Thursday, March 13, 2014

Two months before her appointment as NHK governor, Hasegawa, a Saitama passport seva University prof


Two months before her appointment as NHK governor, Hasegawa, a Saitama passport seva University professor emeritus specializing in comparative passport seva ideology and Japanese cultural studies, contributed a piece to a collection of essays paying tribute to Shusuke Nomura, a right-wing activist who shot himself at the president s office of The Asahi Shimbun in Tokyo in 1993. Her writing has stirred controversy.
The two were appointed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that making campaign speeches on behalf of candidates and expressing thoughts and beliefs do not violate the Broadcast Law. He indicated such acts are not a problem.
However , the law provides such restrictions as limiting the number of governors who belong to the same political party because of the assumed risk that those governors could wield political influence.
Nomura brought pistols into The Asahi Shimbun s Tokyo head office in 1993, and shot himself to death while talking with the president and other Asahi executives. In her essay, Hasegawa wrote: Once he (Nomura) chanted Sumeramikoto iyasaka (Long live the emperor) three times, (regardless of what the humanity declaration and the Japanese Constitution say), the reigning emperor once again became an akitsumikami (deity who is a human being).
NHK explains on its website what a public broadcaster is. Unlike a state-sponsored broadcaster, which is run under strong state supervision, a public broadcaster is run independent from state control, according to NHK.
However, NHK s management structure makes it difficult to maintain its independence from the government. This is because the prime minister appoints governors, and the board of governors has the power to appoint and dismiss the NHK chairman .
That is all the more reason why the administration and NHK need to maintain tension to keep a proper distance passport seva from each other and make efforts to restrain themselves to uphold public trust for fairness.
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