A member of NHK's board of governors wrote an essay praising a right-wing activist who committed suicide in the Asahi Shimbun building in 1993, raising questions about the public broadcaster's political neutrality.
The memorial essay by Michiko Hasegawa, a philosopher and professor emeritus at Saitama University, was distributed in October to people attending a memorial ceremony for Shusuke Nomura, who shot himself to protest a cartoon printed in the Shukan Asahi that ridiculed his political activist group. The suicide was criticized by the media as a violent attack on freedom of the press.
Hasegawa's essay is likely to raise questions about her political neutrality as a member of NHK's board, which has the power to appoint and sack the network's chairman, who holds the ultimate editorial control over all NHK programs.