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The weekly magazine had reported the suicide of the Higashi Murayama City Councilwoman as a murder, falsely implicating the Soka Gakkai.
The magazine published a notice of apology following a Supreme Court order.
After the Shukan Shincho published its apology, the magazine Shukan Gendai published a notice of retraction and apology to the Soka Gakkai on the March 8, 2003, issue, which reached the newsstands on February 24.
On October 29, 2002, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision and ordered defendants to publish a retraction and apology in Shukan Gendai and pay 2 million yen in damages to the Soka Gakkai. After four months of the Supreme Court’s final ruling, publisher Kodansha finally carried a notice of retraction and apology in its magazine Shukan Gendai.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Kodansha had already paid 2 million and 730 thousand yen (including interest) to the Soka Gakkai. However, since Kodansha had not published a notice of apology yet, the Soka Gakkai filed an “indirect compulsion” statement, a request for sanctions against default on an obligation, with the court. Then, before sanctions were imposed, Kodansha finally published its notice of apology on page 132, in the March 8 issue of Shukan Gendai (sold on February 24).
It is rare for the court to order, in addition to monetary compensation, the issuance of a notice of apology by a publishing company. This case is one of only a few such examples.
Although Mr. Asaki and his daughter have also been ordered to publish a notice of apology, they have yet to comply.
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Notice Of Apology
Soka Gakkai
In the September 23, 1995 issue of Shukan Gendai, we, Kodansha, Inc. and Masahiko Motoki, a former editor of the Shukan Gendai weekly, printed and distributed the report entitled “Investigating the Mystery of theUnnatural death of a Higashi Murayama City Councilwoman – A husband and a daughter disclose, “Akiyo was murdered by Soka Gakkai!” This article {wrongly} gave the impression that the Soka Gakkai murdered late Higashi Murayama City Councilwoman Akiyo Asaki. Kodansha, Inc. and Masahiko Motoki express sincere apology for having seriously defamed your organization through the above report.
February 24, 2003
Kodansha, Inc.
Sawako Noma, Representative director
Masahiko Motoki, former editor of Shukan Gendai
(Summary of Seikyo Shimbun article, February 25, 2003)
Mrs. Asaki, a vocal critic of the Soka Gakkai, died from injuries after she fell from a building in the Tokyo suburb of Higashi Murayama on September 1, 1995. Two official inquiries--one conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the other by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office-have since concluded that Mrs. Asaki’s death was a suicide and there is no evidence of any crime.
Shortly after Mrs. Asaki’s death, articles appeared in Shukan Gendai and Shukan Shincho, based solely on interviews provided by Daito and Naoko Asaki. In his ruling, High Court Chief Magistrate Hideichi Yazaki found the Asakis’ story to be false and vindictive, noting that they were “fully cognizant of the fact that [their comments] would be used ... to defame the Soka Gakkai.”
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