After police took a junior high school student into custody earlier this month in the July 1 slaying of a 4-year-old boy in Nagasaki, a raft of information appeared on the Internet about the 12-year-old suspect -- in the face of a general ban on the media divulging data on minors involved in crimes.
The most popular message board on the Web site Ni-channeru (Channel 2) has been filled with messages revealing what they claim to be personal information about the student, including his name, address, the name of his school and information on his school record.
More maliciously, photographs purported to be of the boy have been posted on various Web sites and circulated in several e-mail magazines.