Published on August 14, 2019.
This essay examines the NHK program alteration controversy surrounding the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,” focusing on VAWW-NET Japan, The Asahi Shimbun, NHK’s production floor, and their alleged connections with North Korea.
It criticizes the political appropriation of public broadcasting and journalism through the actions of producer Eriko Ikeda, Akira Nagai, Masakazu Honda, Kozo Nagata, the attacks on Shinzo Abe and Shoichi Nakagawa, and the background of the abduction issue and economic aid to North Korea.

August 14, 2019.
NHK producer Eriko Ikeda was a founding member of VAWW-NET Japan and a steering committee member of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
And one story that must never be forgotten when speaking of The Asahi Shimbun is the incident of its false reporting on the NHK program alteration controversy.
In 2001, there was something broadcast on NHK called the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,” in which Emperor Showa and others were made defendants, unilaterally condemned by citizens without lawyers,
and judged in the form of a people’s court, saying, “Hirohito is guilty, and the Japanese government bears state responsibility.”
When the produced version was shown to the department head in a preview, its content was so abnormally biased that
the department head in charge
became furious, saying such things as,
“At this rate it is out of the question,” meaning it could not be broadcast, “This is not what the project was supposed to be,” and “You people trapped me,”
and ordered that it be corrected immediately.
Then, three days later, the corrected version was shown to the department head, but it had hardly changed,
and he again became furious, saying,
“It has not changed at all!” and “Although this calls itself a trial, this is nothing but a fixed race!”
The department head then produced a correction proposal and once again instructed that it be revised.
Following the instruction of the department head, who thought that including opposing views might allow them to avoid violating the Broadcasting Act,
an appointment was hurriedly made with Diet member Shinzo Abe on January 26,
the content of this mock trial was explained to him, and an interview was recorded on January 28.
However, at the bureau-chief-level preview on January 29,
because of the terrible nature of the content, Chairman Ebisawa and Broadcasting Director Matsuo issued a business order for further corrections.
Then the revisions were completed overnight,
although, since there was no time even to preview it, it was in effect sent straight to broadcast,
and on January 30,
this “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery” was broadcast as the ETV Special series “How Should War Be Judged? Night Two — Wartime Sexual Violence Called into Question.”
In other words, various problems had occurred before and after the 2001 broadcast.
The Asahi Shimbun moved after this, in 2005.
The year after 2004, when Prime Minister Abe, then Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, had supported Koizumi’s visit to North Korea,
North Korea acknowledged the abduction of Japanese citizens, and the return of five members of the abductees’ families was realized.
On January 12, 2005, The Asahi Shimbun reported,
under the headline,
“NHK ‘comfort women’ program altered; Sho Nakagawa and Abe summoned executives the previous day and pointed out ‘biased content,’”
that Shoichi Nakagawa and Shinzo Abe had intervened in NHK’s program production.
The reporter who wrote it was Masakazu Honda.
Then, as if in perfect coordination, on the day after this article appeared in The Asahi Shimbun,
Akira Nagai, chief producer of NHK’s Program Production Bureau, made an internal accusation,
claiming that Abe and Nakagawa, having learned the content of the program under production,
had applied pressure to the program production.
However, at that time Ebisawa was still continuing as chairman,
and because 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, among other things, that Shoichi Nakagawa met NHK executives three days after the broadcast,
and that the internal accusation by Chief Producer Akira Nagai was a farce.
However, Akira Nagai, seeking to eliminate Chairman Ebisawa as well,
claimed as though Chairman Ebisawa also knew the facts and had colluded with Abe.
Furthermore, producer Kozo Nagata
testified that Shinzo Abe had summoned the broadcasting director in advance
and said, “You will not get away with this. Read between the lines,”
and, in an attempt by any means to bring down Shoichi Nakagawa and Shinzo Abe,
he moved in coordination with The Asahi Shimbun article.
The Asahi Shimbun article was false, but the testimony and internal accusations by Nagai and Nagata were also false.
＊If one considers that, once again, without learning a thing, at least at this point in time, they are mobilizing members of the local-government workers’ union in Ehime Prefecture and members of the local-government workers’ union in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to do exactly the same thing in the current attack on Mr. Yanase, does not everything fall into place?＊
The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal was hosted by VAWW-NET Japan,
and this VAWW-NET Japan was an organization established by Yayori Matsui, a former editorial writer of The Asahi Shimbun.
And VAWW-NET Japan was extremely close to North Korea,
and its assertions were like a carbon copy of North Korea’s assertions.
It was also an organization that longed for unification led by the North.
Two of those who served in the role of prosecutors at the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal,
Hwang Ho-nam and Jong Nam-yong, were persons identified as North Korean agents.
In particular, Hwang Ho-nam was Kim Il-sung’s interpreter at the time of the Kanemaru delegation’s visit to North Korea,
and was a high-ranking North Korean official who also attended as an interpreter during Koizumi’s visit to North Korea.
In other words, a high-ranking North Korean official had directly entered the site of the program production.
To put it simply, the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal
was anti-Japanese propaganda by North Korea.
Moreover, even a senior official of the North Korean government was present at the very site where it was being produced.
I think one can understand the pitch-black nature of NHK’s production floor, or should I say, its redness.
NHK producer Eriko Ikeda, who had this North Korean propaganda program, the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, broadcast,
was a founding member of VAWW-NET Japan and a steering committee member of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.
In other words, she used her own position to have a political movement,
namely North Korea’s anti-Japanese propaganda being carried out by an organization she herself had created, broadcast as a special program.
In light of the Broadcasting Act, simply because of this Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal case alone,
it would not have been strange if NHK had had its broadcast waves suspended.
Furthermore, there was Akira Nagai, who made an internal accusation in line with The Asahi Shimbun article.
And there was Masakazu Honda, the Asahi Shimbun reporter who wrote the fabricated article as a scoop.
Both of them had participated in the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.
The people involved in trying to entrap Shinzo Abe and Shoichi Nakagawa
were all insiders of VAWW-NET Japan.
Now, to return to the subject for a moment,
if one describes the NHK program alteration controversy very roughly,
it was a matter in which people connected with VAWW-NET Japan
tried to use public broadcasting as their private possession to broadcast an anti-Japanese propaganda program they had created in cooperation with North Korea,
and this became a major problem inside NHK.
Even so, by forcibly broadcasting something with extreme content,
the matter developed to the point where even politicians came to ask about the circumstances.
They had intended, with content just as they wanted it, that is, content consisting only of still more one-sided anti-Japanese material,
to create a large-scale social boom as anti-Japanese propaganda,
but it did not go well.
I would like to think about this from another angle.
When North Korea became economically endangered,
for some reason the management of Korean banks in Japan also became endangered.
I think the reason is obvious without writing it.
And when the Korean banks collapsed, Hiromu Nonaka poured in a large amount of subsidies
and rescued the Korean banks,
but this rush of Korean bank collapses began in 1998,
at a time when North Korea was being driven into a very difficult position.
The program in question was broadcast against that background, on January 30, 2001.
The Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal was so far beyond the bounds of common sense
that it could not create a social boom,
and as propaganda, it ended in a result that could hardly be called successful.
Yet not thinking that the cause of failure lies in themselves
may be called a habit of the Japanese “payo-ku,”
and I think those people connected with VAWW-NET Japan
also did not want to let the matter of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal simply pass as a failure.
Then North Korea, once again economically cornered,
acknowledged the abduction of Japanese citizens and allowed only five people to return temporarily to Japan,
but it is probably fair to see this as having been done in order to obtain economic aid.
At the time, Hitoshi Tanaka of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had arranged that the abductees would be returned immediately to North Korea
and that economic aid would be given to North Korea,
so when Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe decided not to send the five temporarily returned victims back to the North, Tanaka became furious
and lodged complaints; I believe this was reported to some extent.
Hitoshi Tanaka, who had a close relationship with North Korea.
This article continues.