Written on July 1, 2019, this essay sharply questions the deception of Japan’s newspaper industry, especially the Asahi Shimbun, in its coverage of juvenile crime.
Through a dialogue between Masayuki Takayama and Ryusho Kadota, it exposes the postwar media’s pathology of excessively defending the rights of perpetrators while ignoring the pain of victims and the safety of society.
With reference to Shukan Shincho’s campaign on the Juvenile Law, the turning point of attorney Isao Okamura, and the founding of the National Association of Crime Victims and Surviving Families, this is an important piece that indicts the hypocrisy and responsibility of Japan’s press and legal establishment.

2019-07-01
As desk editor of Shukan Shincho in the 1990s, I fought endlessly against the deception of the mass media in this juvenile crime case.
It was Shukan Shincho’s campaign on the Juvenile Law.

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Asahi, the deliberate offender.
Kadota.
The problem lies with the upper management of the newspaper companies.
Was there not a single person in senior management who showed the resolve to say, “We will continue with the policy we have followed up to now”?
Takayama.
No, there was not.
Each company has what is called a meeting of editorial bureau chiefs, and it seemed to be an understanding reached at that meeting.
Kadota.
I wish newspapers with a realist line, such as Sankei and Yomiuri, had resisted and said, “That is wrong, isn’t it?”
But it feels as though every one of them yielded to the tide.　
As desk editor of Shukan Shincho in the 1990s, I fought endlessly against the deception of the mass media in this juvenile crime case.
It was Shukan Shincho’s campaign on the Juvenile Law.
At its foundation was the question, “What are true human rights?”
And, as I said earlier, we argued on the basis of protecting the lives of our children who live in peace.
Yet Japanese newspapers, beginning with Asahi and Mainichi, completely misunderstood the matter, believing that excessively defending the interests of perpetrators was what it meant to “protect human rights.”
Takayama.
The human rights of the criminal side.
Kadota.
The human rights of criminals are already fully protected.
If you watch a Western, once caught, they are immediately hanged.
But in a modern state, the offender is arrested, interrogated, sent to prosecutors, and put on trial.
Without being subjected to anyone’s lynching, a proper series of procedures is carried out, and the criminal’s human rights are protected.　
Yet when it comes to heinous crimes committed by juveniles, the mass media suddenly begin speaking in pretty phrases.
At that time, they were returning from juvenile training school after a maximum of only two years.
In other words, even if they killed someone, they were coming back to their original community in as little as two years.
That means unreformed juvenile criminals were being released into society, thereby placing children living peaceful lives in danger.
Asahi and the like had absolutely no eye for seeing facts like these.
Takayama.
I think Asahi does what it does knowing that “human rights are hypocrisy.”
Attorney Isao Okamura, who had been a human-rights advocate, had his wife murdered by a man bearing a grudge connected to the Yamaichi Securities affair.
Okamura had shouted “human rights, human rights” within the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, but the moment his own wife was killed, he switched creeds and said, “Even for killing one person, impose the death penalty,” and he also began saying that in court, direct remarks to the offender, which had until then been forbidden to lawyers, should be allowed.
Kadota.
Attorney Okamura was also the first to bring a portrait of the deceased into the courtroom.
Takayama.
That was not permitted in the “Hikari City mother-and-child murder case.”
Because the offender was a juvenile, they said it would place undue pressure on the suspect.（bitter laugh）　
When I saw Okamura’s complete one-hundred-and-eighty-degree change in attitude, I began to think that perhaps it could become the occasion for Japan’s legal world to become sound.
Kadota.
After that, Professor Okamura created the National Association of Crime Victims and Surviving Families (Asu no Kai), and beginning with the special participation system for bereaved families in trials, he steadily changed the rules of the courtroom.
Takayama.
I think that is true.
But why did he, as a member of the legal world, not reach out to the feelings of victims before his wife was murdered?
Until then, whenever he opened his mouth, he spoke only of the human rights of criminals and of Japan-China friendship.
The same can be said of newspapers.
Rather than human rights that exist only on the lips, they should have developed articles and campaigns that made known the pain of victims.　
Yet the one that had led the newspaper world was the Asahi Shimbun of “human rights and China.”
The poor quality of Asahi is beyond remedy.
Asahi had been clamoring for abolition of the death penalty, yet after the Okamura incident, it suddenly fell silent.
Kadota.
What an astonishing change.
Takayama.
And yet there was no reflection whatsoever.
Once the Okamura uproar died down, they again used the Japan Federation of Bar Associations to raise the banner of abolishing the death penalty.
It can only be described as deliberate.
To be continued.