Ms. Mindy Kotler is Ms. Dudden's collaborator and one of the most prominent anti-Japanese activists in the U.S.
October 29, 2020.
It is the chapter I sent out on 2019-08-02.
The following is from exertion by Jason Morgan and Michael Yong in the monthly magazine Sound Argument, released yesterday, titled "Special Rapporteur Kaye Supported by U.S. Leftist Scholars."
This month's issue of Sound Argument demonstrates that subscribing to the Asahi Shimbun and watching NHK will not reveal the truth.
All Japanese citizens should immediately head to their nearest bookstore with 900 yen to subscribe.
It is the first time I have seen this name in a long time.
It is David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on speech and expression.
Kaye presented his report on Japan on June 24, when the UN Human Rights Council opened its session.
In his investigative report on Japan, released in May 2017, Kaye wrote that freedom of speech and expression in Japan has atrophied due to government pressure. In this year's report, he noted that concerns remain about the independence of the media.
He also pointed out that the Japanese press may be atrophied by the Specified Secret Protection Law and other laws, and he called for respect for freedom of assembly and freedom of expression in the face of continued pressure from the authorities on protests against the relocation of the U.S. military base in Okinawa.
The report also stated that nine of the 11 recommendations made in the 2005 report had yet to be implemented, including revisions to the Specified Secret Protection Law and repealing Article 4 of the Broadcasting Law, which is the basis for ordering broadcasters to suspend broadcasting stations.
Before the release of Kay's report, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga stated at a press conference on June 5 of this year.
"The Japanese government has taken repeated opportunities to carefully explain its position on the various issues raised in the report. Despite this, it is deplorable that the report's content does not fully reflect the part of the Japanese government. It is unacceptable because it contains many inaccuracies and shaky grounds."
I will discuss the report later, but first, let me explain about Mr. Kaye and the network surrounding him.
Was Kaya a suitable candidate because he was unknown?
We have been looking into who Mr. Kaye is since the report came out in 2017.
How someone like him, who does not seem to have much knowledge about Japan, suddenly found himself on the international stage of Japan-bashing, and how he was chosen to be the Special Rapporteur on Japan.
Kaye's title is "Clinical Professor of Law at California State University, Irvine.
The clinical professor is the lowest rung on the U.S. law school ladder.
One wonders why the UN did not choose someone with a more academically reputable background.
From another perspective, however, Kaye's obscurity may have helped.
Kaye did not write the report by himself; instead, in collaboration with the Japan-bashing network, he fulfilled his "mission."
Kaye's ability to work inconspicuously may have made him the right person for the job.
It is fair to say that Kaye's decision to wave the anti-Japanese flag on the UN stage closely relates to a specific person.
Our research revealed that Kaye has a solid connection to Alexis Dudden, a Connecticut State University professor notorious for criticizing Japan.
Dudden and Professor Jordan Sand of Georgetown University have been involved in a movement to demand a full apology from the Japanese government for the comfort women issue, which was triggered in 2014 when a high school textbook on world history published by McGraw-Hill, a major US educational publisher headquartered in New York, described the "Taken away by police" of comfort women and the "sexual slavery" of 200,000 people. He led the movement to demand a full apology from the Japanese government for the comfort women issue.
He also led a group of scholars in the U.S. to sign the petition.
Dudden and Kaye spoke at a meeting at Kaye's School in Irvine on April 2, 2016, after Kaye returned to California from Japan, where he had visited to write a report for the United Nations.
We became deeply concerned about the relationship between the UN Special Rapporteur and one of the most anti-Japanese known "political activists" in the U.S., so we began an investigation and, in November 2018, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the University of California, Irvine, Kay's employer.
In February 2019, Irvine released some 75 pages of Kaye's email correspondence.
But, as the School acknowledged, the documents it released were only a fraction of the records covered by the FOIA.
The University refused to release the records about Kaye's UN activities because they were not public information.
We asked the University which state or federal agency had determined that the UN's activities were not subject to public information but have yet received a response.
The University made this decision on its own.
Although Mr. Kaye was a strong advocate for freedom of expression and the press, when we began our investigation of Mr. Kaye, his employer quickly erected a wall of silence.
Leaked Freedom of Information Requests
We also requested that the University release Mr. Kay's emails per federal law to verify his independence and determine if he had any ties to a foreign government.
On February 15, a few days after our second request, the Nelson Report, a leading U.S. newsletter specializing in East Asia, reported the story.
Although we had not disclosed to anyone that we had filed a FOIA request, the Nelson Report detailed the contents of our request.
Ms. Mindy Kotler wrote the Nelson Report.
She collaborates with Ms. Dudden and is one of the anti-Japanese activists in the United States.
Ms. Kotler is particularly vocal in comfort women propaganda, and her network includes the academic Establishment, the media, and significant anti-Japanese activists in Washington.
Kotler is also well known as the political brain behind Mike Honda, a Japanese-American who served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Her resume states that she "advised Congressman Honda in drafting and defending his 2007 (U.S. House resolution) amnesty resolution."
The headline of Kotler's post on the Nelson Report was "Japan's Right Wing Uses FOIA to Silence U.S. Scholars," claiming that "Japanese history deniers" have been trying to silence U.S. scholars.
Moreover, it says of us, "Both men are American men and appear to be closely aligned with the Nippon Kaigi or with Happy Science. Their articles in English are published on Sankei Shimbun's English website, Japan Forward," it explained.
We have nothing to do with the Nippon Kaigi or Happy Science.
We do not know where this false information comes from, but given that Ms. Kotler indicates that the site is written in English, we assume that she probably does not have a good grasp of the Japanese language information.
In any case, why does Ms. Kotler know about the FOIA request?
To explore this, we again requested the release of email records between the Irvine School's Public Records Office, specifically between Ms. Tia Block, Records Officer, and Mr. Kaya.
We did so because we suspect Ms. Block leaked our FOIA request to the Nelson Report.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kaya's employer does not share these concerns about our journalistic activities or freedom of speech.
Most of what was released in response to the request was incomplete email records and other documents.
This time, however, there was a new development.
Surprisingly, the University insisted that the emails between Ms. Block and Mr. Kaya could not be released because of "attorney-client privilege.
Surprised by this new excuse, we inquired whether Mr. Kaya was Mr. Block's attorney.
We asked for some proof but again received no response.
The Irvine School has not retracted this claim, but if it is false, everyone involved has attempted to deceive journalists and public opinion.
It could also affect Mr. Kaya's reputation in the legal community.
Emails between Mr. Kaya and Ms. Dudden
Despite the Irvine School's best efforts to thwart the journalists' inquiries, what little information the School did release confirms our suspicions of a cooperative relationship between Mr. Kaya and Ms. Dudden.
Mr. Kaya relied heavily on Ms. Dudden in preparing his 2017 report to the United Nations on freedom of speech in Japan.
Kaya forwarded emails from one group to Dudden, who alerted Kaya to groups she disliked, segregating them as "conservative" and "far-right."
For example, in a May 3, 2017 email, Dudden warned Kaya and two others about a Japanese conservative group, the Association for the Global Dissemination of Historical Facts.
This group [led by Kase Hideki, or more correctly, Hideaki Kase] is directly linked to the Shinzo Abe administration."
On another occasion, Ms. Dudden pointed the finger at Mr. Kaya.
On May 11, 2016, Mr. Kaya asked Ms. Dudden to help him identify the person who had inquired about his work at the UN: "I don't know this person. Do you know him?" He emailed her.
On the same day, Ms. Dudden replied to an email marked "Fuji Sankei Communication International" with "Ms. Kitajima.
It said, "Ms. Kitajima is a central figure in the far-right news media's attempt to stop the installation of a statue of a comfort woman in California" and "Wacky."
It is unclear whether "Wacky" described the situation at the time or was about Ms. Kitajima, but Mr. Kay did not want to clarify that.
Mr. Kaya criticizes attacks on journalists in public but is unresponsive to the fact that a journalist might have been slandered, even in a private exchange.
On May 10, the day before this exchange, Dudden emailed Kay a warning about Yoshihisa Komori, a Washington correspondent for the Sankei Shimbun.
She wrote about Mr. Komori, "He was the Washington Bureau Chief of the Sankei Shimbun for many years and does nothing but make things up.
On the same day, Ms. Dudden again emailed Mr. Kaye about "an outrageous article written by Sankei's Komori."
Kaya also received support from Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a University of California, Irvine professor.
He is one of the editors of the far-left socialist magazine Dissent, which is close to Ms. Dudden.
Mr. Wasserstrom is also not fond of the Sankei Shimbun.
On May 10, 2016, he received an email from Ms. Dudden.
The email was sent to Mr. Kaya at the same time, and the content of the email was that "David" was being treated "mercilessly and ridiculously" in Sankei's article.
In other email exchanges, Wasserstrom helped Kaya and Dudden discern whether the people contacting the three about UN activities were politically well-meaning.
This article continues.
