Japan’s ruling party under fire over links to far-right extremists

Japan’s ruling party is under pressure to distance itself from the far right, after senior politicians were linked to groups that promote Nazi ideology and hate crimes against the country’s ethnic Korean community.

The calls for three members of prime minister Shinzo Abe’s government to distance themselves from extremists come amid a campaign of death threats and intimidation targeting liberal academics, which observers say is a symptom of Japan’s sharp turn to the right.

Eriko Yamatani, Japan's most senior police official, is the third senior Liberal Democratic party (LDP) politician to have been linked to ultra-right groups, after a photograph surfaced of her with Shigeo Masuki, a senior member of the Zaitokukai group. Yamatani has refused to condemn Zaitokukai, whose members have labelled ethnic Korean residents of Japan "cockroaches" and called for them to be killed.

Her LDP colleagues Sanae Takaichi, the internal affairs minister, and LDP policy head Tomomi Inada, acknowledged they had been photographed with Kazunari Yamada, leader of a Japanese neo-Nazi party, in 2011. They claimed they were unaware of Yamada’s extremist views at the time.

– (Reuters)