Japan to punish officials over video leak
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Japan is mulling punishing more than 50 coast guard officials over the leak of a video showing a September collision between Japanese and Chinese vessels that sparked a major row, reports said Monday.
The officials include an unnamed 43-year-old officer who has admitted to leaking the video, showing the boat collision between a Chinese trawler and Japanese patrol boats near the Diaoyu Islands, and more than 50 others may also be penalized for failing to supervise the officer properly and preventing the leak of the video clip, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper and the Kyodo News Agency reported Monday.
Prosecutors are expected to decide next month whether to charge the officer for violating the national public service law, which forbids civil servants from leaking classified information they obtain during work.
"The government might face public pressure to charge the officer for violating national secrets laws, since the officer became a national hero in Japanese eyes," Sun Xiuping, an expert on Japanese issues living in Tokyo, told the Global Times.
Sun said the supervision system on national classified data in Japan is a bit lax, causing such cases occasionally.
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