Statement
One day we realized that the Prosecutor's Office had became the number one enemy of the Democracy in Japan. Time ago several Human Rights organizations pointed out the Japanese judiciary system anomalies, because the rate of the guilty verdicts exceeded the 99%, thus, in fact, the Prosecutor's Office monopolized the judiciary power.
That didn't stop to surprise the Japanese people. However, it was accepted because there was a myth on the infallibility of justice. Especially enphasized on the Special Investigative Squad of the Prosecutor's Office, which is the one that sees the political cases and was considered the true avenger for exposing the corruption.
However, from the moment that the Liberal Democrat Party lost the power and the Democrat Party won after 50 years, the Prosecutor's Office dares to accuse Ichiro Ozawa, possible candidate for the post of Prime Minister, to had bought a field with irregularities, thing that, definitely, proves to be false. There, the people started to realize tha the Prosecutor's Office uses its power to denounce uncomfortable politicians.
Also reveals, by questioning the suspects and/or witnesses, that the Prosecutors use some techniques that almost reach to the torture level such as family threats, cut the necesary medical attention or forced to sign "false testimonies" invented for themselves. Curiously this type of "interrogations" lead, in several cases, to "suspects and/or witnesses suicides".
Of course the law gives to the suspects the right to be assisted by a lawyer. However, in many cases, the lawyer also take part in this theater and try to convince the accused to recognize the felony because with that they will soon rid themselves of detention.
Meanwhile, over all these years, the press not only has never done any effort to be impartial, but it also, in automatic has always released the facts that the above instance presents, just as they present them.
Other aspects that also have started to call the attention during these past weeks, have been:
1. The existence of an alleged Committee for Inquest of Prosecution, that, in theory, will exist to controll the Prosecutor's Office and sees that it works properly.
2. The fact that this Committee had claimed, arbitrarily, the right to impeach and arrest anyone eventhough there were no enough evidence against. Said Committee was the one that denounced Ichiro Ozawa, abusing their power, which corroborates that they can impeach and accuse anyone they want, no matter if it is a journalist, politician, Governor or citizen, without proving the felony, which proves that the Prosecutor's Office dominates our country, it is like an absolute power.
We must say that it is not such an absolute power to the extend that it has had to face charges. In fact, the 21st. of September a scandal broke out strong against the same Prosecution, when it emerged that prosecutors had manipulated evidence in the case of Mrs. Atsuko Muraki, to blame her, knowing that she was innocent.
Even the press, which has functioned as the Prosecution advertising, wasn't able to hide this scandal, so that finally the Minister of Justice had to talk about the "Prosecutor's Office problem". and open an Independent panel to reform prosecutors.
Worth noting that, although against these strong criticals for corruption, the Prosecutor, instead of making an internal reform, it has sought to minimize the problem, blaming the officer in charge of the case of Mrs. Muraki, by the lack of evidence, as if the problem was a particular one.
For this reason, recently, several lawyers, journalists, artists, intellectuals and a great number of citizens gather in Internet (Twitter), decided to form a group to make complaints and request informatiion to avoid to minimize the problem and thus boost the reform of this corrupt judicial system.
As a first step, it has been given a complaint to the officer in charge in which it accused this government officer of abuse of authority.
This has been done in the hope not only that there is evidence of his guilt, but they do a complete review of all the judicial system, extending from the regional offices to the Supreme Prosecutor. The irony will be that the prosecution itself would have to carry out a complaint against them and investigate itself.
Also worth noting is the first case in which citizens make a criminal complaint against a bureaucratic agency in the country's history.
It is interesting to see how, despite the strong control of information in the press, thousands of people united through Twitter have been aware and increasingly protesting against the prosecution of corruption and manipulation of the press. Even people start out on the street which is very unusual in Japan.
Now it is time to correct the judicial system and to defend Human Rights.
Nobuyo Yagi
Representant
Group of citizens to defend the Constitutional State
contact:
E-Mail :shiminnokai21@gmail.com
Twitter : @shiminnokai21 (Japanese, English, Spanish available)
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「健全な法治国家のために声をあげる市民の会」による英語版プレスリリースです。