A major Japanese newspaper publishes an article denouncing the prime minister. Reporters hold a rally to criticize his Cabinet. The government responds by banning sales of the edition of the newspaper that carried the article, indicting its author for violation of the Newspaper Law. Rightwing agitators attack the newspaper's publisher.
This blatant example of demagogic right-wing agitation instigated by a government in power took place in Japan in the summer of 1918.
The newspaper in question was the Osaka Asahi Shimbun; the prime minister, Masatake Terauchi. (Terauchi, who was the first Governor General of Korea, was a field marshal and a diehard Imperialist. Ironically, the rice riots of 1918, which had sparked the journalists' criticism, led to his resignation that September.) These events have come to be called the "White Rainbow Incident," a classical Chinese allusion to revolt.
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