Big news brewing in Japan?

JAPAN: Hostages released into storm of criticism

Media, government, public target former captives over carelessness


The Japan Times
Wednesday, April 21, 2004

By Hiroshi Matsubara

Two days before her daughter was freed Thursday night by her captors in Iraq, 65-year-old Kyoko Takato was apologizing to the public, using words more befitting of the parent of a criminal.

A sticker covers part of a poster advertising the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho on a Sapporo subway train to hide the titles of articles about three Japanese hostages recently released in Iraq.

Civilian hostages Nahoko Takato, 34, a volunteer aid worker; Soichiro Koriyama, a 32-year-old freelance photojournalist; and 18-year-old Noriaki Imai, a recent high school graduate, were released Thursday night in Baghdad by gunmen holding them hostage. Their captors had threatened to burn the trio to death unless Japan pulled its Self-Defense Forces troops out of Iraq.

Japan refused to cave in to the gunmen, and did not budge when relatives of the trio came to Tokyo and demanded an SDF pullout for the sake of their loved ones' lives. The trio were later freed unharmed.

But what may ordinarily have been a happy ending may instead not be the end of the suffering for the three and their families.

While the three were in captivity, they and their kin drew sharp public criticism in Japan, having put themselves in harm's way after being warned to steer clear of Iraq. They were castigated for causing trouble and a fair amount of grief for the government.

Immediately after it was learned that the trio had been taken hostage, politicians, top bureaucrats and the media openly accused them of risking not only their own lives but also of jeopardizing the government's activities in Iraq by entering the strife-torn country despite repeated orders by the Foreign Ministry to keep out.

Some members of the public were equally unsympathetic; the hostages' relatives received countless harassing telephone calls and were bashed on Internet bulletin boards, including the well-known Channel 2.

Kenichi Asano, a professor at Kyoto's Doshisha University and one of the most vocal critics of the media, said it is not unusual for victims of crime in Japan to become targets of the media, which tend to accentuate their faults.

"But never before has such extensive criticism been directed toward the families while their kin were still in danger," he said, noting the trio had been kidnapped, a crime that requires the highest level of media sensitivity.

Asano claimed that the official response to the hostage crisis triggered the widespread criticism.

The first criticism from politicians came a day after the hostage scenario was reported, when Environment Minister Yuriko Koike said she thought the trio's decision to enter Iraq was nothing less than reckless, adding that they were largely responsible for the situation.

Influential Liberal Democratic Party politicians jumped on the bandwagon, prompting mainstream media to openly criticize the trio.

Asano claimed that the government specifically placed the blame for the hostages' plight on the trio's shoulders to counter any public criticism toward the deployment of Ground Self-Defense Force troops to southern Iraq.

The criticism apparently peaked with a series of articles in the latest issues of the major weekly magazines Shukan Shincho and Shukan Bunshun, which hit newsstands last Thursday morning, before the trio were released.

The articles touched upon their private lives and personal histories.

Kiyoshi Hayakawa, chief editor of Shukan Shincho, defended the decision to run the articles even before the fate of the three was known, saying the hostages were "more than just victims, because they made the controversial decision to enter Iraq despite being aware of the dangers."

He said the magazine sold out within a few hours at many stores and newsstands, adding that the publisher received a number of phone calls praising the coverage.

But the criticism is not just in the media realm.

Ken Takada, head of World Peace Now, an umbrella body of 51 Japanese nongovernmental organizations, said he believes the criticism of the trio reflects a lack of public understanding and is tantamount to slander toward overseas volunteer activities by individuals or NGOs.

He said that Japanese NGOs have made a great contribution in Iraq since the days of President Saddam Hussein's ouster, and that it is still natural for people to want to stay there or go to the country.

"The government's decision to dispatch the SDF to Iraq was an act that could effectively pull the plug on such commitment," he said. "But it is questionable whether this point was discussed to the extent that the government could come up with convincing reasons for us to leave."

Takada also reckoned the hostages wrongly assessed the dangers. He noted that most NGOs in Iraq have relocated their headquarters to Jordan and other neighboring countries.

Some also view the criticism directed at the hostages as a reflection of strong public distrust in Japan of civic activism, especially peace activities.

One Shukan Shincho article alluded to Marxist sympathies on the part of relatives of at least one of the hostages.

Hayakawa defended the story, saying it is natural for the public to want to know the political backgrounds of the hostages and their families, since they both made such political demands as the withdrawal of the SDF from Iraq.

The two other hostages freed Saturday in Baghdad -- freelance journalist Junpei Yasuda, 30, and 36-year-old human rights activist Nobutaka Watanabe -- also faced criticism.

And as for the freelancers, Koriyama and Yasuda, the daily Yomiuri Shimbun, in its top story in last Thursday's evening edition, denounced freelance journalists in Iraq for staying even after major newspapers and TV broadcasters withdrew their reporters. The article alleged that such holdouts were motivated by a quest for fame, money or their opposition to the SDF dispatch.

But Kosuke Tsuneoka, 34, a freelance journalist who returned from Iraq on March 16, argued that it was natural for journalists to want go to Iraq when what could be the most pivotal fighting in the conflict -- the battle at Fallujah -- has yet to end.

"The (mainstream) media call Japanese civilians in Iraq irresponsible, but it was those media that should be branded as irresponsible for abandoning reporting from Iraq even when Japan is making a military commitment there," he argued.

Tsuneoka said he believes the extensive criticism of the hostages is based primarily on the public and media's view of the war in Iraq as someone else's problem.

"But Japan is actually a player in the war, and it is natural for journalists or aid workers to feel motivated to do something, even at the risk of their lives."