Photo/Illutration Visitors to the Hanshin Bureau of The Asahi Shimbun offer a prayer May 3 at an altar set up for 29-year-old Tomohiro Kojiri, who was gunned down in his office on May 3, 1987, by a member of an extremist group. (Takae Kumagai)

Asahi Shimbun offices around the country observed a moment of silence May 3 in memory of a colleague who was gunned down in the company’s Hanshin Bureau in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, on May 3, 1987, by a member of an extremist group.

A small altar dedicated to 29-year-old Tomohiro Kojiri was set up on the first floor of the bureau, where a masked gunman opened fire with a shotgun, also seriously injuring another reporter at the bureau. The crime remains unsolved.

As a precaution against the spread of the pandemic, a notebook for visitors to write down their names and thoughts was not set up this year. In addition, an office with documents about the shooting incident located on the third floor of the bureau building was closed to the public.

At 8:15 p.m., when the shooting occurred, a moment of silence was observed by Asahi Shimbun employees.

“I strongly felt the importance of freedom of speech and the press while watching the news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” said a 77-year-old man from Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, who visited the Hanshin Bureau for the first time in five years.

A 79-year-old man from Nishinomiya who has visited the bureau annually said, “The mass media should continue to report the truth so that Kojiri’s death will not have been in vain.”

On the morning of May 3, Hironori Sugibayashi, the managing editor of the Asahi’s Osaka Head Office, and others visited Kojiri’s grave in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, to offer a prayer.

“We must not yield to any form of violence, but continue to protect freedom of speech,” Sugibayashi said. “That is the mission of all of us in the media.”

The United Nations has declared May 3 as World Press Freedom Day.

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