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.
Women face employment discrimination and are frequently tracked into clerical careers.
A 1997 law banned workplace discrimination against women and lifted restrictions on women s working hours. However, sanctions for corporate violators are weak. Women hold only 23 of the 500 lower house seats. In 1998, police began a crackdown on gangsters who traffic Filipino and Thai women to Japan with the promise of regular jobs and then force them to work as prostitutes. Authorities stripped the Aum Shinrikyo cult of its status as a religious group following its 1995 Tokyo subway terrorist attack.