November 4, 2025

A reporter of the Akahata Sunday Edition who revealed “Nippon Ishin no Kai” co-head Fujita Fumitake’s alleged misuse of public funds has been hit with online harassment by Fujita. As the co-head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s coalition partner, Fujita’s act is tantamount to intimidating watchdog journalism into silence.

The digital version of the Sunday Akahata on October 29 distributed an article reporting that Fujita had paid about 20 million yen in public funds, including government subsidies to political parties, to a company headed by his first state-funded secretary, and that the company had paid to the secretary 7.2 million yen per year as executive compensation.

Soon after the distribution of the article, Ishin co-head Fujita on his X account posted an image of the Sunday Akahata reporter’s business card he received when interviewed. The image contains personally identifiable information (PII) of the reporter, such as the name, the department, undisclosed direct phone number and fax number of the Sunday Akahata head office, and the reporter’s partially obscured e-mail address.

The posting of the business card image by Fujita has caused much trouble for the Akahata Sunday edition head office. For example, repeated calls for the reporter came in to the head office’s direct line and the number of junk mails sent to the reporter’s e-mail address reached 1,800 as of November 1.

As the business card image remained posted on Fujita’s X account as of November 3, the Akahata Sunday edition head office urged Fujita to delete the image from his X account without delay and offer an apology.

Waseda University Professor in the field of journalism Sawa Yasuomi in an Akahata interview said that journalists obtain information by revealing their names and contact details on their business cards. Explaining that an act of releasing someone’s PII on the Internet for the purpose of harassment is called “doxing”, the professor said that if Fujita carries out doxing with the aim of putting pressure on the Sunday Akahata reporter, his act will constitute unjustifiable interference with political activities and free speech.

Furthermore, Sawa said that considering that reporters’ main role is to inform the public, to suppress them will have negative impacts on the public.