The Defense Ministry on Oct. 2 dismissed a 50-year-old colonel of the Air Self-Defense Force for allegedly passing a "defense secret" to a Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reporter more than three years ago. The information was about a Chinese submarine that had surfaced in the South China Sea and was adrift. The investigative unit of the Self-Defense Forces sent allegations against the officer to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office some six months ago, but the office has not yet taken any action.
It is extraordinary that the investigative unit, which is directly under the defense minister's control, made efforts to pinpoint a news source who provided the recipient with the information and that the ministry dismissed the ASDF officer before public prosecutors took action. It is the first time that defense authorities have dismissed an SDF member for giving information to a reporter.
The Defense Ministry obviously aims to control the flow of information from the SDF to the outside by slapping tight restrictions on SDF members likely to be approached by reporters. This will intimidate SDF members and, possibly, even reporters trying to carry out their normal news-gathering duties. Thus it carries the danger of limiting people's right to know.