The investigative unit of the Ground Self-Defense Force has sent up a paper on an Air Self-Defense Force officer to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, accusing him of passing a "defense-related secret" to a Yomiuri Shimbun reporter in connection with a 2005 newspaper article. The unit acted under an October 2001 revision of the Self-Defense Forces Law, which designated a leak of defense-related secret as a crime. This is the first time that legal action has been taken against an SDF member in accordance with the revision.
The newspaper article was about a dead-in-the-water Chinese submarine in the South China Sea. There is no explanation as to why the information passed by the officer should be treated as a secret. The Defense Ministry's action will have the effect of intimidating reporters as well as SDF members who meet them, and could eventually lead to limits on people's right to know.
The article appeared on the front page of Yomiuri Shimbun's May 31, 2005, edition. Headlined "A fire in a Chinese submarine?," it reported that a Chinese submarine was being towed toward Hainan Island. It quoted Japanese and U.S. defense sources as saying that an accident believed to be a fire had occurred inside the submarine several days earlier while it was submerged in international waters in the South China Sea between Taiwan and Hainan, which is Chinese territory.
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