Don't suppress human rights under 'defending rights' pretext: JCP

The Japanese Communist Party in parliament on April 24 demanded that the government retract a bill ostensibly to "protect human rights," saying that it includes provisions restricting the freedom of media access.

By establishing a "human rights committee" as an affiliate body of the Justice Ministry, the bill not only calls for measures to relieve victims of human rights violations such as racial discrimination and abuses, but also restricts media activities if the committee determines they have violated human rights.

Inoue Satoshi (JCP) pointed out that the secretariat of the committee will include Justice Ministry Civil Liberties Bureau staff members, and personnel exchanges will be made between the committee and the ministry. "Such a committee can't be a body independent from the government," he stated.

The bill allows the committee to determine whether press coverage is 'excessive' or not, while robbing the press of the right to raise any objection to the judgment. This contradicts the Constitution's Article 21 guaranteeing the freedom of expression, amounting to an undemocratic intervention by the government, Inoue insisted.

If such a bill is enacted, it will help the government hush up political scandals and human rights violation by the use of state power, said the JCP lawmaker.

As an exception of measures for various discriminations, the bill omits dealing with discriminatory corporate management measures against workers and places them under the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare management.

Inoue demanded that such an exclusion be retracted because the human rights committee should be independent from the government to keep an eye on corporations and carry out on-spot inspections of their offices so that workers whose rights were denied will be relieved immediately. (end)