TOKYO: Opposition lawmakers and journalists on Sunday slammed Japanese military intelligence for allegedly monitoring critics of the country's mission to Iraq, accusing the Defense Ministry of threatening freedom of speech.
Internal army documents obtained and made public last week by the Japan Communist Party suggested that military intelligence collected information on groups and individuals opposed to the troop dispatch.
The accusations have sparked a public outcry.
"If the government indeed engages in secret surveillance, citizens will be unable to speak out freely," JCP leader Kazuo Shii said Sunday on a TV Asahi talk show.
"I expressed my reservations (over the Iraqi mission) on several occasions," said journalist Hajime Takano, one of the journalists named in the files. "But should this really be part of the military's activities?"
The documents show the military's Intelligence Security Corps monitored civil groups, journalists, film directors and even high school students who attended anti-war rallies between November 2003 and February 2004.
The Defense Ministry has said the unit may have gathered such data but wanted merely to assess public opinion.
Japan dispatched troops on a humanitarian mission to Iraq in 2004-06, and still airlifts U.N. and coalition personnel and supplies into Baghdad from Kuwait.
The country's military involvement in Iraq has been unpopular with the Japanese public, with many saying it violates the nation's pacifist Constitution and makes Japan a terrorist target.