Suppression of Freedom of the Press through the Conspiracy Law

What Comes Next?

Four months after it took effect, the new Act on Punishment for Preparation of Acts of Terrorism and Other Organized Crimes or Conspiracy Law is proving right the fears expressed by a number of people earlier in the year that once passed, this law will be very open to abuse people’s civil and political rights.

We, members of Kilusan, an anti-imperialist democratic movement in the Philippines and the People’s Campaign Against Tyranny express our deepest concern over the terrifying effect of this supposedly anti-terrorism law that allows preemptive arrest, detention and punishment of persons planning or preparing any of the 227 crimes in a list.

Last November 21, Japanese security forces clamped down on the Jinmin People’s News in Osaka. Without any warrant from proper authorities, they entered the house of its editor in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, 7:00 am, ransacked the entire house, confiscated his personal belongings, including computers and cell phones arrested the editor and took him to the Ikuta police station of the Hyogo prefectural police.

The raid of the People’s News press office followed at 9:00 am.  Over 20 police officers surrounded the office and as soon as a staff member showed up for work, the police started the search inside the office.  They neither allowed the newspaper staff to use their phones nor use to take photos.  As the office was located in a residential building, they frisked and interrogated all the residents and inspected their units.  The police confiscated their personal computers and the list of their subscribers. They held the editor incommunicado for several days.

This clampdown on a legitimate community newspaper that provides Japanese working people a venue for critical views that otherwise would not see print in the millionaire-controlled mainstream media in Japan is therefore a clearly means gagging the Japanese common man.

This attack and the similar instances in Tokyo must be sending shivers down Japanese people’s spines.  With the Conspiracy law that the Diet classifies as preemptive, ordinary people can easily be targeted and be accused of planning a crime.  Social critics can easily become victims of tyranny of a state that is increasingly becoming autocratic and militaristic again.

We call on all human rights advocates and democrats all over of the world to speak out and campaign against the rising militarism in Japan and call on the Japanese government to reverse this track, uphold democracy and freedom. The Japanese ruling elite cannot, and should not be allowed to revisit its fascist past that caused widespread suffering to the people of Asia, including their own people, and for decades left its stigma on the Japanese people.

Stop the rising militarism in Japan and in the world!

We call for the release and indemnification of all those unjustly victimized.