Peace Preservation Law

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Peace Preservation Law
治安維持法
National Diet of Japan
PassedApril 22, 1925
RepealedOctober 15, 1945
Status: Repealed

The Peace Preservation Law (治安維持法, Chian iji hō) was a Japanese law enacted on April 22, 1925, with the aim of allowing the

Special Higher Police to more effectively suppress alleged socialists and communists.[1] In addition to criminalizing forming an association with the aim of altering the kokutai ("national essence") of Japan, the law also explicitly criminalized criticism of the system of private property and became the centerpiece of a broad apparatus of thought control in Imperial Japan. Altogether, more than 70,000 people were arrested under the provisions of the law until its repeal by Allied occupation authorities at the end of World War II
.

Passage

Following the

Japan Communist Party in 1922, although opposition to the law remained strong. Finally, the law was passed in 1925, in conjunction with the passage of the Universal Manhood Suffrage Law
, which allowed all male citizens to vote in elections, regardless of wealth or status. Fears that newly enfranchised working-class voters might vote for socialists or communists played an important role in overcoming earlier opposition to the law.

Provisions

The law provided:[2]

Anyone who has formed an association with the aim of altering the kokutai or the system of private property, and anyone who has joined such an association with full knowledge of its object, shall be liable to imprisonment with or without hard labor, for a term not exceeding ten years.

By using the highly vague and subjective term kokutai, the law attempted to blend politics and ethics, but the result was that any political opposition could be branded as "altering the kokutai". Thus the government had carte blanche to outlaw any form of dissent.

Consequences

Special Higher Police bureau, Censorship Section of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
.

In 1927, a sub-bureau, the "Thought Section," was established within the Criminal Affairs Bureau of the Special Higher Police within the

thought crime
" (思想犯, shisō han).

Renewed underground activity by the banned

Japan Communist Party in 1928 led to the March 15 incident, in which police arrested more than 1,600 Communists and suspected Communists under the provisions of the Peace Preservation Law. The same year, the highly anti-Communist government of Tanaka Giichi
pushed through an amendment to the law, raising the maximum penalty from ten years to death.

By 1933, coerced "ideological conversions" (転向, tenkō) had become the main means of enforcing the Peace Preservation Law, rather than judicial punishment.[3] In order to elicit tenkō from prisoners suspected of ideological radicalism, the police employed physical torture, as well as psychological torture and familial pressure.[3]

In the 1930s, with Japan's increasing

defense attorneys
in cases of thought crime. The new provisions became effective on May 15, 1941.

Hotsumi Ozaki, hanged under the provisions of the Peace Preservation Law

From 1925 through 1945, over 70,000 people were arrested under the provisions of the Peace Preservation Law, but only about 10% reached trial, and the death penalty was imposed on only two offenders, spy Richard Sorge and his informant, Hotsumi Ozaki. The Peace Preservation Law was repealed following the end of World War II by the American occupation authorities. The repeal was effected on October 15, 1945.

References

  1. .
  2. ^ Richard H. Mitchell, "Japan's Peace Preservation Law of 1925: Its Origins and Significance." Monumenta Nipponica (1973): 317-345.
  3. ^ a b Tipton, Elise K. (1997). "The Tokko and Political Police in Japan, 1911-1945". In Mazower, Mark (ed.). The Policing of Politics in the Twentieth Century: Historical Perspectives. Berghahn Books. p. 234.

Further reading

  • Minichiello, Sharon. Retreat from Reform: Patterns of Political Behavior in Interwar Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 1984).
  • Mitchell, Richard H. "Japan's Peace Preservation Law of 1925: Its Origins and Significance." Monumenta Nipponica (1973): 317–345. online
  • Mitchell, Richard H. Thought Control in Prewar Japan, Cornell University Press, 1976