List of Issues:

1. Please elaborate on whether or not the following articles of the Subversive Activities Prevention Act (SAPA) contravene articles 18 and 22 of the Covenant: Article 7 -- issuance of a directive for the dissolution of an organization; Article 8 -- prohibition of activities conducted by an organization.
   
   
2. Please elaborate on what kind of measures have been taken in accordance with the following articles that aim to prevent the abusive application of the SAPA:
   • Article 2 --

     prohibiting an expansive interpretation of the SAPA;

   • Article 3(1) --

     prohibiting the unreasonable restriction to freedom of thought, association, etc.;

   • Article 3(2) --

     prohibiting the restriction of and interference with legitimate activities of an organization through the abusive use of regulations and investigations to enforce regulations under the SAPA.

Background:

1. The Government Report states that a dissolution order is allowed under the articles 18 and 22 of the Covenant. Premised on this report, it is foreseeable that the Public Security Investigation Authority (PSIA) will continue to employ the SAPA without any restrictions, and whenever it concludes that the conditions required under Article 7 of the SAPA have been satisfied it will apply to the Public Security Commission (PSC) for a dissolution order.
   
   In January of 1997, the PSC rejected the PSIA's application for a dissolution order against the organization called "Aum Supreme Truth" (Aum). However, the PSC stated in its decision that "it is only natural that the PSIA's further performance of its duties as they concern Aum should be strictly separated from this decision, and it should conduct itself appropriately." Apparently backed up by this reference, the PSIA is reported to be continuing its investigation of Aum with the same intensity as before, even after the dissolution order application was rejected. This type of investigative activity which targets an organization against which a dissolution order has been refused, and which entails such things as surveillance, shadowing, and the invasion of privacy of its members, is a continuing violation of human rights.
   
   From the very start, Article 7 of the SAPA itself is a breach of due process for the following reasons: 1) The decision regarding the dissolution of an organization, which is the strongest regulation of the freedom of association, is made on an administrative level; 2) a targeted organization is not entitled to express its own opinion after a dissolution order is requested, and 3) the provision excludes the application of the Administrative Procedure Law, as well as the appeal system provided for under the Administrative Appeal Law.
   
   The prohibition of activities on the behalf of an organization that is allowed under Article 8 severely infringes upon the freedom of association, the freedom of expression and mental freedoms, and should be deemed to contradict articles 18 and 22 of the Convention.
   
   Any future implementation of a dissolution order against an organization under Article 7 of the SAPA would greatly undermine the various freedoms of thought, conscious, religion, and association that exist in Japanese society.
   
   
2. The PSIA has long conducted surveillance of and investigations into the lives of members of various organizations, including the Japan Communist Party (JCP) and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. In doing so it has caused grave violations of the people's rights to privacy, freedom of thought, expression, and association. These violations were revealed by incidents such as the 1988 wiretapping of the JCP, and the 1990 surveillance activities of a civic group in Tottori which organized an exhibition of a socially active photographer. Investigative activities conducted by the PSIA, therefore, present a great danger to various rights to mental freedoms.
   
   It happened that in 1995 the PSIA drew up new guidelines aimed towards "understanding the activities of a wider range of groups, not limited to the conventional target organizations," in its internal document entitled "The Goals of Management & Organizational Reform and Reform Outlines." The reform document reads that the PSIA will collect and analyze information concerning a wide range of organizations in order to prevent them from affecting the public peace. The document targets labor unions and political parties for constant surveillance, and civic groups that are active in environmental and consumer issues are targeted as organizations about which information should be collected as is deemed necessary. In fact, beginning around 1997, there have been cases in which groups, such as one that works in support of foreigners living in Japan, have been investigated by the PSIA.
   
   The new guidelines and the practices of the PSIA only escalate the danger of violations of human rights that already accompanies its investigations. The new guidelines also may be used to regulate activities in support of human rights.
   
   As stated in the list of issues above, Articles 2 and 3 of the SAPA set out preventive provisions against the abuse of the Act. It should be significant that the Act itself recognizes the possibility that it could work as a restraint on the exercise of human rights, and it is for this reason that concrete measures of the government to safeguard the provisions need to be clarified.