言論・表現の自由を守る会がビラ配布弾圧事件を訴えて、
2008年3月人権理事会に提出したジョイントレポート
（青字部分：JRFS）
前半の大石事件は、大石さんを守る大阪の会が担当。（別掲）
この直後の5月に、UPR第1回日本政府報告書審査が行われました。
The Oishi Case and the Cases of Horikoshi and Arakawa
Suppression of Freedom of Expression in Elections
Is it a crime to distribute leaflets!?
occurred successively by the suppression of distributing leaflets in Japan,
which is a member of the Human Rights Council.
In Japan entering 21st centuries, the suppression of distributing leaflets like the case of “The White Rose”, which occurred at the Munich University during the Second World War where, by reason of distributing antiwar leaflets, young people were executed by beheading five days after their arrest, takes place successively.
Of course, there exists no such execution in Japan but distributing political leaflets becomes subject to guilty by district courts, high courts and even the Supreme Court.
Akio HORIKOSHI, a government official, was arrested in March 2004 by reason of having distributed leaflets saying “Respect the Constitution !”, which allegedly committed the Government Officials Act, near his home on holiday at the general election in previous November. And he was convicted of 100,000 yen fine and two years’ suspension of sentence by the Tokyo District Court in June 2006.
But he appealed to the Tokyo High Court. Those who have appealed to the High Court are not only HORIKOSHI who was found unfair guilty, but also the prosecution, appealing to the High Court by protesting that “the sentence was unreasonable”.
At the time the police put a tail on him for 29 days consecutively and a total of 171 policemen took a picture secretly by video camera which was installed in their shoes with a hole.
And they submitted it as evidence to the Court. But the Court and the high prosecution have not released but nine video tapes as evidence out of 33 tapes.
In December 2004, when a priest Yosei ARAKAWA distributed news leaflets of a ward assembly at an apartment, he was arrested for trespassing at its corridor by a resident’s report to the police.
And he was detained at the police station for 23 days and indicted. He was found innocent at the first trial and many editorials of media supported this decision.
But the prosecution appealed the case to a high court without submitting any new evidence and, in December 2007, the Tokyo High Court reversed the lower judgment and imposed a fine on him.
In Japan , the prohibitions of pre-election campaigning and door-to-door visit, and the restriction of distributing leaflets were brought at the same time with the enforcement of the General Election Law in 1925.
After the Second World War, although the right to vote was enlarged to women and adults over 20 years old, the prohibition of door-to-door visit and the restriction of political and election campaigning still remain unchanged. Whenever a democratic grass-rooted election campaigning demonstrated its influence, successive ruling parties repeatedly strengthened the restriction against it and violated its fundamental human rights.
After the War, those who were convicted of violation of the Public Offices Election Law (prohibitions of door-to-door visit and distributing leaflets) have reached more than 90,000.
