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Japan's 'rights'
act to muzzle the media
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Japan, usually considered a nation with an open press, is likely to
curtail that freedom with its first human-rights law, one that includes abuses
by the media, as determined by a non-independent, government-controlled media
watchdog agency.
Politicians everywhere, East and West, have always strived to control the
media. Especially for conservative political wings and old guards, the liberal
and liberal-leaning media are a great nuisance, or a real problem. In the
United States, the right-wing media are a force to be reckoned with, but legal
curbs on freedom of speech and the press are difficult or impossible enact.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on the critical, less than
adulatory media in recent years is among the most notable examples of
repression. In the peaceful Philippines Revolution of 1986, or the People Power
Revolution, that ended president Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorship, both his loyal
government troops and the opposition reformist soldiers struggled over control
of television and radio stations, invaluable communications and propaganda
tools. In South Korea, President Roh Moo-hyun - himself often criticized by the
entrenched, conservative big media - pushed through the National Assembly a
media law requiring what his administration called balance and fairness. His
predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, also tried to intimidate the media by checking the
financial dealings by the big media. The media everywhere howled. And
let us not forget the Chinese Communist Party's relentless but frequently
unsuccessful efforts to muzzle the media, especially the Internet. The
list goes on.
But in Japan? Today's democratic Japan is no exception to the persistent
curbing of press freedom. And Japan has no human-rights protection law - in
this case coupled with curbs on press freedom, described as sometimes
infringing on privacy and abusing human rights.
The Japanese government and its coalition parties, led by the governing Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP), plan to resubmit to the Diet (parliament) a
controversial bill that aims to protect human rights - and also to curb certain
press practices. The aim is to submit the bill before the current session is
scheduled to end on June 19, though it could be extended. The Japanese media,
both liberal and conservative, are outraged by portions of the bill and have
called with virtually one voice for a drastic revision, even scrapping the
proposed legislation.
The Human Rights Protection Bill is becoming a very big political issue,
raising concerns over possible future government interference in press coverage
and intimidating and muzzling of the press. A proposed freeze for five years on
the most controversial press restrictions would make this a problem for future
administrations after the departure of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
government. Critics say the bill could lead to problematic new regulation of
the news media - with a lapdog watchdog agency, or media monitor, under the
thumb of the Ministry of Justice. The legislation does not address human-rights
violations by the government, instead stressing alleged journalism-related
human-rights violations, such as the infringement of privacy.
The text of the proposed bill - not yet formally submitted - is not available
online in English or Japanese, since it appears to be a work in progress, and
some provisions could be revised.
"The bill does not address the issue of human-rights violations by government
power, since the proposed new watchdog body is not an independent monitor of
power," Makoto Teranaka, the executive director of Amnesty International Japan,
told Asia Times Online. "Moreover, it's very bizarre to see this type of
human-rights protection bill include the provision on media regulation by [what
it calls] international standards," added Teranaka, who demanded the media
restrictions be removed.
The issue of media regulation and the debate it has generated have coincided
with two important developments in the relationship between journalism and
political power in Japan.
The first and most recent development is the Tokyo High Court's decision last
Thursday supporting the retrial of the case of five now-deceased journalists
convicted in connection with the wartime Yokohama Incident crackdown on free
speech, Japan's most serious wartime assault on free speech. Those journalists
were convicted between August 29 and September 15, 1945, on suspicion of
"scheming to re-establish the Communist Party", at that time a violation of the
wartime Maintenance of Public Order Law enacted in 1925. They were, and still
are, widely believed to have confessed their alleged crimes under police
torture. Relatives of the five deceased defendants requested a petition for
retrial to the Yokohama District Court, and the court accepted it in April
2003, after two previous petitions were rejected. The Tokyo High Court
concurred that a new trial was necessary.
The second is the revelation of Japan public broadcaster NHK's alleged
alteration of a documentary, reportedly under political pressure, to excise
critical portions relating to wartime Emperor Hirohito. The liberal Asahi
Shimbun reported on January 12 that NHK in 2001 significantly altered a
documentary program that featured a mock trial of the Japanese military for
forcing Asian women into sexual slavery during World War II. The Asahi said NHK
was pressured by two powerful politicians of the LDP, namely Shinzo Abe, then
deputy chief cabinet secretary, and Shoichi Nakagawa, then head of an LDP panel
on history education. Abe is now deputy secretary general of the LDP, and
Nakagawa is the minister of economy, trade and industry. Both men are
conservatives. Abe is a grandchild of Nobusuke Kishi, minister of commerce and
industry during Hideki Tojo's militaristic administration; Kishi was one of the
suspected war criminals who were later released from Sugamo Prison by the
United States; he became prime minister in 1957.
The Asahi reported that under their political pressure NHK edited out four
minutes of footage, including a scene in which the mock trial found the late
wartime Emperor Hirohito guilty of crimes against humanity. NHK and the two
politicians have vigorously denied the allegations.
Asahi stands by its story, while NHK says Asahi's coverage was incorrect.
If possible, there's a bright side, quite separate from squelching press
freedom: The Human Rights Protection Bill aims to provide immediate relief,
prohibiting further discrimination and possibly monetary compensation for some
people suffering from discrimination or abuse through the establishment of a
human-rights redress system. On the face of it, no one could oppose this just
cause, especially when Japan is still striving to eliminate all discrimination
against hisabetsu buraku , or communities suffering discrimination. The
bias against these communities (such as butchers, leather workers and tanners,
and some entertainers have locked them into an East Asian version of India's
caste system. This is a pernicious, still pervasive remnant of the Edo period
(1603-1867). Discrimination today may be based on one's location of residence
and neighborhood, occupation, dialect or mannerisms or membership in a
particular group. Despite the Japanese constitution's provision of legal
equality for all, discrimination persists (Click
here for more on hisabetsu buraku).
Further, this type of human-rights protection law clearly is needed in Tokyo,
particularly since the immigration authorities sent a Kurdish man and his
eldest son back to Turkey two months ago; the deportation was ordered despite
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) formally designating
them as "mandate refugees". Turkey says some Kurds are secessionists, seeking
to destabilize the nation, but the father and son claim they were falsely
accused. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice said the father had made false
statements to the authorities, alleging that he and his son were persecuted in
Turkey and again would be persecuted on their return. The ministry cited the
Tokyo High Court's rulings in both May 2003 and November 2004 as reasons and
evidence justifying the deportations.
This is the second time the Japanese government has planned to submit the
human-rights bill to the Diet. The original bill was submitted in March 2002,
but it triggered such an outpouring of criticism from human-rights groups and
news media, especially over its news media restrictions, that it was withdrawn
in October 2003. It came under fire for two reasons:
First, the proposed new watchdog body, the Human Rights Committee of Japan, was
not independent of the government, contrary to the so-called Paris Principles
endorsed by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1992 and by the UN General
Assembly in 1993. The Paris Principles stress autonomy from government as one
of the minimum standards for a human-rights monitoring agency. This autonomy or
independence is required because many of the numerous human-rights violations
that the UN pointed out occurred within facilities administered by justice
authorities', such as immigration detention centers and prisons. A similar
example would be US troops' abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the US-administered Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq. Moreover, in 1998, the UN, citing the UN Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, called upon Tokyo to set up independent
institutional mechanisms in order to provide remedies against human-rights
violations, citing police and immigration officers' abuses.
This time around, the revised bill, like the original legislation, would place
the proposed watchdog Human Rights Committee of Japan under the jurisdiction of
the Justice Ministry - it would not be an autonomous body or independent of the
government and government pressure.
Teranaka, executive director of Amnesty International Japan, argued that the
committee should become an empowered and well-financed independent body beyond
the control of the Ministry of Justice, much like South Korea's National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC). Seoul established this body in November 2001, in
order to independently investigate human-rights abuses, including privacy
violations, and to provide remedies. As the next-best option, Teranaka said the
committee should be placed directly under the cabinet, or it should become an
external agency of the Cabinet Office, in order to weaken the influence of the
Ministry of Justice. If the monitoring and watchdog committee is made a part of
the internal Justice Ministry bureau, then there would be no independent
persons to check the questionable activities of the Ministry of Justice.
Ministry personnel should be prevented from serving on the human-rights
committee, according to human-rights activists.
Second, critics point out that the bill would give the committee sole and wide
discretion to restrict the activities of media organizations. The committee's
purview would include "human-rights violations by news organizations". The bill
specifically identified for special relief those who had been abused by
reporting methods, such as "ambush" interviews and reporting by constantly
following a news subject. Although under generally accepted ethics, journalists
must avoid actions that overstep the bounds of legitimate journalism, this
clause of the bill could lead to the capricious and illegitimate restriction by
fiat of freedom of reporting and news gathering. Reporters, for example, might
be unable to cover election law violations by legal or questionable candidates,
as well as many bribery scandals still prevalent in Japanese political circles.
To reveal wrongdoing and corruption, journalists must doggedly pursue news
sources. Someone who was pursued by the media, however, might claim that he or
she was the victim of human-rights abuse through invasion of privacy and
obstruction of his or her daily business routine, and disruption and stress in
his or her family life.
Japanese media, both conservative and liberal, have denounced possible, or
likely press freedom violations. The Asahi Shimbun, in an editorial on February
25, said, "If the Human Rights Committee is given the power to judge whether
certain news coverage is excessive, that would mean giving a government body
the power to limit areas of news reporting. One of the roles of news
organizations is to monitor what the government does. If the media comes under
government control, the public's right to know will be jeopardized. There is no
equivalent human-rights relief body abroad that has such power over the media."
The Asahi also said, "Under the previous bill, the Human Rights Committee of
Japan can pursue criminal charges in cases of discrimination or abuse. It has
the option of taking a case to court on behalf of a victim. The committee has
wide powers. For example, the committee can levy fines if the accused party
refuses to submit documents that have been requested, or does not turn up to
hear the case against it."
The government and the LDP-led ruling coalition parties are likely to submit a
revised bill, with the media restrictions intact, but with a five-year freeze
on actual implementation of the section restricting media activities. The
freeze would be reviewed in five years. This freeze tactic is a typical and
traditional LDP strategy aimed at getting an important bill passed by
temporarily setting aside the most difficult issues. For example, in 1992 the
LDP-led ruling coalition parties enacted the UN Peacekeeping Operations
Cooperation Law by placing a freeze on the Japan Self-Defense Forces' (SDF)
participation in UN Peacekeeping Forces, a part of general peacekeeping
operations that could involve potentially dangerous tasks, such as disarming
parties to a conflict and patrolling conflict areas. At that time, the LDP-led
coalition parties dodged criticism from opposition parties and the Japanese
public by compromising, backing off for a while and showing some flexibility in
order to pave the way for SDF troops' first overseas mission. The freeze
finally was lifted in December 2001, although the SDF have not yet participated
in any of the more dangerous UN Peacekeeping Forces operations. (The SDF
mission in southern Iraq is strictly humanitarian. The government also is
considering deploying SDF to Sudan, possibly allowing it to undertake riskier
UN Peacekeeping Forces' missions there for the first time.)
The LDP-led ruling coalition parties seem to be doing the same thing now, in
the face of protests. The LDP appears to be eyeing the possible future lifting
of the freeze on the most controversial, and incendiary, restrictions on the
media.
It is generally accepted that Japanese media and the public need to stand
together on the principle that journalism must serve as an independent monitor
of power. Insisting on this principle, the media should steadfastly and
consistently resist the bill in order to limit its activities. Not all
journalists are perfect, but the principle of a free media is important. By
joining forces, the public and the media can prevent the government's possible
future intervention in press freedom - and the abuse of press freedom by
government power.
Kosuke Takahashi is a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is
currently a freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted at
letters@kosuke.net .
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
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