May 04 (Japan Times) - On Thursday the Asahi Shimbun newspaper remembered a 29-year-old reporter killed in a 1987 shooting at its western Japan bureau, in an attack claimed by ultra-rightists angered by the major daily's "antinational" reporting.
Local residents paid tribute at the bureau in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, while the newspaper company’s officials renewed their pledge to defend freedom of the press on the 31st anniversary of the killing.
“It is important that we pass on the lesson from the incident to younger generations so that he will live on in our hearts,†said Hideo Kitamura, a 68-year-old former civil servant from the city who visits the bureau every year to offer a prayer.
On May 3, 1987, a shotgun-wielding man in a ski mask entered the daily’s Hanshin bureau and shot Tomohiro Kojiri and his colleague with a shotgun. Kojiri died of gunshot wounds, while his colleague Hyoe Inukai sustained serious injuries.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by Sekihotai, believed by police to be a right-wing extremist group. The assailant escaped the scene of the shooting and was never identified.
The group sent letters to Kyodo News and other news organizations after the attack, saying that all “anti-Japan elements†should be executed.
Sekihotai also claimed responsibility for other attacks and an attempted bombing of Asahi Shimbun facilities between 1987 and 1988. The statute of limitations for the bureau killing passed in 2002, and those for the other attacks expired in 2003.
Source: ANNnewsCH
