Japan Press Weekly

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2013 November 6 - 12 [POLITICS]

PM Abe tries to fill NHK top echelons with his friends

Citizens’ groups are protesting against Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s move to appoint his right-wing cronies as members of the management committee of Japan’s sole public broadcaster, NHK.

NHK’s management committee makes decisions on important matters such as its management policy and annual budget, as well as appoints and dismisses its chairperson and members of the board of directors. Members of the committee are appointed by the prime minister after obtaining the approval of the Diet. Five persons in the personnel appointment proposal submitted to the Diet are Abe’s followers.

Hyakuta Naoki, a novelist, one of the five on the list, has repeatedly ridiculed the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. He hit it off with PM Abe in a magazine dialogue regarding the revision of the Constitution. Hasegawa Michiko, a philosopher, is one of the representatives of the right-wing, pro-constitutional revision organization Japan Conference. When the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election was held last year, Hasegawa added her name, along with Hyakuta, to the list of promoters of a civil group backing Abe. Honda Katsuhiko, a senior advisor to Japan Tobacco Inc., was a home tutor for Abe when he was in elementary school.

In 2007, during his first term as prime minister, Abe suddenly replaced the then management committee chair with Komori Shigetaka, the president of FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, in complete disregard of a rule that a chairperson is elected from among the members of the committee. After assuming the position, Komori told NHK staff members to actively promote “national interests” in international broadcasting and to refrain from televising programs dealing with controversial historical issues during national election campaigns. In the meantime, he attended support parties for LDP lawmakers.

In 2001, when Abe was a deputy chief cabinet secretary, he put pressure on NHK executives to change the contents of a special program dealing with Japan’s wartime sex slavery (“comfort women”) system.

Nukina Hatsuko, representing a citizens’ group dealing with the problems of NHK, on October 31 sent to the NHK management committee and the presidents of the Lower and Upper Houses a statement in opposition to the prime minister’s direct involvement in the public broadcaster’s personnel matters. Another group of viewers and listeners issued a similar statement on November 4.