Hundreds of Japanese protest ‘unclear’ whistleblower law — RT News.
Demonstrators flooded Tokyo’s streets over a just-activated secrecy law set to threaten the disclosure of government wrongdoings, as well as limit press freedom. The government hopes the added safeguards will lead to intelligence-sharing with the US.
Starting Wednesday, anyone leaking state secrets can get 10 years in prison. Anyone who becomes an accessory to the crime – such as a journalist – can get five. According to the Kyodo news agency, a total of 460,000 documents are to immediately gain classification under the law.
This fact led to hundreds of people with banners and tambourines filling the capital’s streets very early Wednesday, prior to the year-old law coming into effect – the exact same picture seen in November 2013, when they tried to prevent the document from being ratified.
“This terrible law must be revoked, but at least if we keep on protesting the government won’t be able to do whatever it wants,” Yumi Nakagomi, 59, told Reuters. “If we give up on this Japan will end up just like Russia or China, or North Korea.”
“This law will restrict the peoples’ right to know,” Tomoki Hiyama, one of approximately 800 people gathered in front of the parliament said late Tuesday. “It’s full of ambiguity and will take us back to the ‘public peace and order’ controls of World War II.”
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