World United News: Fukushima cover up

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Japan Becomes a Fascist State

Japan's controversial state secrets bill passes upper house

Video Source

In Japan, thousands of people have held a demonstration to denounce the government's decision to enact a state-secrets law to toughen penalties for whistleblowers and journalists.

Thousands of protesters, who braved Tokyo's cold weather, gathered across from the parliament building, chanting anti-government slogans. Under the state-secrets law, anyone who leaks information about the Fukushima nuclear disaster or the country's tense relations with China could face a long prison sentence. Journalists and others in the private sector convicted of encouraging such leaks would be put behind bars up to five years if they use inappropriate means to solicit the information. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said the law is needed to persuade allies like the U-S to share intelligence. The ratification of the law came as a worldwide debate on secrecy is underway, sparked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden's leaks of classified documents.

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Japan enacts controversial state secrets law

News Source: Russia Today

Japan has enacted a new law to increase punishment for leaks, despite growing worries that the state-secrets law will erode press freedoms.

Last week Japan’s lower house of parliament gave the greenlight to the new legislation, which counts the support of conservative prime minister Shinzo Abe, who has said the measure is necessary to combat the leak of state secrets.

Abe and members of his cabinet have said that the law will help mend the government’s reputation for leaks and facilitate the sharing of intelligence with the US.

"We think that this law is extremely important for our connections with our allies and other foreign nations," said chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga. "I believe that people will come to understand."

According to a survey by Asahi Shimbun 61 percent of Japanese voters believe the law is “problematic,” and it has garnered the opposition of the media, publishers and the country’s lawyers. Opposition parties even mounted a challenge to the new bill, which was passed during a late-night session of the country’s upper chamber.

Members of the opposition raised motions to stop or delay the law but were overruled by members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its allies.

The new law enacts harsher sentences for public servants and others with access to sensitive national information, and could lead to jail terms of up to ten years. Meanwhile, journalists in the country could face up to five years imprisonment if the state determines the use of “grossly inappropriate” means to acquire state secrets.

Officials in Japan’s ministries will now be given the authority to designate state secrets in four categories: defense, diplomacy, counterterrorism and counterespionage. Such a classification will allow information be kept secret for up to 60 years or longer.

Still, opposition to the new legislation has come from a wide variety of sectors. Takao Takeda, a Buddhist monk and the secretary of the multi-faith organization Shukyosha Kyujo-no-wa, said that the bill echoed Japan’s authoritarian past.

"The bill being discussed now seems very similar to the Public Order Preservation Law" enacted in 1925, Takeda told AFP. That law enabled Imperial Japan to arrest anyone who voiced a dissenting view against the government, said Takeda.

"It is important to protect people's rights to know given our history and the way information was hidden in (World War II) and the fact that the government was not very open in the face of the [Fukushima] nuclear crisis."

Likewise, Japan’s media has also protested the new law.

"It is a threat to democracy," said Keiichi Kiriyama, editorial writer of the Tokyo Shimbun. The state-secrets law would "have a chilling effect on public servants who could become wary about giving the information" sought by journalists, he added.

Prime Minister Abe has said that the law is necessary to bolster the country’s security, in tandem with the creation of a new National Securities Council and cooperation with the US amid concerns over China’s growing military projection.

Critics worry that the new legislation lacks checks and balances as to how the state will define a secret, while Abe has said that his government will set up panels to legitimize that process.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Japanese Govt rams state secrets bill through lower house to cover up Nuclear Disasters at Fukushima

UPDATED: 2013 Nov 27th

Fukushiro Nukaga (top R), chairman of the lower house special committee, is surrounded by opposition lawmakers during a vote on a state secrets act at the parliament in Tokyo November 26, 2013. (Reuters/Toru Hanai)

Source: Russia Today

Japan’s lower house has passed a heavy-handed state secrets act despite fears that it will have severe repercussions for state freedoms. Officials will now face a maximum punishment of ten years in prison if they are found to have leaked to the press.

Japan’s Diet (parliament) passed the bill, which is aimed at expanding the definition of a state secret and place increasing penalties upon anyone deemed a leaker. The move will apparently prevent media accessing information on four sensitive areas: defense, diplomacy, counter-terrorism and counter-espionage.

The information will be further divided into 23 types. Top officials from all departments would have the power to declare issues ‘secret’. The ‘secrets’ could then be kept classified for up to 60 years.

Journalists and other private sector parties could also receive up to five years imprisonment if they are found to be using ‘grossly inappropriate’ means to acquire information.

Such restrictions could spill over into the nuclear industry. The topic is particularly sensitive in the face of March 2011’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, which drove over 160,000 residents from their homes.

“Information on the vulnerability of nuclear power plants could be classified as special secrets, along with plans on how to guard the plants,” Yutaka Saito, a lawyer and a member of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' task force on the bill, told Reuters

Protesters raise their fists as they shout slogans during a rally against the government's planned state secrets act in front of the parliament building in Tokyo November 26, 2013. (Reuters/Toru Hanai)

“If so, anyone who has blown the whistle from the inside to warn of the danger of nuclear power plants will be punished,”Saito said.

The bill was adopted through majority vote by the ruling coalition after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), New Komeito, and the Opposition Your Party all agreed to revisions last week to gain the votes of small conservative opposition parties.

The move comes despite overwhelming public opposition, and after members of opposition parties - including the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the Japan Restoration Party, the Japanese Communist Party and the People's Life Party – said that insufficient debate had been conducted prior to the vote. Critics allege that changes to the bill were merely cosmetic, and requested that it not be brought to vote. Regardless, the legislation was approved after only a few hours worth of delay.

Nearly 63 percent of respondents to a Kyodo news agency survey expressed concerns about the bill last week, and its discussion triggered protests by hundreds of people outside of parliament on Tuesday. Thousands gathered in a Tokyo park the previous week to rally against the bill.

“We revised the proposal as much as possible to address the concerns held by the public,” Gen Nakatani, an LDP director, said following the vote, while Atsushi Oshima, a DPJ director declared that it had been a “defeat for the legislative branch.”

The bill has now been sent to the Diet’s Upper House for consideration, where it will likely pass without any difficulty. The LDP and its junior partner hold a solid majority in both houses.

“Clearly, there will be a chilling effect on access to a wide range of information,” said Meiji University law professor, Lawrence Repeta, said. “It is clearly aimed at news media to block reporting in a way that may be critical of the government on a wide range of sensitive issues,” he added.

Abe has stated that the law is vital in the development of a US-style National Security Council to coordinate foreign policy and security while negotiating with allies such as the US over the possible sharing of information.

“My biggest concern is that it would be more difficult for the people to see the government's decision-making process,” said Kyouji Yanagisawa, a former defense official who was in charge of national security in the Prime Minister's Office in 2004-2009. “That means we can't check how or where the government made mistakes, or help the government make a wise decision.”

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a lower house special committee on a state secrets act at the parliament in Tokyo November 26, 2013. (Reuters/Toru Hanai)