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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

DPJ leader acknowledges unauthentic e-mail message being used to question LDP

Democratic Party of Japan President Maehara Seiji on February 28 acknowledged that DPJ lawmaker Nagata Hisayasu had used an e-mail message that was not authentic to try to expose a cozy relationship between a senior Liberal Democratic Party official's son and the Livedoor President at the time, Horie Takafumi, who was arrested on charges of violating the Securities and Exchange Law.

The DPJ approved the resignation of Noda Yoshihiko as its Diet Affairs Committee chair for causing confusion in the Diet.

DPJ House of Representatives member Nagata Hisayasu in a Lower House committee meeting on February 16 showed the e-mail message allegedly from then Livedoor President Horie instructing the company to send 30 million yen to the second son of LDP Secretary General Takebe Tsutomu.

The names of the sender and the recipient were blacked out in the copy, but the DPJ leaders had allowed Nagata to use it in his questioning of the LDP in the Diet.

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Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi on February 27 said: "No party must attack other parties based on uncertain evidence. In the Diet, the JCP uses pieces of information provided by outsiders only after confirming their authenticity. There is no justification for opposition parties to use 'soft' evidence. The question is how a political party should behave ethically."

Ichida was referring to past JCP experiences.

The JCP in the Diet recently exposed an e-mail message the Defense Facilities Administration Agency sent out to put pressure on local governments to accept U.S. military realignment plans. In the past, showing declassified U.S. documents, the JCP in the Diet six times questioned the secret Japan-U.S. arrangements allowing U.S. nuclear weapons to be brought into Japan. In all cases, the JCP used the materials only after they were proven to be 100 percent genuine and the JCP was convinced that disclosing them was in the public interest.
- Akahata, March 1, 2006