Published on August 14, 2019.
This essay criticizes the hate-speech law as embodying South Korea’s habitual method: “criticism of Korea is hate speech, while criticism of Japan is freedom of expression.”
It discusses incidents surrounding Korean schools, Yoshifu Arita, Toru Hashimoto, Osaka’s hate-speech ordinance, the anti-nuclear movement under the Kan Naoto administration, Masayoshi Son’s nuclear-power propaganda, and the stance of television networks such as Asahi and TBS, arguing that propaganda has penetrated Japan’s public discourse.

August 14, 2019.
What is the hate-speech law?
It is precisely South Korea’s habitual method: “criticism of South Korea is hate speech, while criticism of Japan is freedom of expression.”
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
The attacks by that Zaitoku-something group against Korean schools, which were staged by them themselves, or the street demonstrations and counter-demonstrations against them, began in places unknown to the majority of ordinary citizens.
For some reason, Yoshifu Arita immediately appeared at the scene and filmed what was happening.
He then rushed to the United Nations with that video and spread the propaganda that Japan is a country of hate speech.
To begin with, Hashimoto was the first to jump onto this propaganda, issued a hate-speech ordinance in Osaka Prefecture, and played a major role in helping enact the national hate-speech law.
What is the hate-speech law?
It is precisely South Korea’s habitual method: “criticism of South Korea is hate speech, while criticism of Japan is freedom of expression.”
It was also Toru Hashimoto who was the first to rush to join the movement supporting Kan Naoto and demanding the immediate shutdown of nuclear power plants, which began with Masayoshi Son’s propaganda under the Kan Naoto administration that “Japanese nuclear power plants are no good, but Korean nuclear power plants are good.”
I will write about him on another day, but there is no doubt that, for the Korean Peninsula and China, he is an extremely convenient and ideal person.
Although he is clearly lacking in true intelligence and culture, he possesses a lawyer’s qualification and, moreover, is a popular figure who frequently appears on television and elsewhere.
For the intelligence agencies of totalitarian states, where propaganda is everything, manipulating him without his noticing would probably be easier than twisting a baby’s arm.
Someone whispers so that their propaganda seeps into every corner of his words.
He did not read the books he ought to have read, spent his time at Kitano High School absorbed in rugby, and at Waseda was overwhelmed with studying to pass the bar examination.
That is probably why he behaves as he does.
Because he serves as a television geisha, that defect is further accelerated.
For television stations such as Asahi and TBS, which want by any means to attack the Abe administration, it is more than enough if they can draw out, from fragments of his words, criticism of the government’s response to South Korea, or effective criticism for the purpose of continuing to keep Okinawa in their hands.
For the sake of those fragments, enduring his arrogant behavior is probably their specialty, but for me, who happened to be watching, nothing but discomfort remained.
I believe I have also written part of where that discomfort originates.