Integrating SDF intelligence security units similar to prewar MP cannot be allowed

Japan Press Weekly

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

Integrating SDF intelligence security units similar to prewar MP cannot be allowed:

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The government is intent on forcing through a bill to revise the Law for the Establishment of the Defense Ministry in the upcoming Extraordinary Session of the Diet, a bill which it failed to get enacted in the previous session of the Diet.

The bill includes a provision to establish an “SDF intelligence security unit” by consolidating the three existing units in the Ground, Maritime, and Air Self-Defense forces.

The Defense Ministry explains that the new SDF security unit is necessary to prevent SDF information leaks and thwart foreign espionage against the Japanese SDF. However, this would allow SDF surveillance of citizens in violation of the constitutional freedom of expression and speech.

Last year, it was revealed that SDF intelligence security units had been spying on the public. They have long been monitoring and watching the activities of citizens, who were anti-war and were calling for better living conditions when demonstrating outside of SDF bases.

This naturally gave rise to a sense of crisis among the public because it was taken as a revival of military police that drove the nation into war of aggression while placing the public under strict surveillance and repression.

In June 2007, the Japanese Communist Party obtained and revealed some internal documents of the Ground Self-Defense Force showing how a GSDF unit had been illegally gathering information on activities of ordinary citizens as well as social movements and opposition parties, including the JCP, in flagrant violation of the constitutional basic human rights.

One document reports on the domestic movement in opposition to the SDF dispatch to Iraq. This is a manifestation of the arrogance of the SDF trampling on the Constitution.

The Defense Ministry is publicly hostile to public criticism and is even asserting that such monitoring is necessary.

Then Defense Minister Kyuma Fumio stated, “There is nothing wrong with the SDF collecting information in public spaces” (at the House of Councilors Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting on June 7, 2007).

Kyuma’s statement conflicts with the stated government view that the SDF’s investigation unit (which was later reorganized into the SDF intelligence security unit) is “allowed to carry out activities only when many people gathering in front of an SDF base were about to enter the base” (Kubo Takuya, Defense Bureau director at the House of Councilors Cabinet Committee meeting on September 26, 1973).

The strong inclination of the SDF to increase surveillance of the public is deeply linked with the move to increase the operational capabilities of the Japan-U.S. military alliance for further overseas missions. We must stop the government from suppressing public criticism in order to promote wars abroad.

-Akahata, August 13, 2008