Kusatsu mayor held a press conference; the transcripts part 1

Today, Nobutada Kuroiwa, the mayor of Kusatsu town, held a press conference for international journalists in Tokyo. He has been reported for being accused of sexual assaults by a female member of the city council.

A part of transcription in the conference is showed below.

"I would like to ask in reverse, if it is a normal thing for a woman not to make any complaint to the police but just to all of a sudden come out on the internet and say that she has suffered a sexual-assault."

I would like to ask your thoughts on the fact that this has become such a global issue now?

Frankly, I am very surprised by this fact. Of course, if I were to be criticized individually, I am a politician that is part of my role as well. So that would be one thing, however, when I look at it for example different comments made online and so a criticism is going as far as to be against. The town of Kusatsu itself and also its people which is something which indeed very much pains me. How to express is, as I have mentioned in my presentation, there is actually nothing which even happened in the first place. Therefore, the fact that it has become such a big issue is something very surprising to me. I would like to ask actually in reverse, if it is a normal thing for a woman not to make any complaint to the police or so on but just to all of a sudden come out on the internet and say that she has been violated that she has suffered a sexual-assault. Of course, as a man and individually, I would be prepared to be taking into account visual facts that this has gone to attacks on the town. Overall, it's something of very upsetting I have even been receiving For example, telephones from France, even from reporters, too, asked me questions and so on. I will take over responsibility if this would be something just of me as a person, however, it has gone very much beyond that extent to criticize the people of Kusatsu, which is something very painful for me.

"I made a judgement that posters could be posted in public buildings. "

Of course, the issues of sexual assault or sexual violence, I think, which occur in spaces where is difficult for those not directly involved to make a judgement as to the facts of what occurred at the time. However, in regards to the issue of the recall, there are several different issues which are being raised. For example, one is that posters calling for people to vote in favor of the recall being postered in public or official buildings in public locations within the town of Kusatsu. Also, the fact that former classmates of a council Arai, for example, attending the council and yelling a negative things of critical things in bashing her at the time of making a statement as well. Also, within the material which has been distributed today, in the minute from the regular meetings of the council are their statements being made by the speaker before former council Arai statements are heard, which would give the implication or impression that what she would be stating, what she would have to say is something which is not trustworthy, for example, that does not have much fact to it. So there are many voices of concern saying that there are perhaps some biased impacts in regards to the recall itself. I'd like to ask you a comment on this.

First of all, to respond in regards to the issue of the posters being placed in public buildings and so on within the city, there are two different laws which are come into connection in this case, the signature campaign calling for plebiscite in the first place, for that, under the local autonomy law, and the plebiscite itself, for that, under the public officers election law. I mean that they are both public, legal procedures in this way. Usually, in the case of public officers election and so on there would be a designated poster board set up with the names of the candidates and so it will be put up. However, in this particular case, because of, for the example of the limited budget of the small town that we are and also that this was the first, such case to be happening, I made the judgement that it would be ok not to establish these kinds of boards, but instead, to put these up on public buildings itself. These are following the official applications and so on which we made and I made the judgement that it would be ok to post these in the public buildings.

So, therefore, I, as the mayor of the town, gave the approval for these posters to be put up in the public buildings. If this is similar application that have been made by the side of Ms. Arai, this could also have been applied, but in the case of the administration of the government and may I ask to please listen to me. There is not a specification within the public offices election law that in this kind of plebiscite the poster boards do need to be established definitely. Therefore, I made a judgement that these could be posted in public buildings. Therefore, as the mayor, I made the judgement that such posters could be posted either by the side that was calling for the recall, but also if an application were to be made, that Ms. Arai side would also be permitted to place the posters there. In regards to the second question, I'm not in a position of making a comment about any of the acts which is made by those who are sitting in the audience for observing the council procedures. I can say hello to everyone because they were people in the kind of positions.