is the daily newspaper of the

Japanese Communist Party The is a communist party in Japan. Founded in 1922, it is the oldest political party in the country. It has 250,000 members as of January 2024, making it one of the largest non-governing communist parties in the world. The party is chaired ...

(JCP) in the form of a national

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

. It was founded in 1928 and currently has both daily and weekly editions. ''Akahata'' has journalists based in the

capitals Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

of ten countries around the globe. They are

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

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, and

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''Japan Press Weekly'' is the newspaper's English edition.

History

The newspaper was founded in 1928, six years after the establishment of the JCP. It was banned in Japan because it was viewed as subversive, forcing it to operate underground. The newspaper was legalized along with the JCP during the

American occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, at the war's end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952. The occupation, led by the ...

Content

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 Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

or right-wing activities. They also go out of their way to avoid using polite terms for the

Emperor of Japan The emperor of Japan is the hereditary monarch and head of state of Japan. The emperor is defined by the Constitution of Japan as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, his position deriving from "the will of ...

; for example, the paper refers to the

Emperor's Cup , commonly known as or Japan FA Cup, and rebranded as The JFA Emperor's Cup from 2024 onwards, is a Japanese annual football competition. It has the longest tradition of any football tournament in Japan, dating back to 1921, before the formatio ...

exclusively as "a Japanese soccer tournament". They refer to the

Buraku Liberation League is a burakumin's Human rights, rights group in Japan. Buraku are ethnic Japanese people, Japanese and descended from outcast communities of the Japanese feudal era. History Pre-World War II period The origin of the Buraku Liberation League is ...

as the "Liberation" League, using

scare quotes Scare quotes (also called shudder quotesPinker, Steven. ''The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century''. Penguin (2014) or sneer quotes) are quotation marks that writers place around a word or phrase to signal ...

to convey their opposition to the group.

Circulation over time

In 1959, ''Akahata'' had a daily circulation of around 40,000. By the end of 1960, as a result of recruitment drives conducted in conjunction with the 1960 Anpo Protests, circulation soared to around 100,000. By 1970, the newspaper had over 400,000 subscribers to its daily edition, and more than 1 million subscribers to its Sunday edition. In the early 1990s, daily subscribers were over 3 million. However, by 2007, daily circulation had fallen to around 1.6 million, and fell further to around 1.0 million by 2019. , it has a circulation of 850,000.

References

External links

''Shimbun Akahata''

''Japan Press Weekly''
{{Authority control Japanese Communist Party 1928 establishments in Japan Japanese-language newspapers Daily newspapers published in Japan Newspapers established in 1928 Communist newspapers Newspapers published in Tokyo

History

Content

Circulation over time

See also

References

Further reading

External links