When ruling party lawmaker Koichi Kato criticized Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, retribution from the rightwing was swift: An extremist set his house on fire and tried to commit ritual suicide.
It was the most dramatic in a string of attacks and threats over the past year that have academics, journalists and lawmakers worried that Japan's freedom of expression is under assault by a resurgent nationalist fringe.
"Speech and journalism in this country are facing an extremely difficult situation," Masato Kitamura, chairman of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, told the group's annual meeting recently.