11 Dec 13 | Asia and Pacific, Japan, News and features, Politics and Society
Saul Takahashi reports for Open Democracy
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
As if it ever needed repeating, the people of Japan were once again treated to a reminder of how secretive and arbitrary their government can be during the nuclear disaster in Fukushima 2011. Government foot-dragging and reluctance to divulge information meant that people remained exposed to high doses of radiation for over a month after the meltdown with potentially grave health consequences. Now, what is easily the most right wing government Japan has seen in decades has forced through parliament a bill to classify “special secrets” that would essentially give the executive carte blanche to withhold information on a massive scale, not seen since the period of militarism directly leading up to, and during, World War 2.
The law, known as the Designated Secrets Bill, was hurriedly rammed throughthe more powerful lower house on 26 November, and then passed through the upper house in equally speedy fashion on 6 December. It gives unrestricted power to the executive to designate a broad range of information as national secrets. There are no effective checks or balances, no truly meaningful opportunity for the involvement of any independent body, and no effective way to ensure that the executive is not abusing its power. Only the barest of outlines of information regarding what sort of information has even been designated as secret will be disclosed to the public. The bill would violate the right of people’s right to access information, severely punish whistleblowers, and have a chilling effect on journalism, civil society organizations, and the actions of concerned citizens.
The government has repeated the mantra that the bill is necessary because Japan is a “heaven for spies” due to a lack of espionage and state secrets legal infrastructure. They would have the people believe that the government lacks the power to keep information confidential, and that Tokyo is full of foreign agents who freely collect sensitive secrets. Nothing could be further from the truth – the government already designates a wide range of information as confidential –410,000 pieces of information have been designated so since a sweeping government policy was implemented on this in 2009.
In addition, in response to a question in parliament, Prime Minister Abe admitted that the government was aware of five cases of “leaks of important information by civil servants” over the past fifteen years. Five cases over fifteen years can hardly be described as a “heaven”. The truth, as even the government admits, is that this bill is intrinsically connected with another bill adopted by parliament in November, establishing a National Security Council much along the lines of the US body by the same name. Indeed, the Secrets bill specifically provides for the sharing of designated secrets with foreign governments, who are apparently more trustworthy than Japan’s own people.
Constitutional infringement
There are four categories of information listed in the bill that could potentially qualify for designation as a secret – defense, diplomacy, “designated dangerous activities”, and prevention of terrorism – but they are worded in an extremely broad manner. Seemingly any kind of information related to defense could qualify, as well as any “important security related information” in the area of foreign relations, any information related to official efforts in the area of counter terrorism, and any information related to “activities potentially harmful to national security”. The possible designations of particular information as ‘secret’ are essentially infinite; though there is a principled maximum period of sixty years (already extremely long) stipulated in the amended bill, there are also categories of information – almost equally sweeping – which it is possible to designate secret with no time limit. The role envisioned for parliament is extremely limited, to the extent that it would most probably be meaningless.
The bill does state that, in applying the law, the government should “fully take into account” journalistic reporting “aimed at ensuring the peoples’ right to access information”. These provisions are “vague” to say the least, and appear to grant the government leeway to decide which reporting is “aimed at ensuring” this right. But punishments for the revealing of secrets are severe – up to ten years imprisonment for civil servants or persons subcontractors dealing with secrets. Persons who obtain secrets through illegal means are also subject to up to ten years imprisonment, and persons who “incite” the revealing of secrets are subject to up to five years imprisonment. Persons who reveal secrets through negligence can also be subject to imprisonment, as are persons who “incite” or conspire to divulge secrets.
It is worth pointing out that the right to access information is not only a vital element of the right to freedom of expression, but also a fundamental human right guaranteed by the Japanese constitution. Article 21 states that “freedom of…speech, press, and all other forms of expression are guaranteed” and, in accordance with developments in international law, this article has been interpreted by the Japanese courts to include the right to access information. The same article also states that the government must “refrain from violating fundamental human rights in an unreasonable manner” in applying the law, begging the question as to what “unreasonable” means in this new environment.
Even worse, article 21 goes on to say that reporting by the media will not be punished “insofar as those activities are aimed solely at ensuring the public interest and are not based on illegal or clearly unreasonable methods”. There is no definition of what the “public interest” means in this context, and just how the government will ascertain this. The government has even stated that some bloggers and other social media activists may not fall under the definition of “media” in this article, indicating that even the above pathetic safeguards would not apply.
As one could imagine, public outcry regarding the bill has been intense with near-daily demonstrations and criticism from human rights organizations, including the Japanese Bar Association, former prominent conservative MPs, academic societies, journalist societies, and prefectural and local councils. Unusually for a country that is used to being under the radar of international scrutiny, the bill was also the target of harsh criticism from human rights actors in the United Nations. The UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression together with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health issued a statement criticizing the sweeping provisions of the bill, and the lack of protection for whistle blowers. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also expressed similar concerns.
Government responses to these concerns have been a shining example of evasion, vagueness, and a condescending ‘shut up and trust us’ mentality – indeed, the fact that the government opened the bill to public comment for only two weeks, as opposed to the normal practice of a full month, shows the contempt in which it holds views it does not agree with. One NGO filed a request for the minutes of the meetings of a government panel that had discussed the provisions of the bill – minutes that date back to 2008. In an insult to the notion of government accountability, the documents the NGO was provided with were almost completely redacted, i.e. blacked out.
A new chilling effect
In one telling response to the obvious question of what would entail a “clearly unreasonable method” of reporting, Minister Masako Mori, the female Cabinet member charged by Prime Minister Abe to steer the bill through parliament seemingly for no reason other than placing a woman in front of the cameras would give the bill a ‘soft’ image, gave the example of the infamous Nishiyama case of 1972. Takichi Nishiyama, a former journalist for Mainichi Shimbun, a major Japanese broadsheet, was arrested for obtaining information from a Japanese Foreign Ministry secretary (with whom, it later came to light, he had been having an affair) regarding a secret agreement between Japan and the US surrounding the return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty. Though the agreement that had been made public by the two governments had stated that certain expenses totaling USD 4 million would be paid by the US, this was an outright lie, and the secret agreement specified that the costs would be footed by the Japanese.
For his efforts in exposing government deception of the people, Nishiyama was convicted in 1978 of inciting a civil servant to reveal confidential information. 30 years later, declassified US government documents confirmed Nishiyama’s allegations – and yet his name is used by the government as a good example of ‘bad’ journalism. Tellingly, Mori has declared that subjects of intense public debate, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic agreement currently being negotiated behind closed doors with the United States and other countries, could be designated as secrets. And government reassurances have been unable to quell fears that with such broad provisions in the bill, important information regarding nuclear safety could be designated as secret as well.
Perhaps most important in all of this is the chilling effect that the law would have on people accessing or publishing any sort of information. With the opaque phrasing of the law persons will have no idea as to whether information they are accessing or publishing is in fact a designated secret. The Japanese Bar Association notes that, under the provisions of the bill, it is entirely plausible that people could be accused and tried without them or their lawyer being told exactly what information they are accused of having revealed. Unsurprisingly, government assurances that persons who accidentally come across or reveal secrets would not be punished are not convincing – and logic indicates that, even if they ended up not being punished, such persons would be subject to investigation.
In the early hours of 5 December, the government announced in response to mounting pressure that it would create two ‘independent’ bodies to oversee implementation of the law and ensure that there was no abuse. However, of these two bodies, only one is truly independent – a panel of legal experts which will advise the PM in creating guidelines regarding the designation of secrets, and which will receive an annual report on implementation of the law. However, it appears that the PM will only provide this panel with a simple outline stating the number of pieces of information that had been designated secret by category. Beyond that, there is no clarity as to how this panel would operate, and how much power it would actually have. It would be child’s play for the government to appoint a panel of government cronies to rubber stamp a one page note.
Calling the other body to be created “independent” is an insult to one’s intelligence. The “oversight committee for information retention” will monitor application of the law and ensure that there is no abuse, and is clearly the more powerful body of the two. However, it will be made up of undersecretaries (the highest ranking civil servants) from the Foreign and Defence Ministries – the two ministries that will undoubtedly be designating the largest number of secrets. Unsurprisingly, no one in Japan expects any kind of serious oversight from this body.
Many opposed to the bill have pointed out strikingly similar language in legislation from darker times, in particular the infamous National Defence and Public Security Act of 1941, which was used by the government to jail opponents of the war effort. The Japanese experience from those days is that government secrets lead to more government secrets, and then to war. To use a phrase the generation that remembers the 1930s often uses to describe the creeping nature of militarism – the jackboots come closer and closer.
This article was originally posted on 10 Dec 2013 at opendemocracy.net. It is reposted here with Creative Commons permission.
07 Feb 13 | News and features, Uncategorized
A woman in Timbuktu says she was lashed by Islamist militants for talking to a man who wasn’t her husband. Salaka Djicke was caught talking to her lover on 31 December last year and was then sentenced to 95 lashings by a Islamic tribunal on 3 January. Djicke fell in love with the married man after he accidentally called when dialling a wrong number more than a year ago, and their relationship quickly blossomed. When Islamic extremists occupied Northern Mali in April 2012, Shariah law was quickly implemented, forbidding women from communicating with men. Her punishment was captured on film by local residents. The man — who Dijcke didn’t name in fear of rebel fighters returning — remains in Mali’s capital after fleeing the night they were discovered. Prior to France’s intervention in Northern Mali earlier this year, Islamist militants introduced strict Shariah law, issuing punishments such as flogging and stoning for perpetrators.
— Is this how you remember Michelangelo’s David? A town in Japan want to preserve the statue’s modesty
On 6 February, a radio station owner was murdered in Paraguay. Marcelino Vázquez was shot by unknown assailants as he left work at Sin Fronteras 98.5 FM in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero. He was on his way from the radio station to a local night club he also owned, but was stopped by two men on a motorcycle and shot several times. While Sin Fronteras is predominately music-focused, it features a regular news show covering a variety of issues. A parliamentary coup in June 2012 and the subsequent removal of President Fernando Lugo has had a negative impact on freedom of information and expression in Paraguay.
Lawyers for three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot are appealing their convictions at the European Court of Human Rights. Representatives for Maria Alekhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Natalia Tolokonnikova are in Strasbourg today (7 February), after they filed a complaint on 6 February against their two year prison sentences. They said the convictions violated four articles of the European Convention on Human Rights: the right to free speech, fair trial, liberty and security and the prohibition of torture.The trio was first sentenced following their “punk-prayer” performed at Moscow’s main cathedral in February 2012 protesting Vladimir Putin’s return to power.
A radio journalist was shot on his way to work in Peru on 6 February. At the time of the attack, Juan Carlos Yaya Salcedo was driving to the Radio Max station where he worked, in the town of Imperial. He was shot in the leg by an unknown assailant and is expected to make a full recovery and return to work soon. Yaya, who hosts radio show Sin Escape (Without Escape), has never faced threats in the past but police said the attack was likely the result of his journalistic work, as the perpetrators didn’t attempt to steal anything. Yaya said the attack could have resulted from his reporting on the poor construction of a community building in the nearby town of Nuevo Imperial.
Residents of a town in Japan have complained about the erection of replica statues of Michelangelo’s David, requesting that he wear underpants. Okuizumo citizens told town officials that the 16-foot renaissance sculpture’s exposed penis could frighten their children, as some of the replicas, funded by a local business man, were installed in a local park where children often play. Most of the town’s 15,000 residents approved the Renaissance art tributes, and no plans have been made to clothe the statue. Japan has stringent laws regarding nudity. While watching and distributing porn is legal in the country, the country’s authorities request that genitalia be pixelated.
05 Feb 13 | Uncategorized
An unknown gunman in Denmark has shot at a prominent writer and historian who is a critic of Islam. Reports said that Lars Hedegaard was not injured. The perpetrator arrived at Hedegaard’s Copenhagen home today (5 February) pretending to deliver a package, instead firing shots at the Danish writer, missing the intended target. Hedegaard is head of the International Free Press Society, a group claiming that Islam threatens press freedom. He was fined 5,000 Kroner (approximately £575) in 2011 for insulting Muslims in a series of statements.
A woman who claimed she was raped by Somalian authorities and the journalist who interviewed her have today (5 February) been jailed in Mogadishu. Judge Ahmed Adan found the woman guilty of offending the state, who will serve one year in prison after she finishes breastfeeding her baby. Freelance journalist Abdiaziz Abdinuur was charged with offending state institutions through false interviewing and entering a woman’s home without the husband present and is to start his one year sentence immediately. Three other defendants, including the woman’s husband and two others who helped introduce her to Abdinuur were found not guilty and freed. The journalist was detained on 10 January for interviewing the woman who had claimed she was raped by soldiers at a displaced person’s camp where she was living in Mogadishu.
A Singaporean photographer was arrested on 4 February in Tokyo for selling books containing pictures of male genitalia. Leslie Kee was arrested along with two members of staff at a publishing firm on suspicion of obscenity and could be jailed for up to two years and / or fined up to 2.5 million yen if found guilty. The trio were detained for selling seven copies of the book to two customers at Kee’s Tokyo gallery — prompting the fashion community in Japan to jump to their defence. The 41 year-old photographer is well known in Japan and has photographed the likes of Naomi Campbell and Beyonce. Japanese domestic law rules that pictures of genitals must be obscured, a method usually practiced through pixelation.
Donald Trump has filed a legal suit against a comedian after proving he is not the spawn of orangutans
The Eritrean government has blocked access to Al Jazeera inside the country. The Qatari TV news network has been unaccessible since 1 February, after the information ministry issued a decree preventing anyone from providing access to its news service. Restaurants, hotels and cafés were particularly targeted and Al Jazeera’s English-language channels were blocked. Eritrean authorities allegedly ordered the ban after Al Jazeera ran stories on demonstrations by Eritrea’s exiles outside Eritrean diplomatic missions in London, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Rome and Cairo in opposition of the government and support of soldiers who staged a mutiny after they stormed the information ministry in Asmara on 21 January. Eritrea holds the highest number of imprisoned journalists in Africa.
Andrew Mitchell, the cabinet minister who resigned following the “plebgate” scandal is to sue The Sun for libel for its reporting of the case. The former government chief whip swore at police officers after they refused him to exit his office through Downing Street’s main gates on 19 September 2012, allegedly saying: “you’re all plebs”. The Conservative MP stepped down from his role a month later. It wasn’t until December that evidence was taken into doubt after CCTV seemed to question the police log and witness reliability. Scotland Yard arrested three police officers in connection with the affair. Mitchell admitted to swearing at the officers but denied using the term “plebs”. He is seeking damages, costs, an apology and an undertaking that the words are not repeated in future.
Donald Trump is suing a comedian after he failed to honour a $5million (£3.1m) lost bet that Trump was the descendent of orangutans. Bill Maher had joked on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show that, if Trump presented him with proof that he was not the product of a tryst between his mother and a primate, he would pay $5million to charity. The business tycoon then proceeded to send a copy of his birth certificate to Maher, along with a note saying “cough up”. Trump said that there was no evidence that the comedian had offered the money as a joke, citing his “pathetic delivery”. Trump then released his birth certificate publicly along with a letter from his lawyer, confirming that he was in fact, entirely human. Maher has failed to offer the cash, prompting Trump to file legal documents in the Superior Court of California on 4 February. Trump has been a prominent voice in the “birther” movement, which claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and hence is not eligible to be president.
31 Jan 13 | Uncategorized
A woman who said she was raped by state security forces and the journalist who interviewed her were charged by police on 29 January in Somalia. Journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim could face four years imprisonment for insulting a government body and two years for inducing false evidence. Abdiaziz has been charged with insulting a government body, simulating a criminal offence and making a false accusation. The alleged rape victim’s husband and two others who introduced her to the journalist were charged with assisting her to secure a profit for the rape allegation and assisting her to evade investigation. The sentences are five and four year terms respectively. The next hearing will be held on 2 February. Abdiaziz had interviewed the woman on 8 January after she said she was raped by soldiers at a displaced persons camp in Mogadishu. He was detained by the Central Investigations Department of the police two days later.
Non-thinker (2012) by Aida Makoto – A less controversial piece from the Japanese artist
The New York Times has claimed it was hacked by Chinese officials over a period of four months. The attacks are thought to have come from hackers connected to the military in a possible retaliation to a series of stories run by the newspaper — alluding to the vast wealth accumulated by premier of the state council Wen Jiabao. The hackers entered into the Times’s systems, accessing information on the personal computers of 53 employees, including China correspondents. Mandiant, an internet security company hired by the newspaper on 7 November, said the attacks were likely to have been part of a spy campaign, after discovering that the computers used for the attacks were the same used for Chinese military attacks on US military contractors in the past. Hackers began attacking the Times on 13 September, around the time the Wen Jiabao story was in its final pre-publishing stages.
A former policeman in the Ukraine has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of an investigative journalist, it was reported on 30 January. Oleksiy Pukache was the fourth person to be charged with the murder of Georgiy Gongadze, after his dismembered body was discovered in 2000. The other three were sentenced to 12 and 13 years. As Pukache was sentenced, he announced that equal blame for the murder should be placed on the country’s former president Leonid Kuchma and then presidential chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn.
Gongadze’s headless body was found in the woods six weeks after he was kidnapped in Kiev — a case which caused huge demonstrations and helped prompt the 2004 Orange Revolution. A lawsuit taken out against Kuchma in March 2011 was dismissed when prosecutors deemed it unlawful.
A Chinese man who was sent to a labour camp for making a joke about politician Bo Xilai has received minor damages after his compensation appeal was rejected. Fang Hong was sentenced to re-education for a year in 2011 for posting a poem online mocking the disgraced politician and his then police chief Wang Lijun. Chongqing’s Dianjiang county court rejected Fang’s request for around £37,400 in psychological damages, instead offering him just over £5,800, as well as rejecting his appeal for a public apology. This was the first known case of officials compensating for Bo-era abuses. Fang said he would ask his lawyers about appealing the ruling, but critics said his initial appeal was rejected to prevent a stream of further claims. Fang was freed in 2012 following the fall of Bo — whose wife Gu Kailai was convicted of the murder of British Businessman Neil Heywood in November 2011.
An art exhibition in Japan depicting cannibalism and Sadomasochism has prompted a debate over artistic freedom of expression. Aida Makoto’s Monument for Nothing exhibition at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo on 29 January caused protests from Japanese organisation People Against Pornography and Sexual Violence, who wrote to museum director Nanjo Fumio to demand Makoto’s work be removed. Some of the artists pieces, depicted a giant blender filled with naked women, as well as Japanese pensioners playing croquet with severed heads. Makoto is said to use pornography to prompt people to look beneath Japan’s calm exterior and examine the darker elements of Japanese culture.
