Crown Prince Says Japan Needs Norms Against Media Slander

TOKYO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th November, 2021) Japanese Crown Prince Akishino on Tuesday called for developing standard criteria for media coverage of information related to the royal family so that it has a legal tool to confront slander and fake news.

"In order to be able to challenge any given information, it is necessary to establish conditional criteria, and in case of their violation it would be possible to refute," Akishino said at a press conference on the occasion of his 56th birthday.

The same publication may contain both veracious or fake information, and the Imperial Household Agency needs to be able to address each episode of misinformation regardless of whether it was published on print, the internet or any other source, the crown prince said.

The press conference was mostly focused on the recent marriage of Akishino's daughter, former princess Mako, who married Kei Komuro, a commoner, earlier this year drawing public criticism.

The engagement was announced in September 2017, and the couple was supposed to get married in November 2018. However, the wedding had to be postponed for two years because of a scandal that broke out around media reports on the debts of the groom's mother six months before the event. The wedding was registered on October 26, and Mako gave up her royal status.