Japan populist party faces complaint over alleged false online post
The post, made on July 7 by the 48-year-old Sanseito candidate in Kanagawa Prefecture, wrote, "Many of my colleagues were murdered by Communist Party members, and the methods were brutal. I still live in fear." He is a former Tokyo Metropolitan Police officer.
The JCP said that it delivered a written protest on July 8, demanding an apology and retraction, but received no response, prompting it to file the complaint with prefectural police on Tuesday for defamation and dissemination of false information.
The branch argued that leaving the post unchallenged would undermine the fairness of the election, with its chief saying, "There is no truth to the claim that many police officers were killed by Communist Party members."
"While policy debate should be open and free, lies and hate speech must not be tolerated," the chief added.
In response to media inquiries, the Sanseito candidate defended the post by citing two incidents from the 1950s, including one in which a police officer was fatally shot.
"It is a fact that the suspect in the case was a Communist Party member. There's nothing wrong with saying so," he said.
Under Japanese laws, knowingly making false statements about others in connection with an election can constitute a criminal offense. The case has drawn attention amid heightened scrutiny of misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric during campaigns.
In the run-up to the upper house election, Sanseito has gained traction by advocating stricter controls on foreign residents under its "Japanese First" banner, ranking second in popularity in some recent media polls.
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Japan Times
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- Japan Times
Ignore the election hype, foreign residents are here to stay
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As noted earlier, concerns have recently surfaced about short-term foreign visitors gaining access to Japan's national health services without covering the associated payments. Legal changes are pending that would prevent any foreign national who dodged medical costs during a visit to Japan from returning to the country. Still, the analysis shows that the disbursements from the national health fund to foreign nationals account for only 1.2% of the total, while foreign residents make up 3.04% of the total population. That's not to say that some communities, especially in smaller cities, aren't facing challenges. Towns in Saitama, Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures, for example, face ongoing challenges educating children who do not speak Japanese, requiring them to hire teachers who can speak Chinese, Vietnamese or Indonesian. 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