Japan secrecy act stirs fears about press freedom, right to know
Source: Reuters
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government is planning a state secrets act that critics say could curtail public access to information on a wide range of issues, including tensions with China and the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
The new law would dramatically expand the definition of official secrets and journalists convicted under it could be jailed for up to five years.
Japan's harsh state secrecy regime before and during World War Two has long made such legislation taboo, but the new law looks certain to be enacted since Abe's Liberal Democratic Party-led bloc has a comfortable majority in both houses of parliament and the opposition has been in disarray since he came to power last December.
Critics see parallels between the new law and Abe's drive to revise Japan's U.S.-drafted, post-war constitution to stress citizen's duties over civil rights, part of a conservative agenda that includes a stronger military and recasting Japan's wartime history with a less apologetic tone.
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"This may very well be Abe's true intention - cover-up of mistaken state actions regarding the Fukushima disaster and/or the necessity of nuclear power," said Sophia University political science professor Koichi Nakano.
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Read more: http://www.newsdaily.com/world/e466e4755f527f25d331e851132684ce/japan-secrecy-act-stirs-fears-about-press-freedom-right-to-know
Uncle Joe
(58,366 posts)Thanks for the thread, bananas.
bananas
(27,509 posts)Special Report - The deeper agenda behind "Abenomics"
By Linda Sieg, Yuko Yoshikawa and Tetsushi Kajimoto
TOKYO | Fri May 24, 2013 8:03am IST
(Reuters) - When ill health and political gridlock forced Shinzo Abe to quit after one dismal year as Japan's prime minister, his pride was dented and his self-confidence battered.
One thing, however, was intact: his commitment to a controversial conservative agenda centered on rewriting Japan's constitution. Conservatives see the 1947 pacifist charter, never once altered, as embodying a liberal social order imposed by the U.S. Occupation after Japan's defeat in World War Two.
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Abe's unlikely comeback was engineered by a corps of politicians who called themselves the "True Conservatives," many of whom share his commitment to loosening constitutional constraints on the military and restoring traditional values such as group harmony and pride in Japanese culture and history.
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In the spring of 2012, Abe's allies prepared for a run at the LDP presidency. Much of the groundwork was laid by the True Conservatives Association, now renamed Sosei Japan (Japan Rebirth).
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The special report is also in pdf format: http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/13/05/JapanAbe.pdf
The pdf has some extra graphics and might be easier to read than the "wall-of-text" html format.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)They will be more worried about trying to salvage some small part of the country.
Truly unfortunate whats going to happen.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Open letter to the Queen: Don't sign press charter and give enemies of free speech licence for repression
25 Oct 2013 00:00
Worldwide press groups have warned that the toxic Royal Charter could lead to a muzzling of the press worldwide
The proposed charter would create a recognition panel to oversee a new independent press self-regulation system.
Any newspapers which failed to sign up to regulators endorsed by the panel would leave themselves open to huge exemplary damages in court cases.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/open-letter-queen-dont-sign-2528665
bananas
(27,509 posts)puking is natures way of eliminating toxic stuff ...
Berlin Expat
(950 posts)for TEPCO's attempt to remove nuclear fuel rods from the Fukushima site.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/24-3
AndyTiedye
(23,500 posts)Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)Not only would Japanese freedom be curtailed and open the door to resurgent authoritarianism, but it would complicate our relationship with them at a time when we're trying to build a stronger alliance to contain China. The other members of the alliance wouldn't tolerate a bellicose, re-militarized Japan, and nationalist elements within Japan despise our presence in the country.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)It is not yet an "act" (="law" -- right now it is still just a bill. It will be deliberated in the Japanese Diet (Parliament) this week.
Here's a summary (in Japanese) and call to action.
http://www.labornetjp.org/news/2013/1383568679135staff01