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NHK producer testifies against LDP politician

In a lawsuit filed by a citizens' organization exposing ruling Liberal Democratic Party interference with public broadcaster NHK's TV programming that led to distorting the contents of the program, an NHK chief producer revealed that NHK had produced a manual for briefing politicians on its programming.

Testifying at the Tokyo High Court on March 22, Nagata Kozo, who had responsibility for the production in the studio, stated that he drafted the manual. He also revealed that the production bureau director cited the name of LDP politician Nakagawa Shoichi (House of Representatives member) as the person who protested about the program NHK was preparing.

Violence Against Women in War-Network Japan (VAWW-NET Japan), a citizens' organization that cooperated with NHK in providing data for a NHK documentary program, filed the lawsuit complaining that an NHK program on wartime sex violence broadcast in January 2003 had been altered due to the Liberal Democratic Party's pressure tactics.

Part two of a series entitled "How Should the War be Brought to Justice? " was about "wartime sex violence." It focused on the "Women's International War Crimes Tribunal" held in 2000, concerning wartime sex slaves.

In the program broadcast, all the scenes that referred to the responsibility of the Japanese government and the military for wartime sex slavery and Emperor Showa (Hirohito)'s responsibility for the war were deleted.

NHK has been arguing that the change in the program is based on its independent judgment and that no political pressure took place and even denied the existence of any note for briefing politicians. However, Nagata's testimony has refuted this position.
- Akahata March 23, 2006