Yu Terasawa

Yu Terasawa has few friends in the Japanese police. He was still a student when he began his career in journalism by exposing police corruption. More than 20 years later, about 100 agents and officers have been fired, prosecuted or subjected to disciplinary action as a result of the countless articles and books he has written on the subject. In 2006 a film entitled “Pochi no Kokuhaku” (“Confessions of a Dog”) based on his writings was released. Naturally, that got him into trouble. “I was beaten, followed, robbed, arrested without a warrant,” he said. At the same time, he also took on that most Japanese of institutions, Kisha Clubs, associations of newspapers companies and Tv stations with exclusive – and often complicit – access to press conferences and official sources. Even among his own colleagues, not everyone is a friend… On 28 March this year, he launched legal proceedings against the government after a law on state secrets was introduced, a major attack on investigative journalism.