By TOMOHIRO YAMAMOTO/ Staff Writer
December 21, 2022 at 17:59 JST
The Mie prefectural assembly unanimously approves a proposal to revise the political ethics ordinance to ban "likes" of social media posts that violate human rights at a plenary session in Tsu on Dec. 20. (Tomohiro Yamamoto)
TSU--Mie prefectural assembly members will be prohibited from clicking "likes" to social media posts that encourage human rights violations in response to questionable online behavior by an assemblyman.
The Mie prefectural assembly unanimously approved a revision of the prefecture's political ethics ordinance at a plenary session on Dec. 20, which includes the provision.
The revised ordinance to ban members from infringing on human rights took effect that day.
The revision was prompted by an assemblyman from the Liberal Democratic Party who targeted a same-sex couple on his blog in 2021.
The proposal was jointly submitted in November by eight prefectural assembly members from all six caucuses, which had been deliberating on revising the ordinance for a year and a half.
The revised ordinance bans assembly members from committing human rights violations and also clearly states that “it prohibits them from concurring with comments by third parties that infringe on human rights.”
According to the assembly secretariat, this is the first time in Japan that a prefectural-level political ethics ordinance includes a provision banning human rights violations.
Acts of human rights infringements are assumed to cover discrimination, bullying, abuse, invasions of privacy and defamation, including online posts.
The ordinance stipulated that acts suspected to be in violation will be assessed by the assembly political ethics committee in light of laws and legal precedents.
Any member found to have violated the ordinance will be asked to apologize in the assembly or to refrain from attending assembly sessions.
The catalyst for the revision came when a social media post by Takatora Kobayashi, 48, a Mie prefectural assemblyman of the LDP, elicited public outrage.
In one post, Kobayashi included the address of a same-sex couple on his blog without permission. He also “liked” tweets that defamed the couple.
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