Censorship in the Empire of Japan
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Censorship (検閲, Ken'etsu) in the
Meiji Period (1868–1912)
Episodes of newspaper suppression and imprisonment of editors occurred in 1868, 1876 and 1887.[1] Freedom of speech and the press was heavily restricted through vaguely worded laws.[1]
With the
With the establishment of the
During the
The censorship laws were revised again in the Publication Law of 1893 (出版法, Shuppan Hō), which remained virtually unchanged until 1949. Newspaper regulations followed suit in the Press Law of 1909 (新聞紙条例, Shimbunshi Jorei), which followed the regulations of the 1893 Publication Law and detailed punishments for offenses.
Taishō period (1912–1926)
Although the
Early Shōwa Period (1926–1945)
In 1924, the Publications Monitoring Department of the Home Ministry was created with separate sections for censorship, investigation and general affairs. With the outbreak of the
In 1936, an Information and Propaganda Committee was created within the Home Ministry, which issued all official
Article 12 of the censorship guideline for newspapers issued in September 1937 stated that any news article or photograph "unfavorable" to the Imperial Army was subject to a gag. Article 14 prohibited any "photographs of atrocities" but endorsed reports about the "cruelty of the Chinese" soldiers and civilians.[4]
Giving the example of the
One of the most famous examples of censorship is related to Mugi to heitai (Wheat and soldiers), Ashihei Hino's wartime bestseller. A paragraph in which the author described the beheading of three Chinese soldiers was cut from the final section of the book despite the author's dedication to the war effort.[6]
In 1940, the Information Department (情報部, Jōhōbu) was elevated to the Information Bureau (情報局, Jōhōkyoku), which consolidated the previously separate information departments from the Army, Navy and Foreign Ministry under the aegis of the Home Ministry. The new Jōhōkyoku had complete control over all news, advertising and public events. It was headed by a president (sōsai) responsible directly to the Prime minister with a staff of about 600 people including military officers and officials from the Home and Foreign ministries.[7] In February 1941 it distributed among editors a black list of writers whose articles they were advised not to print anymore.[8]
The officials spokesmen of the Naikaku Johōkyoku, such as the vice-president Hideo Okumura, Major-General Nakao Nahagi and Captain Hideo Hiraide, became themselves the most popular commentators. These men addressed press conferences, spoke on the radio and wrote in newspapers.[8]
The Naikaku Johōkyoku however dealt only with civilian matters. War bulletins were the domain of the Daihonei hōdōbu, the Press Department of the Imperial General Headquarters which was made up of the press sections of the Army and the Navy. The Daihonei hōdōbu deployed its own war correspondents and occasionally drafted civilian reporters for coverage.[9]
The 1941 revision of the
Occupation of Japan
After the
According to David M. Rosenfeld:
Not only did Occupation censorship forbid criticism of the United States or other Allied nations, but the mention of censorship itself was forbidden. This means, as Donald Keene observes, that for some producers of texts "the Occupation censorship was even more exasperating than Japanese military censorship had been because it insisted that all traces of censorship be concealed. This meant that articles had to be rewritten in full, rather than merely submitting XXs for the offending phrases."
— Donald Keene, quoted in Dawn to the West[10]
See also
- Political repression in Imperial Japan
- Censorship in Japan
- Dōmei Tsushin – the official news agency of the Empire of Japan
References
- ^ ISSN 0002-9602.
- ^ David C. Earhart, Certain Victory : Images of World War II in the Japanese Media, M. E. Sharpe, 2007, pp.89, 108, 143
- ^ David C. Earhart, Certain Victory : Images of World War II in the Japanese Media, M. E. Sharpe, 2007, p.99
- ^ Shinichi Kusamori, Fukyoka Shashi Ron: Hūkoku no Shashi 2 (An Essay on Disapproved Photographs: Journalistic Photos on Japan 2), Mainichi Shinbun Hizū Fukyoka Shashin 2, Mainichi Shinbun 1999, pp.177–178
- ^ The Nanking Atrocities, Psychological Warfare : I Chinese Propaganda, "Nanking Atrocities - Psychological Warfare". Archived from the original on 2009-08-09. Retrieved 2009-05-18.
- ^ David Rosenfeld, Unhappy Soldier : Hino Ashihei and Japanese World War II literature, p.49
- ^ Ben-Ami Shillony, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan, 1999, p.94
- ^ a b Ben-Ami Shillony, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan, p.95
- ^ Ben-Ami Shillony, Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan, p.94
- ^ Donald Keene, Dawn to the West, New York: Henry Holt, 1984), p. 967, quoted in David Rosenfeld Unhappy Soldier: Hino Ashihei and Japanese World War II Literature, p. 86.
- Kasza, Gregory J. (1993). The State and the Mass Media in Japan, 1918–1945. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-08273-7.
- Kushner, Barak (2003). The Thought War: Japanese Imperial Propaganda. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-3208-6.
Further reading
- Coyne, Fumiko Hoshida (1967). Censorship of Publishing in Japan, 1868–1945 (M.A. thesis). University of Chicago. OCLC 77328426.
- Hirano, Kyōko (1992). Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo: The Japanese Cinema Under the American Occupation, 1945–1952. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. OCLC 25367560.
- Mitchell, Richard H. (1983). Censorship in Imperial Japan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. OCLC 9219486.
External links
- Japanese Press Translations 1945-46 from the Dartmouth College Digital Collections