The criminal procedure code allows authorities to restrict a suspect s right to counsel during an investigation and bars counsel during interrogations. Human rights groups say the practice of holding suspects in police cells from arrest to sentencing encourages police abuse of detainees. In 1998, the United Nations Human Rights Committee recommended that the government reform the pretrial detention system on the grounds that convictions in criminal trials are often based on coerced confessions. In March, Amnesty International criticized the prolonged detention in police cells of three Greenpeace activists who had committed minor offenses during a peaceful protest. NGOs also accuse immigration officers of regularly beating detained illegal aliens.
Civic institutions are strong.
Freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association are generally respected in practice. Exclusive private press clubs provide major media outlets with access to top politicians and bureaucrats. In return, journalists often practice self-censorship regarding sensitive issues, including those involving organized crime and the financial condition of troubled companies and banks. The education ministry routinely censors passages in history textbooks describing Japan s World War II atrocities. In 1997, the supreme court affirmed the government s right of censorship, but for the first time ruled that the education ministry had broken the law by censoring references to well-documented Japanese germ warfare experiments in China in the 1940s.