The Asahi Shimbun daily and local residents on Thursday paid tribute to 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 newspaper's "anti-national" reporting.
Company officials also renewed their pledge to defend freedom of the press as the newspaper marked the 31st anniversary of the killing at the bureau in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.
"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.