Photo/Illutration A visitor to the Asahi Shimbun’s Hanshin Bureau on May 3 prays at a special altar set up for Tomohiro Kojiri, the reporter slain 37 years ago. (Takuya Tanabe)

NISHINOMIYA, Hyogo Prefecture--Colleagues, family members, friends and other mourners stopped by The Asahi Shimbun’s Hanshin Bureau on May 3 to pay respects to the reporter who was gunned down there 37 years ago.

A memorial altar was set up to honor the memory of Tomohiro Kojiri, who was only 29 when he was killed by a masked gunman wielding a shotgun. Another reporter was seriously injured in the incident.

An extremist group calling itself “Sekihotai” claimed responsibility for the attack, but no one was ever caught.

For the first time since 2019, a notebook was placed by the altar to allow visitors to write down their thoughts. A special room on the third floor that is dedicated to the tragedy was also opened again.

These extra steps were canceled in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 because of the pandemic.

A moment of silence was observed by Asahi employees at the bureau at 8:15 p.m. when the incident occurred on Constitution Day in 1987.

One visitor to the Hanshin Bureau on May 3 was Shoichiro Numayama, 60, who was interviewed by Kojiri when he was still a university student.

Now a senior high school teacher in Chiba Prefecture, Numayama said: “He was a reporter who dealt kindly with all those he interviewed. I want to know the truth behind the senselessness of this murder.”

Haruka Shimizu, a 20-year-old university student from Osaka Prefecture, spent a few moments in the special room dedicated to the incident.

“I realized that the life of an individual was taken here,” she said. “While freedom of speech is important, there is also an invisible violence of anonymous insults and slander. That is something that everyone has to think about.”

Asahi executives paid their respects at Kojiri’s gravesite in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, on May 3.

Masayuki Tatsuzawa, managing editor of Asahi’s Osaka Head Office, vowed to “diligently protect freedom of speech and never give in to violence.”

The injured reporter, Hyoe Inukai, died in 2018 of unrelated causes.

The statute of limitations in the incident expired in 2002.

(This article was written by Seiya Hara, Norihiko Shinjo and Hana Endo.)

Related News