Tracing the background of NHK’s 2001 program on the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal” and the 2005 Asahi Shimbun reporting on the so-called “NHK program alteration issue,” this essay examines VAWW-NET Japan, its ties to North Korea, internal accusations, fabricated reporting, and the broader campaign aimed at Shinzo Abe and Shoichi Nakagawa.
Through the program’s extreme bias, the false claims of Asahi reporters and NHK producers, and the involvement of North Korean officials, it critically portrays a structure in which anti-Japan propaganda was advanced through both public broadcasting and a major national newspaper.

2019-03-22
Hitoshi Tanaka and his close ties to North Korea.

This is the chapter I published in 2018-04 under the title,
Moreover, producer Kozo Nagata testified that Shinzo Abe had called in the head of broadcasting in advance and said, “This will not end for free. Read between the lines.”
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
And there is one incident that the Asahi Shimbun must absolutely never be allowed to forget: the false reporting on the NHK program alteration issue.
In 2001, NHK aired a program called the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,” in which Emperor Showa and others were treated as defendants and unilaterally condemned by citizens without defense counsel….
It was a people’s-trial-style project in which “Hirohito is guilty, and the Japanese government bears state responsibility” was the judgment.
When the completed program was shown in a preview to the department head, the content was found to be far too extremely biased….
The responsible department head angrily said things like, “This is out of the question as it is. It cannot be broadcast,” “This is different from the original proposal,” and “You people set me up,” and immediately ordered revisions.
Then, when the revised version was shown to the department head three days later, it had hardly changed at all.
“It hasn’t changed at all!”
“If you call this a trial, then it is just a fixed match!”
He again grew furious, proposed his own corrections, and ordered another round of revisions.
Based on the department head’s instruction that including opposing views might make it possible to avoid violating the Broadcasting Act….
They urgently made an appointment with Diet member Shinzo Abe on January 26, explained the content of the mock trial, and recorded an interview on January 28.
However, at the bureau-level preview on January 29….
Chairman Ebisawa and Broadcasting Bureau Chief Matsuo issued an operational order for yet another revision because of how awful the content was.
And after completing the revisions overnight.
Though in truth there was no time left to preview it, so it was simply sent straight to broadcast.
On January 30 it aired as the ETV Special series “How Should War Be Judged? Part Two: Wartime Sexual Violence Under Question,” under the title “The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery.”
In other words, all kinds of problems were occurring before and after the 2001 broadcast.
It was after this that the Asahi Shimbun moved, in 2005.
The year after 2004, when Abe, then Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, supported Koizumi’s visit to North Korea….
And North Korea admitted the abduction of Japanese nationals, and the return of five abductee family members to Japan was realized.
On January 12, 2005, the Asahi Shimbun ran the headline,
“NHK ‘Comfort Women’ Program Altered. Nakagawa and Abe Call in Executives the Day Before and Point Out ‘Bias in Content,’”
reporting that Shoichi Nakagawa and Shinzo Abe had intervened in NHK’s program production.
The reporter who wrote it was Masakazu Honda.
And in perfect coordination, the day after the Asahi article appeared, NHK program production bureau chief producer Akira Nagai made an internal accusation, claiming that Abe and Nakagawa, having learned the content of the program while it was still in production, had pressured the program makers.
However, because Ebisawa was still chairman and NHK had not yet been completely taken over by the NHK labor union as it is now, NHK conducted an internal investigation.
As a result, it became clear that Nakagawa had met NHK executives three days after the broadcast, among other things, and that chief producer Akira Nagai’s internal accusation had been a fabrication.
Yet Nagai then tried to take down Chairman Ebisawa as well, claiming as though Ebisawa knew the facts and was colluding with Abe.
Furthermore, producer Kozo Nagata testified that Shinzo Abe had called in the broadcasting chief beforehand and said, “This will not end for free. Read between the lines,” and sought at all costs to bring down Shoichi Nakagawa and Shinzo Abe….
In other words, he moved in tandem with the Asahi article.
The Asahi Shimbun’s article was false, and the testimony and internal accusations of Nagai and Nagata were false as well.
The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal had been organized by VAWW-NET Japan, a group founded by former Asahi Shimbun editorial writer Yayori Matsui.
And VAWW-NET Japan was extremely close to North Korea….
It was also a group whose claims resembled a carbon copy of North Korean claims.
It was also an organization that sought unification under North Korean leadership.
Two of those who served as prosecutors in the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, Hwang Ho-nam and Jeong Nam-yong, were people recognized as North Korean agents.
In particular, Hwang Ho-nam had been Kim Il-sung’s interpreter during the Kanemaru delegation’s visit to North Korea, and was also a North Korean high-ranking official who sat in as interpreter during Koizumi’s visit to North Korea.
In other words, a North Korean high official had directly entered the very site of program production.
To put it simply, the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal was anti-Japan propaganda by North Korea.
And not only that, even a North Korean government high official was present at the very site where it was being produced.
I think this shows the pitch-blackness of NHK’s production floor.
Or rather, perhaps, its redness….
The NHK producer Eriko Ikeda, who had this North Korean propaganda program, the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, broadcast, was both a founding member of VAWW-NET Japan and a member of the tribunal’s operating committee.
In other words, she used her own position to have a special program broadcast for a political movement of North Korean anti-Japan propaganda being carried out by a group she herself had helped create.
In light of the Broadcasting Act, NHK could well have had its broadcasting license suspended over the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal issue alone.
Furthermore, Akira Nagai, who made an internal accusation in line with the Asahi article.
And Asahi reporter Masakazu Honda, who wrote the fabricated article as a scoop.
Both men had participated in the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.
In other words, all those involved in trying to bring down Shinzo Abe and Shoichi Nakagawa were insiders of VAWW-NET Japan.
Returning for a moment to the main point, if one writes the NHK program alteration issue in extremely rough terms, it is this: people connected with VAWW-NET Japan attempted, together with North Korea, to use public broadcasting as private property in order to air an anti-Japan propaganda program they had created, this became a major internal NHK scandal, and even though they still forced through an extremely one-sided program, the matter developed to the point that politicians came to question the circumstances.
They wanted the content exactly as they desired.
That is, a far more one-sided, anti-Japan-only content.
They intended to create a huge social boom as anti-Japan propaganda….
But it did not go well.
Let me consider it from another angle.
When North Korea became economically desperate….
For some reason, Japanese Chosen banks also entered management crises.
I think the reason does not need to be written out.
And when the Chosen banks collapsed, Hiromu Nonaka poured in large subsidies to rescue them….
This rush of Chogin collapses began in 1998, when North Korea was under considerable pressure.
The problematic program was broadcast against that background, on January 30, 2001.
The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal was far too aberrant in content to create any social boom, and as propaganda it ended in a result that could hardly be called a success at all….
But it may be said to be the habit of the Japanese left not to think the cause of failure lies with themselves….
And I think the people connected with VAWW-NET Japan likewise did not want simply to let the failure of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal pass as a failure and move on.
And then, when North Korea was once again cornered economically, it admitted abducting Japanese citizens and allowed only five to return temporarily to Japan, which may be seen as having been done in order to obtain economic aid.
At the time, Foreign Ministry official Hitoshi Tanaka had arranged things on the premise that the abductees would promptly be returned to North Korea and that Japan would provide economic aid to North Korea, so it was reported to a certain extent that he was furious and lodged complaints over Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe’s decision not to send the five temporarily returned abductees back to the North.
Hitoshi Tanaka and his close ties to North Korea.
This article will continue.