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March 1, 2001 Dear Friends, I am writing to ask for your support in lodging a protest against NHK (Nihon Hoso Kyokai), the Japanese public broadcasting agency, for its censorship of a recent television program that aired on the second night of the ETV 2001 series, Senso o Do Sabaku ka (How Should We Adjudicate Wars?). I became involved in this incident because I was asked to appear as one of two principal commentators on the second and third nights of the series. The second night’s program considered the issue of the Japanese military's sexual enslavement of women and the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery (December 2000, Tokyo). The third night’s program covered the more general topic of sexual violence against women in wars. However, I was surprised and angered to learn that the final content and emphases of the second night's program differed radically from what had originally been planned. Critical comments by many individuals, including me, had been extensively purged, truncated in misleading ways, or replaced with statements denying the facticity of the "comfort women's" testimonies and the legality of the Women's Tribunal. In what follows I will describe the contents of the original and revised programs and the process by which changes were made to the programming, apparently as a result of political pressure from the far right. (For a comprehensive report on the incident, please refer to Honda Masakazu’s newspaper article in the Asahi which will appear within the next few days.) I ask you to join me in protesting NHK's actions by signing the letter that I have drafted below. To be sure, NHK’s ETV 2001 made the only attempt to cover the Women's Tribunal extensively on television. And in lodging this protest, it is not my intention to demean the efforts of conscientious and socially conscious individuals within NHK. However, the program that aired on January 30 barely reflected the responsible perspectives that had gone into the original plan for the program. My hope is that a letter collectively signed by concerned scholars outside of Japan will send a strong signal to NHK that it has an ethical duty to make knowledge about the Japanese military's sexual enslavement of women available, and that as a public agency it is legally obligated to resist censorship. If you agree to support this collective protest, please send me a note (lyoneyam@ucsd.edu) indicating that you would like to be included on the letter as a signatory, preferably by Friday, March 9. Please include your full name and institutional affiliation. I would appreciate any comments you might have about the letter or any suggestions about further actions we might take. If you are a member of relevant list-servers, please feel free to forward this message. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this long message, and for your support. Sincerely, Lisa Yoneyama (1) The Incident Last January, NHK's educational television channel (ETV) aired a four night series on recent attempts throughout the world to address and redress acts of violence and injustice that have never adequately been prosecuted under the category of “crimes against humanity.” The ETV series titled, “How Should We Adjudicate Wars?” contained testimonies on many ghastly incidents of the twentieth century. These included pan-European participation in the Nazi Holocaust, mass rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the French war against Algeria, sexual violence and torture in Guatemala, the Japanese military’s sexual enslavement of women, and South African Apartheid. By exploring memories of these atrocities, the program sought to show how the concept of “crimes against humanity” had been critically challenged and reconfigured in such ways as to help communities remember, to make reparations for, and to determine accountability and to atone for racial, gender, ethnic, sexual, colonial and other forms of violence and injustice. NHK subcontracted the series to a small, socially conscious video production company, Documentary Japan (DJ). I participated on the second and third nights as one of two studio commentators. The second night's programming was heavily censored. This part of the series was originally supposed to cover the “Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery” that had been held in Tokyo last December. As I will describe in further detail below, the Women’s Tribunal was an transnational people’s court that utilized international law to try individuals within the Japanese military, including Hirohito, for their alleged involvement in the sexual enslavement of women. However, what aired on January 30, 2001 as the program titled, "Wartime Sexual Violence" ("Senji sei boryoku") differed drastically from the version that was filmed on December 27, 2000. The third night's program covered the Public Hearing organized
by the International Criminal Court's (ICC's) Women's Caucus, which was
held in conjunction with the Tribunal. Included were testimonies of
gender violence in on-going wars and conflicts in different parts of the
world, such as Guatemala, East Timor, and Burundi. This program was not
extensively revised or censored. (2) The Tribunal While there were a number of feminist and other progressive grass roots groups and NGOs that organized the Women's Tribunal, the three primary convenors were the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, the Asian Centre for Women's Human Rights (ASCENT) of the Philippines, and the Violence Against Women in War-Network (VAWW-NET), Japan. More than seventy survivors of the "comfort stations" and other wartime violence gave testimonies. Among the most important International Law experts who participated were Patricia Viseur-Sellers and Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, who respectively served as chief prosecutor and presiding judge. They had both been centrally involved in considering gender and sexual violence at the former Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal. For the first time in history, the Women's Tribunal tried the Japanese military’s sexual enslavement of women as a “crime against humanity,” and it found the late Hirohito, the howa Emperor and the Japanese government guilty. It also determined that initial responsibility for suppressing knowledge of Japanese crimes committed against women from occupied territories rested with the Allied Forces because, despite the weight of available evidence, they had failed to pursue this issue at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo War Crimes Trial), and thereby allowed similar cases of violence against women to remain uninterrogated in subsequent decades. The Women's Tribunal does not possess the power to enforce its legal
decisions. Yet because the Tribunal was a formal trial authorized by
international law and because it was an event that conveyed the weight
and force of international opinion against the Japanese government's
unwillingness to face up to its war responsibilities -- these factors
and others suggested the possibility that if knowledge about the
Tribunal were properly conveyed to the public, this could impact
Japanese opinion and lead to legislative measures for an official
apology, reparations and eventually healing. It is therefore truly
regrettable that NHK failed to capitalize on the opportunity to report
fully and honestly on the Tribunal’s accomplishments. (For an eloquent
summary of the Women's Tribunal in Japanese please refer to the
conversation between Norma Field and Takahashi Tetsuya in the March 2001
issue of SEKAI. Takahashi was a commentator throughout NHK’s ETV 2001
series.) (3) Censorship As far as I know, NHK significantly changed the second night's programming in two stages. The first took place between December 27 and January 28, that is from the time of studio filming based on an original script and a partial re-recording that followed a revised script. My co-commentator, Takahashi, participated in the re-recording on January 28. Further changes were made between January 28 and the date when the final program aired, January 30. I was not informed of any of these revisions. It is known that changes imposed during the first stage were in large part the result of the tremendous pressure that an NHK executive applied on DJ's producer, who is a woman. I recently learned that during this stage the program’s emphasis shifted from the “Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal” to the theme of “crimes against humanity.” I have also been informed that the DJ producer resisted the demands for revisions and subsequently withdrew from the program. According to Takahashi, although the January 28 version de-centered the Tribunal, it at least retained some extensive testimonies of survivors, key statements by the Tribunal justices, as well as most of my commentary. (The verdict declaring Hirohito guilty was apparently replaced by video clips from overseas media reports on the Tribunal.) However, the disparity between the January 28 and January 30 versions is so extensive that it is obvious that the program received last-minute editing and revising in order to erase almost every direct reference to and positive assessment of the Tribunal. My comments and those of Takahashi on the empowering effects of the Tribunal as a gathering of transnational grassroots organizations, on the significance of the survivors’ testimonies, and on the potential of the Tribunal's findings to effect social transformations at various levels of Japanese society, were entirely deleted. In fact, because I spoke primarily on the Tribunal’s significance, most of my statements were cut, my sentences were shredded to pieces, and the few utterances of mine that remained did not make sense because they had been lifted out of context. Furthermore, at the time of the December 27 studio recording, the script did not include an interview with Hata Ikuhiko, the conservative historian and critic who has been actively denying the Japanese military’s systematic involvement in the "comfort station" system. Yet the January 30 broadcast contained several minutes of a video recording in which Hata not only denied the military's involvement in recruiting women for sex, but disparaged the Tribunal as biased and fraught with technical shortcomings from the standpoint of law. Moreover, in order to fill in the gaps created by the deletion of our studio conversations, NHK had inserted extended and irrelevant film footage from European wars, the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the 1980s democratization of South Korea, and the like. Still, the program came out four minutes shorter than the other three (40 minutes as opposed to 44 minutes). More disturbingly, those of us involved in the program have been receiving comments from viewers unaware of the censorship that the program as a whole seemed to assess the Tribunal negatively. Reliable sources report that there have been a number of right wing physical threats against NHK. It is also alleged that several members of the Liberal Democratic Party threatened one of the NHK’s executives with budget cuts if they did not censor the program. This is despite the fact that by law the government is not allowed to interfere in NHK programming.
As you can imagine, I feel terribly violated personally. However, the issue involves much more than simply freedom of speech and protection from censorship. I do not by any means wish to privilege the question of the violation of my legal rights when what are centrally at issue here are the original acts of sexual violence that precluded even the right of women to living lives with dignity. The erasure and distortion of my statements are but symptoms of a larger ideological configuration in which attempts to critically remember Japan’s past injustices are constantly marginalized or suppressed in public discourse. It is also yet another instance in which invocation of the abstract and universal notion of “humanity” tends to reduce the immediacy of and the need to make reparations for specific acts of violence. Ironically, this was a point that I had made in my book on Hiroshima memories. NHK's failure to broadcast undistorted and accurate information about the Tribunal should not go unquestioned. NHK owes those involved in the program and the general public an apology, disclosure of accountability, and compensation for damages. (5) Letter to NHK Ebisawa Katsuji, President of NHK March 10, 2001 Dear Mr. Ebisawa We, the undersigned university professors and scholars, hereby express our urgent concerns regarding the program you aired on January 30, 2001, entitled "Wartime Sexual Violence" ("Senji sei boryoku"), which was the second segment in the ETV 2001 series, Senso o do sabaku ka (How Should We Adjudicate Wars?). We are deeply disturbed by recent reports that NHK revised and heavily censored the program that was originally to cover the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery (December 2000). These reports inform us that changes to the program’s content resulted in negative and distorted representations of the Tribunal, as well as the history of the Japanese military's "comfort station" system. According to our colleague Lisa Yoneyama (University of California, San Diego), who participated in your program as one of two principal commentators, she made a number of remarks during studio recording last December that positively assessed the historical and philosophical significance of the “Women's International War Crimes Tribunal.” However, Yoneyama’s statements were almost entirely eliminated from the program that aired on January 30 and the actual amount of coverage given to the Tribunal was radically reduced. Moreover, reliable sources report that there had been a number of right wing and conservative threats against NHK prior to the program's airing. It is also believed that several members of the Liberal Democratic Party influenced NHK in its decision to censor the program. This is despite the fact that by law the government is not allowed to interfere in NHK programming. To be sure, Japan is not the only country in which violent attempts have been made to suppress and silence unflattering parts of national pasts. We are also fully aware that some individuals in NHK have had the vision and conscience to reject narrow-minded views of Japanese history. However, as scholars and critics who specialize in issues concerning Japan, Asia, U.S. relations with Asia, and in studies of gender, race, and colonialism, we find it truly regrettable that NHK failed to inform the general Japanese public about the significance of the Tribunal. This Tribunal was the first legal proceeding to adjudicate on the Japanese military's enslavement of women as a “crime against humanity.” The Women’s Tribunal does not represent any particular national interest. Nor does it endorse any particular political ideology. Rather, it adheres to the legal and ethical standards that are rapidly coming to be shared by the international community for judging wartime crimes of sexual violence and enslavement. We believe that as a public broadcasting corporation, NHK is obligated to report on this international event in a full and accurate manner. We demand that NHK remedy the damages caused by the revisions and the heavy censorship it imposed upon the program that aired on January 30 by agreeing to do the following.
Thank you for your attention to this letter. Please send your response to Takashi Fujitani by e-mail (xxx@xxx.xxx) or fax (+1-xxx-xxx-xxxx) by March 20, 2001. 〔３月１５日付手紙〕 海外の研究者・批評家からの抗議および要望 NHK会長 海老沢勝二殿 今年の１月２９日から２月１日までNHKで放映された４回シリーズのETV２００１「戦 シリーズ第２回「問われる戦時性暴力」（1月３０日放送）が、他の３回に比べて極めて不自然な編集がほどこされ、私が出演依頼に応じた本来の番組で中心的に取り上げられるはずだった「女性国際戦犯法廷」について、不十分で歪曲した知識を視聴者に与える番組内容となって放映された件について、去る３月1日、私自身が出演者・コメンテーターとして抱いている貴局に対する疑問、抗議、要望について述べた電子メールを十数名の友人たちに送付し、メール署名による賛同の意をつのりました。この呼びかけに対して、約１０日間ほどの間に、３６０名もの賛同署名が寄せられました。 署名賛同者は、日本や日本とその他のアジア諸国や合衆国との関係、およびジェンダーや人種や植民地主義の問題について日頃より関心をもたれている研究者、大学関係者、批評家の方々です。署名をお寄せ下さった方々の活動の拠点は、イギリス、韓国、ドイツ、オーストラリア、台湾、フランス、中国、アメリカ合衆国、オーストリア、と多岐にわたっています。また、海外で活動されている日本人の方や、元海外御出身で今は日本に一時滞在もしくは永住されている方々からも賛同の意が寄せられています。署名者の研究専門分野も、歴史学、アジア研究、人類学、ジェンダー研究、文学、ビジネス経営学、芸術史、地理学、工学、メディア･コミュニケーション研究など、幅広い領域にわたっています。 その反響の大きさには驚くべきものがあります。女性国際戦犯法廷、日本軍従軍慰安所制度の歴史、そしてこれらの事実に関する貴局の報道姿勢にたいする、世界的な関心の高さを示していることがおわかりいただけるでしょう。署名は今もひきつづき送られてきていますが、いったん本日で受け付けを打ち切り、謹んで、ここに送付させていただきます。 日本軍による軍事性奴隷性を国際法の視点から裁いた女性国際戦犯法廷についてとりあげる番組づくりを貴局がめざされたことは、ここに署名をした多くの方々も大いに評価するところです。ところが、実際に放映された番組は、この法廷の意義を十分に伝えることなく、むしろ歪曲した見解にもとづき否定的に評価する印象を与えるものとなっていました。女性国際戦犯法廷は、国境を越えた女性たちによって開催された、特定の国家やイデオロギーに偏らない民衆法廷であり、２１世紀の国際社会で今後ますます広く共有されてゆく歴史観や価値観を反映したものとして、そのユニークさがひろく世界の注目を集めた国際的イヴェントでした。このような法廷の意義を日本の視聴者の方々に伝えるという貴重な務めを貴局が十分に果たされなかったことは、まことに遺憾です。 シリーズ第２回については、制作過程で目指されていた番組内容を放送直前に大きく改変させるような、何らかの「圧力」が加えられたのではないかという疑いももたれています。自国の歴史の醜い面から目を背け、過去を否定しようという動きは、日本だけに特有の現象ではありません。このような動きに対して毅然とした態度をとることが、世界各地の民主社会に求められています。ＮＨＫは日本の代表的なメディアとして、国際的な注目を集めています。短期間にこれほど多くの署名が寄せられたことからも、そのことは明らかです。しかし、ある署名者から寄せられたコメントにあったように、今回のこのような事態がＮＨＫの番組づくりの先例となってしまうようなことがあれば、今後、ＮＨＫやその報道にたいして誰も真剣な態度で対応することはできなくなってしまうでしょう。ここに送付いたします抗議・要望にありますように、この件についての詳細な経緯の説明と、責任ある回答、および女性国際戦犯法廷について正しく十分な知識を伝えることのできる何らかの積極的で具体的な措置をご検討いただけますよう、ここにお願い申し上げます。 以上、海外の研究者・批評家からの抗議および要望についての要点のみ述べさせていただきました。詳しい内容および回答先その他については、本文にあるとおりです。 誠意あるご回答をいただけますことを、心より望んでおります。 米山リサ
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