government policies as far as territorial issues are concerned and by defending Japan’s wartime “comfort women” brothel system.

Suga, a former internal affairs minister and Abe’s right-hand man, is known for his keen interest in controlling bureaucrats by meddling in personnel affairs.

In June last year, Suga forced Atsuo Saka, a former top Finance Ministry official, to step down as president and CEO of Japan Post Holdings Co. Suga’s move was seen as his drive to strengthen his control over the giant government-owned Japan Post conglomerate.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/05/27/national/politics-diplomacy/abe-inaugurate-new-office-exert-control-bureaucrats/#.VsWgcv1FDZ7
 

Tokyo cancels Japan visit by U.N. expert on freedom of expression

Tokyo cancels Japan visit by U.N. expert on freedom of expression

Mainichi Japan: 20 November 2015

 

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A U.N. expert in charge of freedom of expression said Thursday the Japanese government has canceled his visit to the country scheduled for next month.
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David Kaye, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, told Kyodo News he hopes he "can continue t...o work with the (Japanese) government" and that he has always had good interactions with it.
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The rare cancellation by the government of an official visit drew criticism among his supporters that the government is seeking to hinder him from taking up such issues as the secrecy law for the prevention of leaks of state secrets.
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Under the contentious law that took effect last year, civil servants or others who leak designated secrets will face up to 10 years in prison, and those who instigate leaks, including journalists, will be subject to a prison term of up to five years.
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"We will rearrange the schedule because we couldn't make full preparations to accept the visit due to budget compilation and other reasons," said an official of the Foreign Ministry that coordinated the visit.
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While Kaye said "the government has said that they wanted to postpone the visit until the autumn," the ministry declined to confirm it.
.Kaye announced his planned visit to Japan from Dec. 1 to 8 at the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly in October.
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He planned to conduct hearings with government officials, journalists and citizen activists versed in disclosure of information with regard to the secrecy law and other topics related to freedom of expression in Japan, according to Kaye and Yuichi Kaido, a lawyer who planned to support him during his visit.
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The U.N. Human Rights Committee expressed concerns about the secrecy law last year.
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In response to Friday's request by the Japanese government to postpone the visit, he urged it to reconsider the decision. But Tokyo provided notification of the decision again on Tuesday, according to Kaye.
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"Japan as a government and as a country is, generally speaking, very respectful of freedom of expression," said Kaye.

"We look at things that are worth celebrating, perhaps as a model that other countries could follow," he said, adding, "We also identify areas where there might be some concerns."
. .

On My Watch : Confession of a foreign Correspondent after a half-decade of reporting from Tokyo to his German Readers

On My Watch: Confession of a foreign Correspondent after a half-decade of reporting from Tokyo to his German Readers
The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan: 2 April 2015

My bags are packed, as the song goes. After more than five years as the Tokyo correspondent for the German daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, I will soon leave Tokyo for home.

 

The country I’m leaving is different from the one I arrived in back in January 2010. Although things seem the same on the surface, the social climate – that has increasingly influenced my work in the past 12 months – is slowly but noticeably changing.

 

There is a growing gap between the perceptions of the Japanese elites and what is reported in the foreign media, and I worry that it could become a problem for journalists working here. Of course, Japan is a democracy with freedom of the press, and access to information is possible even for correspondents with poor Japanese language skills. But the gap exists because there is a clear shift that is taking place under the leadership of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – a move by the right to whitewash history. It could become a problem because Japan’s new elites have a hard time dealing with opposing views or criticism, which is very likely to continue in the foreign media.

 

The Nikkei recently published an essay by their correspondent in Berlin about the February visit to Japan of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He wrote: “Merkel’s visit to Japan was more conducive to criticism of Japan than friendship. With Japanese experts, she discussed her country’s policy to end nuclear power. She talked about the wartime history when she visited the Asahi and when she met with Abe. She also talked with Katsuya Okada, president of the DPJ, the largest opposition party. . . . Friendship was promoted only when she visited a factory run by a German company and shook hands with the robot Asimo.”

 

That seemed harsh. But, even accepting the premise . . . what is friendship? Is friendship simply agreement? Is not true friendship the ability to speak of one’s beliefs when a friend is shifting in a direction that could cause him harm? And surely Merkel’s visit was more complex than just critical.

Let me make my own stance clear. After five years, my love and affection for this country are unbroken. In fact, thanks to the many fine people I’ve met, my feelings are stronger than ever. Most of my Japanese friends and Japanese readers in Germany have told me they feel my love in my writing, especially following the events of March 11, 2011.

 

Unfortunately, the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in Tokyo see things completely differently, and it seems some in the Japanese media feel the same way. To them I have been – like almost all my German media colleagues – a Japan basher capable of only delivering harsh criticism. It is we who have been responsible for, as the Nikkei’s man in Berlin put it, the two countries’ bilateral relations becoming “less friendly.”

Changing relations

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is politically conservative, economically liberal and market oriented. And yet, those claiming that the coverage of Abe’s historical revisionism has always been critical are right. In Germany it is inconceivable for liberal democrats to deny responsibility for what were wars of aggression. If Japan’s popularity in Germany has suffered, it is not due to the media coverage, but to Germany’s repugnance at historical revisionism.

 

My tenure in Japan began with very different issues. In 2010, the Democratic Party of Japan ran the government. All three administrations I covered – Hatoyama, Kan and Noda – tried to explain their policies to the foreign press, and we often heard politicians saying things like, “We know we have to do more and become better at running the country.”

 

Foreign journalists were often invited by then Deputy Prime Minister Katsuya Okada, for example, to exchange views. There were weekly meetings in the Kantei, the PM’s residence, and officials were willing to discuss – more or less openly – current issues. We didn’t hesitate to criticize the government’s stance on certain issues, but officials continued to try to make their positions understood.

 

The rollback came soon after the December 2012 elections. Despite the prime minister’s embrace of new media like Facebook, for example, there is no evidence of an appreciation for openness anywhere in his administration. Finance Minister Taro Aso has never tried to talk to foreign journalists or to provide a response to questions about the massive government debt.

 

In fact, there is a long list of issues that foreign correspondents want to hear officialdom address: energy policy, the risks of Abenomics, constitutional revision, opportunities for the younger generation, the depopulation of rural regions. But the willingness of government representatives to talk with the foreign press has been almost zero. Yet, at the same time, anyone who criticizes the brave new world being called for by the prime minister is called a Japan basher.

 

What is new, and what seems unthinkable compared to five years ago, is being subjected to attacks from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – not only direct ones, but ones directed at the paper’s editorial staff in Germany. After the appearance of an article I had written that was critical of the Abe administration’s historical revisionism, the paper’s senior foreign policy editor was visited by the Japanese consul general of Frankfurt, who passed on objections from “Tokyo.” The Chinese, he complained, had used it for anti-Japanese propaganda.

It got worse. Later on in the frosty, 90-minute meeting, the editor asked the consul general for information that would prove the facts in the article wrong, but to no avail. “I am forced to begin to suspect that money is involved,” said the diplomat, insulting me, the editor and the entire paper. Pulling out a folder of my clippings, he extended condolences for my need to write pro-China propaganda, since he understood that it was probably necessary for me to get my visa application approved.

Me? A paid spy for Beijing? Not only have I never been there, but I’ve never even applied for a visa. If this is the approach of the new administration’s drive to make Japan’s goals understood, there’s a lot of work ahead. Of course, the pro-China accusations did not go over well with my editor, and I received the backing to continue with my reporting. If anything, the editing of my reports became sharper.

 

The heavy handedness has been increasing over the past few years. In 2012, while the DPJ was still in power, I took a junket to South Korea, interviewing former comfort women and visiting the contested island of Takeshima (Dokdo to Koreans). Of course it was PR, but it was a rare chance to see the center of the controversy for myself. I was called in by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a meal and discussion, and received a few dozen pages of information proving that the island was Japanese.

 

In 2013, with Abe’s administration in charge, I was called in once again after I wrote about an interview with three comfort women. This also included a lunch invitation, and once again I received information to help my understanding of the prime minister’s thoughts.

 

But things seem to have changed in 2014, and MoFA officials now seem to openly attack critical reporting. I was called in after a story on the effect the prime minister’s nationalism is having on trade with China. I told them that I had only quoted official statistics, and their rebuttal was that the numbers were wrong.

My departing message

Two weeks before the epic meeting between the Consul general and my editor, I had another lunch with MoFA officials, in which protests were made of my use of words like “whitewash history,” and the idea that Abe’s nationalistic direction might “isolate Japan, not only in East Asia.” The tone was frostier and, rather than trying to explain and convince, their attitude was angrier. No one was listening to my attempts to explain why German media are especially sensitive about historical revisionism.

 

I’ve heard of an increase in the number of lunch invitations from government officials to foreign correspondents, and the increased budgets to spread Japanese views of World War II, and the new trend to invite the bosses of foreign correspondents deemed too critical (via business class, of course). But I would suggest the proponents tread carefully, since these editors have been treated to – and become inured to – political PR of the highest caliber and clumsy efforts tend to have an opposite effect. When I officially complained about the Consul’s comments about my receiving funds from China, I was told that it was a “misunderstanding.”

So here’s my departing message: Unlike some of my colleagues, I do not see a threat in Japan to freedom of reporting. Though many critical voices are more silent than during the DPJ administration, they are there – and perhaps in larger numbers than before.

The closed-shop mentality of the Japanese political elite and the present inability of the administration leaders to risk open discussion with foreign media doesn’t really affect press freedom; there are plenty of other sources to gather information. But it does reveal how little the government understands that – in a democracy – policy must be explained to the public. And the world.

It doesn’t strike me as funny any more when colleagues tell me that the LDP doesn’t have anyone in the press affairs department who will speak English or provide information to a foreign journalist. Nor does the fact that the present prime minister, who claims to be well traveled, has declined to make the short trip to speak to us at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. In fact, I can only be saddened at how the government is not only secretive with the foreign press, but with its own citizens.

 

In the past five years, I’ve been up and down the Japanese archipelago, and – unlike in Tokyo – I’ve never had anyone, from Hokkaido to Kyushu, accuse me of writings that were hostile to Japan. On the contrary, I’ve been blessed with interesting stories and enjoyable people everywhere. Japan is still one of the most wealthy, open nations in the world; it’s a pleasant place to live and report from for foreign correspondents.

My hope is that foreign journalists – and even more importantly, the Japanese public – can continue to speak their minds. I believe that harmony should not come from repression or ignorance; and that a truly open and healthy democracy is a goal worthy of my home of the last five great years.

Carsten Germis was the Tokyo correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from 2010 to 2015 and a member of the Board of Directors of the FCCJ.

http://www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun/item/576-on-my-watch.html

Broadcasting watchdog blasts government, LDP for pressuring NHK

Broadcasting watchdog blasts government, LDP for pressuring NHK
The Asahi Shinbun: 7 November 2015

A third-party panel monitoring TV programming from an ethical standpoint criticized the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Nov. 6 for rebuking the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) over an investigative news program.

In its opinion paper on allegations the public broadcaster engaged in fabrication in a program production, the Broadcasting Ethics and Program Improvement Organization (BPO) stated the government and the ruling party must not be allowed to interfere with TV content.

It is the first time that the BPO, which was established by NHK and private broadcasters to ensure the freedom of broadcasting and improve the quality of TV programming, has criticized the government and ruling party.

“The government must not be allowed to intervene in the content of an individual program,” said the organization’s Committee for the Investigation of Broadcasting Ethics.

“The ruling party tried to impose nothing but pressure to constrain the freedom of broadcasting and the autonomy (of NHK) to ensure the freedom, and such conduct must be strictly criticized.”
The committee investigated NHK for excessively dramatizing re-enactments in a “Close-up Gendai” news program that reported on scams involving religious organizations last year. It acknowledged NHK’s “serious violation of broadcasting ethics” in the report.

After the broadcaster’s in-house investigation panel concluded that the production team of a news program “excessively dramatized” and “deceptively edited” staged scenes in an episode aired in May 2014, internal affairs and communications minister Sanae Takaichi issued an administrative reprimand to NHK in April.

The LDP’s Research Commission on Info-Communications Strategy also summoned an NHK executive in April for a briefing on the matter.

“For the government, especially the internal affairs and communications minister who have the authorization authority over TV broadcasters, to deliver such a reprimand should be regarded as highly problematic,” said lawyer Kazuharu Kawabata, the BPO committee chairman, during a news conference on Nov. 6.

Takaichi later defended her decision, saying she believes her rebuke was neither “excessive” nor “hasty.”
“The administrative reprimand is not legally binding and only a request to call for the recipient’s independent initiative,” the minister told reporters.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201511070026