Shimbun Akahata

Shimbun Akahata

Type	Daily newspaper
Owner(s)	Japanese Communist Party
Founded	February 1, 1928
Political alignment	Communist
Language	Japanese
Circulation	1,680,000
Website	Akahata (Japanese)

Shimbun Akahata headquarters in Sendagaya, Tokyo.

Shimbun Akahata (しんぶん赤旗 Shinbun Akahata, lit. Newspaper Red Flag) is the daily organ of the Japanese Communist Party in the form of a national newspaper. Started in 1928, Akahata has a 16-page daily edition and a larger 36-page Sunday edition.

Akahata has journalists based in the capitals of ten countries around the globe. They are Beijing, Berlin, Cairo, Hanoi, London, Mexico City, Moscow, New Delhi, Paris, and Washington, D.C..

Some of their journalism deals with activist politics, but they also do original reporting on a wide variety of political issues which are often untouched in Japan. Most Japanese newspapers publish the names of alleged criminals, but Akahata often declines to publish their names, unless they are related to organized crime or right-wing activities. They also go out of their way to avoid using polite terms for the Emperor of Japan; for example, the paper refers to the Emperor's Cup exclusively as "a Japanese soccer tournament". They refer to the Buraku Liberation League as the "Liberation" League, using scare quotes to convey their opposition to the group.

See also

• List of newspapers in Japan
• Japanese media

References

Further Reading

• George M. Beckmann, Genji Okubo (1969). The Japanese Communist Party 1922-1945. Stanford University Press.
• Tim, Rees, and Thorpe, Andrew. International Communism and the Communist International, 1919-43 Manchester University Press, 1998.
• Robert A. Scalapino (1967). The Japanese Communist movement, 1920-1966. University of California Press.

External links

• Shimbun Akahata (Japanese)
• Japan Press Weekly
• "Japan's Eight Top Communists Still Missing Without Clue". Reading Eagle. Jun 3, 1951.
• "Tokyo College Raided Sunday". Herald-Journal. Jun 12, 1950.