French media condemned Japan’s handling of Carlos Ghosn as “hostage justice” and “medieval,” yet their accusations ignore Europe’s own brutal historical record—from Stalinist show executions to medieval and early-modern witch torture.
Takayama dismantles the misinformation with precise historical evidence, revealing the profound hypocrisy behind Europe’s criticism of modern Japan.

The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s book, Japanese, Wake Up — Exposing the Lies of Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, and the Asahi Shimbun, published on September 1, 2022.
This essay again proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
Long ago, an elderly female professor from the Royal Ballet School of Monaco—deeply respected by primas across the world—visited Japan.
At that time she spoke about the meaning of an artist’s existence.
“Artists are important because they are the only ones who can shine light on hidden truths and express them.”
No one would object to her words.
Masayuki Takayama is not only the one and only journalist in the postwar world; it is no exaggeration to say he is also the one and only artist in the postwar world.
This essay magnificently proves my assertion that, in today’s world, no one is more deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature than Masayuki Takayama.
This is essential reading for the Japanese people and for readers around the world.

Questioning the French Media and Lawyers Who Criticize the Ghosn Investigation

He calls himself a global business leader, but any sensible Japanese is utterly fed up with him.
“The Japanese judicial system is hostage justice,” they say.
Regarding the detention of Ghosn, who had been exploiting Nissan, former AFP Tokyo correspondent Philippe Ries complained, “To detain someone for more than 100 days and force a confession is worse than Communist Poland” (Les Échos).
He said the Japanese judiciary is essentially hostage justice.
Therefore suspects cannot endure and are forced to confess.
“The confession rate of over 99 percent is worse than the Soviet Union under Stalin,” he also said.
With all due respect, under Stalin there were no trials.
When Stalin felt like it, he would summon someone to his office and pronounce a simple death sentence, or a death sentence with torture added.
According to Tsutomu Saitō’s The Secret Records of Stalin, “An officer holding a bucket and a mop waited in the office to clean up after those who wet themselves upon hearing the sentence.”
We have not heard that Ghosn wet himself during interrogation.

Another French paper sneered, “A judicial system that does not allow meetings with family is medieval.”
Here, “medieval” appears to refer to “the thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century to the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century.”
In that era in Europe, a woman suspected of witchcraft would first be forced to swallow eighteen liters of muddy water, then have her thumbs crushed with a press, and be made to wear red-hot iron shoes.
Unable to endure such interrogations, she would confess, lose all her property, and be burned at the stake.
Giordano Bruno, who denied the Creation, was burned alive, and his scholarly colleague Galileo recanted the heliocentric theory under pressure.
However, if one defines the end of the Middle Ages as the time when people began to recognize “humanity and fair trial,” then the medieval period extends not merely to the 15th century but three hundred years further—to the early 19th century.
Indeed, in the 18th century, Maria Theresa of the Habsburg Empire established standardized regulations for thumb-screw devices used in witch interrogations.
The last witch burning in Europe was carried out in Switzerland in 1782.

(To be continued.)