NHK chief producer Satoru Nagai talks about bowing to political pressure while editing a documentary on sex slaves Jan. 13.

The program in question was about a mock trial organized by the group over Japan's use of wartime sex slaves, broadcast on Jan. 30, 2001.

In the July 2001 suit, the Tokyo-based group, Violence against Women in War-Network Japan, sought a total of ¥20 million in damages from NHK and two affiliated production firms, saying the group lost confidence in NHK because the broadcast version of the documentary was significantly different from what NHK had initially said it would air.

NHK cut the program's content by four minutes just before it was broadcast by editing out the mock trial's scene about Emperor Showa being given a guilty ruling.

Presiding Judge Toshifumi Minami said Takeshi Matsuo, then executive director of NHK's broadcasting bureau, will appear before the court Dec. 5 and Satoru Nagai, the documentary's chief producer, Dec. 21.

Nagai has claimed that NHK altered the program's content bowing to political pressure.

In March last year, the Tokyo District Court ordered one of the two NHK affiliates to pay ¥1 million to the group, a ruling appealed by both the group and the production company.

The Japan Times Weekly: Oct. 8, 2005
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