Ultra-rightist tilt posing clear, present danger to free speech

When ruling party lawmaker Koichi Kato criticized Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, retribution from the rightwing was swift: An extremist set his house on fire and tried to commit ritual suicide.

Koichi Kato, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, holds a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan last Aug. 29. AP PHOTO

It was the most dramatic in a string of attacks and threats over the past year that have academics, journalists and lawmakers worried that Japan's freedom of expression is under assault by a resurgent nationalist fringe.

"Speech and journalism in this country are facing an extremely difficult situation," Masato Kitamura, chairman of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, told the group's annual meeting recently.

Freedom of expression and information has long faced limits.

The government regularly holds back facts considered public information elsewhere, such as the dates of upcoming executions, while cultural concepts of social harmony and homogeneity discourage gadflies and whistle-blowers.

The left along with liberal-leaning journalists have long suffered harassment at the hands of rightwing thugs. But lately intimidation has surged.

It's "a distorted kind of nationalism that does not tolerate argument," said Koichi Nakano, a political scientist at Tokyo's Sophia University.

"Internet rightists" have set up Web chat sites to attack "anti-Japan" journalists. Outspoken independent lawmaker Makiko Tanaka last year received a string of threatening phone calls for her criticism of the ruling party. A leading paper reported that Emperor Hirohito, known posthumously as Showa, opposed honoring war criminals at Yasukuni -- and a firebomb was thrown at the paper's entrance.

A more assertive extremist fringe is believed behind the trend. The country's estimated 10,000 ultra-rightists, who espouse hardline stances in territorial disputes with neighboring countries and a rose-tinted view of Japan's past militarism, have become increasingly violent in recent years, the National Police Agency said in its annual report last year.

At the same time, national pride is in fashion again. The government has passed a law requiring patriotic education, pushed for a revision of the pacifist Constitution and upgraded the Defense Agency into a ministry.

The government is also feeling freer about promoting its conservative agenda through the media.

In October, communications minister Yoshihide Suga took the unusual step of ordering NHK to increase its coverage of North Korea's abductions of Japanese nationals through its international shortwave radio service. NHK, however, insists it has not changed its editorial policy to please the government.

Growing restrictions on the media here have engendered concern overseas.

The Worldwide Press Freedom Index for 2006 released by Reporters Without Borders showed Japan plunging to 51st place in the 168-nation survey from 37th the previous year. The study cited "rising nationalism and the system of exclusive press clubs" -- institutionalized insider relationships between reporters and the government offices as well as the powerful -- as threats to democracy.

The fire at Kato's home in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, on Aug. 15, shortly after a visit by Koizumi to Yasukuni Shrine, was the most chilling illustration of the trend.

Kato, a leading lawmaker from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, made several TV talk-show appearances criticizing the pilgrimage to a venue that attracts nationalist demonstrations.

Hours later, police say, Masahiro Horigome, of the extremist group Great Japanese Brotherhood, torched Kato's home while his 97-year-old mother was out. Horigome was found on the grounds bleeding from an attempted harakiri. He pleaded guilty in court last week.

Yet the government response was muted. Koizumi at first blamed the media for publicizing his shrine visits and took two weeks to condemn the attack.

While the rash of rightwing intimidation has not caused any deaths, fear of violence and intimidation have silenced many liberal-leaning journalists, lawmakers and academics, Kato said. "Many people are now keeping their months shut. The Diet is not an exception."