Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo
Tokyo, 2 November: A ruling party panel effectively approved Thursday [2 November] a plan for the government to order the country’s public broadcaster Japan Broadcasting Corp., known as NHK, to feature North Korea’s abductions of Japanese nationals in its overseas shortwave radio broadcasts.
“We understand the government’s zeal over the abduction issue,” one member of the Liberal Democratic Party [LPD] panel on telecommunications and broadcasting said, virtually giving the go-ahead for the communications minister to issue the order to NHK.
A majority of the LDP panel members had been cautious about the plan but the panel decided in the end to approve it in the face of requests by family members of abduction victims.
The latest move is likely to encourage a panel on radio waves under the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry to give the green light to the issuance of the order at its meeting next Wednesday.
The move, however, will likely ignite further criticism that such an order would violate the freedom of the press, even though Yoshihide Suga, the communications minister, has said the ministry does not intend to intervene in details of the broadcasts.
Suga, attending the LDP panel meeting for the first time, said: “I would like to do whatever I can as a state minister for the resolution of the abduction issue.”
Article 33 of the Broadcast Law stipulates that the communications minister may order NHK to conduct international broadcasting by designating broadcast matters.
North Korea has admitted its agents abducted or lured 13 Japanese citizens to that country in the late 1970s and early 1980s. North Korea returned five of the 13 in 2002 but claimed that the other eight had died - a claim disputed by the Japanese government and their relatives. There are other missing Japanese not yet officially recognized as abductees but thought likely to have been taken to North Korea.
(Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0416 gmt 2 Nov 06 via BBCÂ Monitoring)
NHK to be ordered to increase radio reporting on abduction
