To the leadership and members of Reporters Without Borders (RSF),

This letter is a formal and public protest.

Japan is, in reality and in practice, one of the countries with the highest degree of press freedom in the world.
Nevertheless, your organization has repeatedly published rankings claiming that Japan is the lowest among the G7 and placed around 70th globally. These claims are not merely inaccurate; they are profoundly misleading.

Japan is a country where:

• Media organizations operate without prior censorship.
• Journalists openly criticize the government, the prime minister, and state institutions on a daily basis.
• Public broadcasters and private networks employ individuals with openly anti-government and even anti-national positions.
• Newspapers and television networks freely publish narratives hostile to the state itself without legal consequence.

A country that tolerates—even institutionalizes—such internal dissent cannot, by any rational standard, be described as lacking press freedom.

What must be stated clearly, however, is this:
the real and documented problem in Japan is not government suppression of the press, but the persistent pattern of extreme ideological bias, selective reporting, and in some cases outright fabrication practiced by major media organizations such as Asahi Shimbun, Kyodo News, and NHK—media outlets that, notably, move in close alignment with your organization’s narratives and assessments.
This is the reality, and this is the truth.

Your rankings are widely cited and amplified by these same domestic actors—major newspapers, wire services, public broadcasters, self-proclaimed intellectuals, activist lawyers, and political advocacy groups. They use your reports not to defend press freedom, but to legitimize their own distortions while attacking Japan’s democratic legitimacy itself. Whether intentionally or not, RSF has thus become a reinforcing partner in this cycle of misrepresentation.

What makes this particularly troubling is that Japan is one of the major financial contributors to international organizations, including those operating in Paris and Geneva. While being materially supported by Japan, your organization continues to disseminate evaluations that effectively slander the very country that sustains the international system you operate within.

If there truly existed a country with more extensive press freedom than Japan—freedom so absolute that even systematic misinformation by dominant media institutions goes unchecked—that country would not survive as a state. Unlimited freedom without responsibility does not strengthen democracy; it dissolves it.

Until several years ago, some Japanese citizens may have accepted your claims at face value. That is no longer the case. A growing number of people in Japan now recognize that your rankings reflect ideological alignment rather than empirical reality.

Therefore, we ask plainly:

On what concrete, verifiable, and comparative criteria do you justify ranking Japan below countries where journalists are imprisoned, media outlets are shut down, or state narratives are enforced by law?

Until RSF can answer this question transparently and honestly, your rankings deserve skepticism, not reverence.

This letter is published openly because press freedom, when genuine, does not fear scrutiny.

Shame should not be demanded—but accountability must be.

Sincerely,
Mikio Kisara
Japan
Published as a public record