TOKYO - Japanese company Smile-Up, the former talent agency known as Johnny & Associates, says it has sent a letter of protest to Britain's public broadcaster BBC over its program on sexual abuse by its late founder.
Last month, BBC broadcast part of an interview with Smile-Up. President Higashiyama Noriyuki in the program.
When asked to appeal directly to people who slander those who say they were sexually abused by Johnny Kitagawa, Higashiyama reportedly said that he thinks even these people have the right to freedom of speech.
He also reportedly said that he sometimes thinks they voice their opinions as their way to get justice but that he doesn't advocate their behavior.
Smile-Up claims that Higashiyama also said that he wants to eliminate the slander as much as possible.
But the company says that this addition was cut out from the program.
Regarding Higashiyama's comments on freedom of speech, Smile-Up. says it wrote to BBC before the program was aired that generally speaking, slanderers tend to use freedom of speech as an excuse, which makes it very difficult to implement preventive measures.
The company also says it asked BBC not to clip only a part of Higashiyama's comments and broadcast it.
The firm says it is very regrettable that BBC intentionally distorted what Higashiyama said in its program.
Smile-Up is demanding a correction and apology from the British broadcaster.
In response to NHK's inquiry, BBC says, "We are still investigating the situation and once the investigation has finished we will need to draft a statement, which we will send to you directly."
