Japan today officially ordered public broadcaster NHK to give airtime to a dispute with rival North Korea on abductions, despite criticism the government was trampling on freedom of speech. Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Yoshihide Suga said he handed over instructions for NHK to choose content in its overseas shortwave radio broadcasts “keeping the abduction issue in mind.”
The move, which is unprecedented in Japan since World War II, comes as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s conservative government ramps up pressure on North Korea after its October 9 test of a nuclear bomb. North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese civilians are an emotionally charged issue in Japan and have prevented the two countries from establishing relations.
But Japan’s opposition and media groups have voiced concern over government intervention in the media. ”I wonder if it’s good to unilaterally force (NHK) to carry the government’s propaganda,” main opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa said earlier. Masao Kimiwada, president of TV Asahi, a private network often seen as politically liberal, said Japan was heading down a slippery slope. ”If this becomes a precedent, it may allow the government to issue orders on other topics,” he said.
But Suga, the minister, said the order was in the public interest. ”Resolving the abduction issue is one of the most important policy goals of Prime Minister Abe’s administration,” he said. The radio broadcasts “will offer hope to the kidnapped people to let them know that their families, their country and its citizens are all working actively to save everyone who is there,” Suga said.
Suga met with NHK chairman Genichi Hashimoto, who said the broadcaster would maintain its overall independence despite the order. ”I told him that we will keep our right to organize programmes as a news organization which holds independence and autonomy.”
NHK was re-established in 1950 to replace its predecessor which aired the government line throughout World War II. NHK - the Japanese initials for Japan Broadcasting Corp - is primarily funded through viewer fees, although the government supports shortwave broadcasts.
Japan’s sole public broadcaster has come under repeated criticism by liberals in recent years. Abe admitted last year before he became Prime Minister that he pressured NHK to tone down a documentary on Japan’s sexual enslavement of foreign “comfort women” during World War II.
The conservative leader rose to public popularity campaigning for a tough line on North Korea, which has admitted kidnapping Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies. North Korea has returned five kidnap victims and their families. Japan believes at least eight more are alive and kept under wraps because they know secrets.
Teruaki Masumoto, whose sister Rumiko was abducted in 1978, welcomed the order to NHK. ”We have asked the government to take any measures available to send messages to the abducted,” he said. “I am a bit bewildered at the criticism that it is against freedom of speech.”
(Source: AFP/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)