UN 22th Humann Rights Council
Statement
Japanese Association for the Right to Freedom of Speech
NGO in Special Consultative Status with the ECOSOC
March 14, 2013
I first want to point out that the Japanese Government made a deceptive reply during the consideration of its UPR report on October 23, 2012.
I then will make three requests to the Human Rights Council.
During the debate on October 30, 2012, the delegate of Uzbekistan said that indicting somebody for distributing tracts critical to government may constitute exercise of censorship.
The Japanese Government had obviously prepared a reply to that type of question.
It stated that “the problem is not the substance of the tract but the place where the tract was distributed.
The decision is made fairly taking into account the feeling of the residents of that place, the evidences and the relevant laws”.
As a result of this, the issue of political tract distribution was not taken up in the recommendations of the Working Group to the present session of the Human Rights Council.
I want to stress that all the cases of people arrested, indicted and tried guilty by the court so far concern the distribution of political tracts that are critical to the government.
Recently, at a dialogue meeting with the NGOs, I raised the same question but the Government representative made a similar deceptive statement. Last December, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment on the two cases of tract distribution that completely ignored the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and particularly the paragraph 26 of the general recommendation issued after the consideration of the 5th report of Japanese government on ICCPR by UNHRC（Human Rights committee）in 2008.
1. To immediate send to Japan a special rapporteur on the freedom of expression;
2. To urge the Japanese Government to ratify the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights )(individual communications) without delay;
3. To ensure that paragraph 26 of the HRC（Human Rights committee）general recommendation issued after the consideration of the 5th report of Japanese government is implemented and Public Office Election Law (provision regarding the ban on distribution of documents and door-to-door visits) and National Public Personnel Law (Article 102 on National Personnel Agency Rule 14-7) be abolished.