Legal threats and compensation demands directed at critics raise concerns about press freedom and open debate.
Drawing on Kadota Ryusho’s experience, this text examines how legal pressure can be used to silence criticism and what it means for freedom of expression in Japan.

I felt this way because I myself had experienced a similar “threat” from the Asahi four years earlier.
2018-01-29.
The following is from a serialized column by Kadota Ryusho published at the front of this month’s issue of the monthly magazine HANADA.
The “Asahi Shimbun” has already been defeated.
Thinking that its “institutional nature” never changes, I read the news that the Asahi Shimbun had filed a lawsuit against literary critic Ogawa Eitaro and Asuka Shinsha, seeking 50 million yen in damages and the publication of an apology advertisement.
I felt this way because I myself had experienced a similar “threat” from the Asahi four years earlier.
Needless to say, freedom of speech and expression are among the most important principles for a modern democratic state.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is a famous statement attributed to Voltaire, the French historian and man of letters.
No matter how different one’s views may be from our own, and even if they are mistaken, those opinions must be respected.
That is freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
In June 2014, four years earlier, I wrote a detailed critique explaining that the Asahi’s reporting on the “Yoshida testimony” was erroneous and why it was so.
However, in response to that article, I received a protest letter from the Asahi stating, “This severely damages the honor and credibility of the Asahi Shimbun as a media organization, and we demand correction and an apology. If a sincere response is not taken, we will consider legal action.”
Two months later, in August of the same year, when I published a similar critique in a newspaper, I received almost the same protest letter again.
It amounted to nothing less than the threat: “Be silent. If you do not remain silent, we will drag you into court.”
I waited to see what kind of rebuttal the Asahi would present against my critique.
However, rather than responding to commentary with commentary, the Asahi chose instead to dangle the prospect of damages and attempt to suppress speech.
I felt both anger and a certain sadness that fellow members of the journalistic profession, who work under the banner of freedom of expression, sought not to respect it but to trample upon it.
As the subsequent course of events is widely known, I will refrain from describing it in detail.