The Government of Shinzo Abe Is Working Hard To Silence Its Critics

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have been using subtle threats to silence its media critics since their return to power in 2012.

Last week a member of Abe's cabinet had this to say about TV. broadcasters.

Japanese Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi has decided that the best way silence critics of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government is to rescind the licenses of TV. broadcasters.   

From June of last year

A friend of Shinzo Abe's Naoki Hyakuta and a former board  member of public broadcaster NHK suggested in a speech to Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) backbenchers that two Okinawan newspapers be forced to cease publication over their criticism of government policy concerning Okinawa and the U.S. bases there.

      The furor erupted on Thursday when novelist Naoki Hyakuta—a former NHK board member and close friend of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe—said during his lecture that the Okinawa Times and the Ryukyu Shimpo should be put out of business, Fuji TV reported. Other lawmakers present suggested the government put pressure on the Japan Business Federation to urge members not to advertise in the two Okinawan newspapers.

 On Friday in the Diet, opposition lawmakers questioned Abe. “Don’t you feel ashamed or sorry as the LDP leader? Is there anything you want to say about it?” asked lower house member Kiyomi Tsujimoto of the Social Democratic Party. Abe said that freedom of the press is a fundamental part of democracy and called the remarks regrettable, if that is what was actually said. However, he said it was not up to him to apologize but the speakers, because the attendees at the gathering were just putting forward their personal opinions.

From April of last year 

Shinzo Abe And The LDP Work To Stifle The Press And They're Succeeding

Recently their efforts have focused on individual reporters and commentators appearing on various news programs.

 It was an unexpected act of protest that shook Japan’s carefully managed media world: Shigeaki Koga, a regular television commentator and fierce critic of the political establishment, abruptly departed from the scripted conversation during a live TV news program to announce that this would be his last day on the show because, as he put it, network executives had succumbed to political pressure for his removal.
“I have suffered intense bashing by the prime minister’s office,” Mr. Koga told his visibly flabbergasted host late last month, saying he had been removed as commentator because of critical statements he had made about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Later in the program, Mr. Koga held up a sign that read “I am not Abe,” a play on the slogan of solidarity for journalists slain in January at a French satirical newspaper.

Now there's this

Supporters of the three news broadcasters say prime minister had private dinners with top media executives before the departures

That is the fate that has befallen what could loosely be described as their counterparts in Japan – Ichiro Furutachi, Hiroko Kuniya and Shigetada Kishii – three respected broadcasters with a reputation for asking tough questions.

Their imminent departure from evening news programmes is not just a loss to their profession; critics say they were forced out as part of a crackdown on media dissent by an increasingly intolerant prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his supporters.

As the host of Hodo Station, a popular evening news programme on TV Asahi, Ichiro Furutachi was at the centre of a row last spring over claims by one of the show’s regular pundits, Shigeaki Koga, that he had been forced to quit under pressure from government officials angered by his criticism of the Abe administration.

Shigetada Kishii, who appears on News 23 on the TBS network, angered government supporters last year after criticising security legislation pushed through parliament by Abe’s Liberal Democratic party (LDP).

Perhaps most striking of all is the departure of Kuniya, the veteran presenter of Close-up Gendai, a current affairs programme on public broadcaster NHK.

Her “crime” had been to irritate Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary and a close Abe ally, with an unscripted follow-up question during a discussion about the security legislation.