Japan’s Secrecy Policy: Whistleblowers & Journalists Threatened With 10 Year Prison Terms

Posted on December 14, 2014 by RonMamita — 2 Comments

Japan’s Controversial Secrecy Law Comes Into Effect

Under the new law, which cleared parliament in December 2013, information designated as state secrets, pertaining to diplomacy, defense, counterterrorism and counterespionage, can be classified for up to 60 years, with those found guilty of leaking them, including journalists, facing prison terms of up to 10 years.
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“The government is taking the country down a very dangerous path and it’s one that we don’t want to go down as Japan made the same error in history and the outcome was devastating. That’s why we want the government to honor our peace-loving Constitution and scrap these military rules like the secrecy law,” Jun Hasegawa, 23, an engineering student at university and core organizer of the youth group Students Against Secret Protection Law (SASPL), who arranged this evening’s protest, told Xinhua by phone.

“The situation the country is in now is not good, we’ve allowed Abe and his Cabinet far too much freedom to do what they want, and what they want does not reflect what we, the public, wants. There are two completely different agendas,” Hasegawa said.

“In the upcoming election it’s a disgrace that the only option is to vote for Abe and the LDP again and, let’s face it, they’ll likely win. It just makes me sad that we have such limited control over what’s happening in our country, we just have to blindly trust Abe. But this man is an egomaniac, hell-bent on achieving the goals he failed to in his former term as prime minister and more so on being remembered in the future as some kind of warrior for Japan. But for the majority of us, such ignorant Samurai Spirit ideology is something we’ve left in the past and understand that it is completely inappropriate for national politics,” the young student activist said.

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