Drawing from Who Turned Asahi Shimbun into This by Hiroshi Hasegawa and Kiyoshi Nagae, this article examines facts sidelined by newsroom deference to “the mood,” tracing a chain that leads to UNESCO recommendations and hate-speech legislation.

The “pacifist” who roared, “Take up arms and fight together with the Chinese people.”
2016-12-25
A book that all employees of NHK, the two Okinawan newspapers, and all Okinawans who subscribe to those papers must read is Who Turned Asahi Shimbun into This, co-authored by Hiroshi Hasegawa and Kiyoshi Nagae, WAC Bunko, 920 yen, first edition issued on December 17, 2016.
It is required reading for them above all.
And it is an urgent task.
Because I am convinced it is the only way for them to realize the wrongs they have committed.
For their sake, and for the world, I will introduce a passage.
This is from an essay by Kiyoshi Nagae.
“The pacifist who roared, ‘Take up arms and fight together with the Chinese people.’”
That said, I am hardly in a position to criticize others.
I did not write lies, but there were many matters I neither pursued nor attempted to pursue, out of deference to “the mood of society and the newsroom.”
In the mid-1990s, there was also a case in which an acquaintance, a former activist of Chongryon, tried to introduce me to a friend.
At that time, whenever something occurred between Japan and North Korea, incidents continued in which the chima jeogori uniforms of female students attending Korean schools were slashed with knives.
One day, the acquaintance began speaking as if unburdened.
“We have to stop that kind of thing now. It’s staged using one’s own daughter. The girl’s father was the man sitting next to me in Chongryon. Whenever something happens in the North, the clothes of that man’s daughters are cut. It appears only in Asahi, and I even know the reporter writing it. I called my friend last night and said, ‘Your daughter is pitiful.’ He promised, ‘I’ll stop.’ Do you want to meet him?”
“I’m fine,” I replied immediately.
If it led to a clash over publication, it was clear I would end up leaving the company.
My heart kept pounding, but the material was too sad, and fortunately my resistance to not writing it was weak.
More than twenty years have passed since then.
In the meantime, the unimaginable crime of abductions between Japan and North Korea came to light, yet I have not had to see articles about the uniforms of Korean schoolgirls being slashed.
To be continued.
My readers should all recall my earlier essays.
For some reason, organizations unknown to most Japanese gather in front of Korean schools and hurl abuse through loudspeakers.
A Democratic Party lawmaker such as Mr. Arita appears.
So-called human-rights lawyers report matters to UNESCO.
Perhaps two female lawyers take center stage.
Eventually, UNESCO issues human-rights recommendations to Japan.
This affair even led to hate-speech legislation.
My assertion that this was a staged outcome appears, once again, to have been one hundred percent correct.