Written on May 3, 2019, this essay examines the essence of the NHK program alteration controversy through the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, VAWW-NET Japan, Asahi Shimbun’s false reporting, and links to North Korea.
Through the realities of the production process, false internal accusations, and the scheme to bring down politicians, it exposes the grave corruption of public broadcasting and a major national newspaper.

2019-05-03
In light of the Broadcast Act, this matter alone involving the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal is serious enough that NHK would not have escaped even a suspension of broadcasting.

The following is a chapter I published on 2018-04-15, and it is now overwhelmingly in first place in goo’s real-time search top ten.
The following continues from the previous chapter.
And there is an incident that the Asahi Shimbun must absolutely never be allowed to forget, namely the false reporting in the NHK program alteration scandal.
In 2001, NHK aired a program called the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,” in which Emperor Shōwa and others were treated as defendants, condemned one-sidedly by citizens without legal counsel, and judged in the form of a people’s tribunal as “Hirohito is guilty, and the Japanese government bears state responsibility.”
At the stage when it had been produced and shown in a preview to the department head, the content was so excessively biased that the responsible department head flew into a rage, saying things such as, “As it is, this is out.
(It cannot be broadcast.)”
“This is not what the proposal was.”
“You people trapped me.”
He immediately ordered that it be revised.
Then, when the revised version was shown to the responsible department head three days later, it was hardly changed at all, and so he again exploded in anger, saying, “It hasn’t changed at all!”
“(You call this a trial,) but this is a fixed game!”
The department head then presented a revision plan and again instructed them to make corrections.
On the instructions of the responsible department head that including opposing views might allow them to avoid violating the Broadcast Act, they hurriedly arranged an appointment with Diet member Shinzō Abe on January 26, explained the contents of this mock trial, and recorded an interview on January 28.
However, at the bureau director-level preview on January 29, because of the terrible nature of the content, Chairman Ebisawa and Broadcasting Bureau Director Matsuo issued an operational order for further revision.
And after completing the revisions overnight,
(though in truth there was not even time to preview it, so it was simply sent straight to broadcast,)
on January 30 it was aired as part of the ETV Special series, “How Should War Be Judged, Night Two: Wartime Sexual Violence on Trial,” under the title “The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery.”
In other words, various problems were occurring before and after the 2001 broadcast.
The Asahi Shimbun moved only later, in 2005.
That was the year after 2004, when Prime Minister Abe, then Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, had supported Koizumi’s visit to North Korea, North Korea admitted the abduction of Japanese citizens, and the return of five abductee family members was realized.
On January 12, 2005, the Asahi Shimbun carried the following headline:
“NHK ‘Comfort Women’ Program Altered.
Nakagawa Akira and Abe Pointed Out ‘Bias in Content’ to Executives the Day Before.”
It reported that Shōichi Nakagawa and Shinzō Abe had intervened in NHK’s program production.
The reporter who wrote it was Honda Masakazu.
Then, in perfect coordination, on the day after this article appeared in the Asahi Shimbun, Nagai Akira, chief producer in NHK’s program production bureau, made an internal accusation, claiming that Abe and Nakagawa, having learned the program content while it was still in production, had exerted pressure on the production process.
However, Ebisawa was still chairman at that time, and NHK had not yet been completely taken over by the NHK labor union as it is now, so NHK conducted an internal investigation.
As a result, it was found that Shōichi Nakagawa had met NHK executives three days after the broadcast, among other things, and that chief producer Nagai Akira’s internal accusation was a fabrication.
Yet Nagai Akira, seeking to eliminate Chairman Ebisawa along with the rest, argued as though Chairman Ebisawa had also known the facts and was colluding with Abe.
Furthermore, producer Nagata Kōzō testified that Shinzō Abe had summoned the broadcasting bureau director in advance and said, “You will not get away with this.
Read between the lines,” and, in coordination with the Asahi Shimbun article, moved to bring down Shōichi Nakagawa and Shinzō Abe by any means necessary.
The Asahi Shimbun’s article was false, but so too were the testimonies and internal accusations of Nagai and Nagata.
The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal was organized by VAWW-NET Japan, and VAWW-NET Japan was a group founded by Matsui Yayori, a former editorial writer for the Asahi Shimbun.
And VAWW-NET Japan was a group extremely close to North Korea, with claims that were like a carbon copy of North Korean claims.
It was also a group that sought unification led by the North.
Two of those who played the role of prosecutor in the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, Hwang Ho-nam and Chŏng Nam-yong, were individuals identified as North Korean agents.
In particular, Hwang Ho-nam had been Kim Il-sung’s interpreter on the Kanemaru visit-to-North-Korea delegation 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 site of program production.
Put simply, the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal was anti-Japanese propaganda by North Korea.
And at the very place where it was being produced, even a high-ranking official of the North Korean government was present.
I think you can see how pitch-black
(or rather, red…)
NHK’s production floor was.
The NHK producer Ikeda Eriko, who had the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, this North Korean propaganda program, aired, was one of the founders of VAWW-NET Japan and also a member of the operating committee of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.
In other words, she used her own position to have broadcast as a special program a political movement, namely North Korea’s anti-Japanese propaganda, being carried out by an organization she herself had created.
In light of the Broadcast Act, this matter alone involving the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal is serious enough that NHK would not have escaped even a suspension of broadcasting.
Furthermore, there was Nagai Akira, who made his internal accusation in tandem with the Asahi Shimbun article.
And there was Asahi Shimbun reporter Honda Masakazu, who wrote the fabricated article as though it were a scoop.
Both men had participated in the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.
In other words, all of those involved in trying to bring down Shinzō Abe and Shōichi Nakagawa
were insiders of VAWW-NET Japan.
Let me return the discussion a little here.
If one writes very roughly what the NHK program alteration issue was, it was this:
people connected with VAWW-NET Japan tried to use public broadcasting as their private tool to air an anti-Japanese propaganda program they had created together with North Korea, this became a major problem within NHK, and even so they forced through the broadcast of something extreme in content, which developed into a matter serious enough that politicians themselves came to question the circumstances.
They had intended to create a massive social boom through anti-Japanese propaganda in exactly the form they wanted,
(that is, in an even more one-sidedly anti-Japanese form,)
but it did not work.
I would like to consider this from another angle.
When North Korea’s economy got into serious trouble, for some reason Japan’s Chōsen banks would also find themselves in management trouble.
(I think the reason is obvious even without writing it out.)
And when the Chōsen banks collapsed, Hiromu Nonaka poured in massive subsidies
and rescued them.
This rush of Chōgin failures had begun in 1998, a period when North Korea was being driven into a very tight corner.
The program in question was broadcast on January 30, 2001, against precisely that background.
The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal had ended without being able to create any social boom because its content was far too beyond the bounds of normality, and as propaganda it had produced results that could hardly be called a success.
But as is, I think, a habitual trait of Japan’s leftists, they do not consider that the cause of failure lies with themselves.
I suspect that those connected with VAWW-NET Japan also did not want simply to let the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal be treated as a failure and passed over.
Then North Korea, once again economically cornered, admitted the abduction of Japanese citizens and allowed only five of them to make a temporary return to Japan, but it is reasonable to see this as having been done in order to obtain economic assistance.
At the time, Tanaka Hitoshi of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had arranged for the abductees to be quickly returned to North Korea and for Japan to provide North Korea with economic assistance, so, as was reported to some extent, he became furious at Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe’s decision not to send the five temporarily returned victims back to the North and lodged complaints over it.
Tanaka Hitoshi, who was in a close relationship with North Korea.
This manuscript will continue.