Threatened attack on FCCJ the latest attempt to intimidate media in Japan

TOKYO — Over a recent early December weekend, there were a series of threatening calls made in English and Japanese to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. The caller threatened to blow up the FCCJ and to harm two journalist members, including Jake Adelstein (author of Tokyo Vice and host of The Evaporated podcast series) for being ‘anti-Japanese’ and one other journalist, who’s name has been kept out of the press at her request. The FCCJ contacted the police, who responded swiftly. They traced the caller and quickly arrested the individual responsible — a woman with extreme right-wing and nationalist views.

The FCCJ issued a statement of gratitude to the police and instituted security measures for both staff and members. The organization thanked the police for their prompt and efficient response.

The FCCJ, established in 1945, exists, the statement said, “to provide foreign correspondents and other journalists with broad access to news sources in Japan and overseas, to defend the freedom of the press and the free exchange of information, and to promote friendship, harmony, and mutual welfare in both professional and social relations among foreign and Japanese journalists … We will not be swayed by terrorism or threats.”

This is not the first such incident for the FCCJ.