Six
historical societies issued an emergency statement on Oct. 31
condemning the special secrets protection bill now before the Diet,
saying the law "risks hindering the study of history in the
future."
The
historians' concerns stem from the uncertain nature of document
declassification and public release under the secrets bill, which
could potentially cut future historians off from vital primary source
material. On Oct. 28, groups of criminal and constitutional legal
scholars also issued statements opposing the secrets bill.
"I'm
worried that we will no longer be able to perform historical
investigations of defense and diplomatic documents," said
Hitotsubashi University professor Yutaka Yoshida, who is also head of
the Japanese Association for Contemporary Historical Studies, one of
the six societies behind the statement. Referring to popular oral
histories based on the reminiscences of former politicians and senior
bureaucrats, Yoshida said that "sources from the Defense
Ministry and the like could stop responding to interview requests"
if the bill is passed.
In
related news, an Oct. 29 editorial in the online version of the
International New York Times -- formerly the International Herald
Tribune -- declared that the secrets bill would "undermine the
people's right to know."
The
editorial, titled "Japan's Illiberal Secrecy Law" takes
particular issue with the bill's lack of a specific test for what
information should be classified.
"There
is no guideline as to what constitutes a secret. This lack of
definition means the government could well designate any inconvenient
information secret," the editorial states. It also takes aim
at the maximum 10-year prison sentence for government workers who
leak a state secret, saying that such harsh penalties paired with the
lack of a secrecy definition "would give officials even greater
incentive to label documents secret rather than risk their release."
特定秘 密保護法案に対する歴史学関係者の緊急声明
--------------------------------------------------------
Other
organizations & researches that issued an emergency statement,
condemning the special secrets protection bill:
*日本カトリック正義と平和協議会Japan
Catholic Council for Justice an d Peace
http://www.jccjp.org/jccjp/home_files/jp13-04.pdfn
*秘密保護法の制定に反対する刑事法研究者の声明Constitution
and Media researchers (more than 142 researchers)
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/constimasahikos/32204661.html
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