{"id":16235,"date":"2019-12-18T06:25:37","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T11:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=16235"},"modified":"2019-12-18T06:25:37","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T11:25:37","slug":"shiori-ito-japanese-journalist-awarded-30000-in-damages-in-rape-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/12\/18\/shiori-ito-japanese-journalist-awarded-30000-in-damages-in-rape-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Shiori Ito: Japanese journalist awarded $30,000 in damages in rape case"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Japanese court has ordered a high-profile TV reporter to pay 3.3 million yen ($30,000; \u00a322,917) in damages to a journalist who accused him of rape.<\/p>\n

Shiori Ito alleged that Noriyuki Yamaguchi raped her in 2015 while she was unconscious.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said there was not enough evidence for a criminal case, so Ms Ito brought a civil case.<\/p>\n

Ms Ito has become a symbol of the #MeToo movement in a country where people rarely report sexual assault.<\/p>\n

“I’m so happy,” said 30-year-old Ms Ito, who held up a sign which read “victory” after the verdict was announced.<\/p>\n

But in a news conference hours later, Mr Yamaguchi said he planned to appeal – and he again denied the rape allegations.<\/p>\n

According to Ms Ito, 53-year-old Mr Yamaguchi – who is said to have close ties to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – invited her to dinner to discuss a possible job opportunity in 2015.<\/p>\n

She suspects she may have been drugged, saying that when she regained consciousness, she was “in a hotel room and he was on top of me”.<\/p>\n

Ms Ito was an intern at news agency Reuters when the alleged rape occurred.<\/p>\n

Mr Yamaguchi was then Washington bureau chief for the Tokyo Broadcasting System, a major media firm in Japan.<\/p>\n

\"Mr<\/span>
Mr Yamaguchi denies the allegations (Image: Reuters)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Investigations were opened but then dropped by police, citing insufficient evidence.<\/p>\n

Ms Ito said police forced her to re-enact the alleged rape with a life-sized doll while male officers looked on.<\/p>\n

A 2017 government survey found that only 4% of rape victims reported the crime to the police.<\/p>\n

Ms Ito filed a civil lawsuit against Mr Yamaguchi seeking 11 million yen ($100,517 ; \u00a376,758) in compensation.<\/p>\n

Mr Yamaguchi, who denies any wrongdoing and claims the sex was consensual, filed a counter-suit seeking 130 million yen ($1,187,941; \u00a3907,135) in compensation. But this was rejected by the court.<\/p>\n

He will now have to pay Ms Ito $30,000 in damages, but there remains no criminal case against him.<\/p>\n

Under Japan’s rape law, prosecutors must prove violence or intimidation was involved, or that the victim was “incapable of resistance”.<\/p>\n

Shiori Ito: In her own words<\/h2>\n

As part of the investigation into my allegations, I was asked to come to the police station adjacent to the hotel I was taken to that night.<\/p>\n

When I arrived, accompanied by my best friend, for moral support, I was taken to a gymnasium on an upper floor of the station. I had heard about what was about to happen, and asked for my friend to be able to come with me.<\/p>\n

The police refused. I was taken into the gym and told to lie on a mattress, and life-size mannequin was then produced and three male officers moved the doll on top of me, asking me intimate questions about exactly what happened and taking photographs.<\/p>\n

I was told this was essential to the investigation.<\/p>\n

It was at this time, that I had to make the shift in my head from complainant to journalist.<\/p>\n

The only way I have been able to continue has been to completely compartmentalise my feelings – I had to treat this as a story I was following: I was seeking the truth as a journalist, detached and dispassionate.<\/p>\n

That is still the way I try to frame it in my mind.<\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0<\/i>Japan’s Secret Shame<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Japanese court has ordered a high-profile TV reporter to pay 3.3 million yen ($30,000; \u00a322,917) in damages to a journalist who accused him of rape. Shiori Ito alleged that Noriyuki Yamaguchi raped her in […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,6],"tags":[4854,1678,20,5106],"class_list":{"0":"post-16235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-world","10":"tag-metoo","11":"tag-japan","12":"tag-rape","13":"tag-sexual-violence","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16237,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16235\/revisions\/16237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}