JAPANESE STUDENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 128, 3 June 1927, Page 3

JAPANESE STUDENTS

charged with lese ■■■_;■ imajeste"

STARTING A RADICAL ' MOVEMENT

The trial, in the Kyoto District Court, of several students from various universities of Japan discharges of lew majeste, violation of the press law,.and attempting to foster Communism m, Japan, is attracting attention through* out the country, states the Toldo cor, respondent of the "San Francisco Chro;n» iele." The majority of the accused stu--1 dents_ belong to the Imperial University; of Kyoto, the next greatest number, hailing from the Doshisha University, the oldest and perhaps the largest Christ tian educational institution in Japan. The case for the prosecution is, brief-. ly, tbat a band of students organised a union for the study of Communism, Marxism, and suchlike "isms." They, formed an alliance with certain Tadical students of the Pekin National University and it was arranged that, three, times a month, a report should'be sent to these Chinese students with regard to social movements in Japan, The movement spread ull over the country, embracing the majority of tha principal educational institutions here, both public and private, and also eev- | eral in Korea. The special character, of the movement was that it was strongly opposed to capitalism, and thq j prosecution alleges that this is tanta- | mount to an attempt to subvert th«j I existing social order. . I In the furtherance of their moveI ment, states the prosecution, the press | law was violated, an attempt was made to induce discontent and to diffuse Com-, munistic ilioories and that there is also evidence to show that lese majeste had been committed. Tho prosecution concluded by saying that, although there is a proletariat movement sponsored by, some politicians in Japan, yet the students wero prosecuted principally because they were students "who had no business to meddle with such things,"and to prevent this social canker affect= ing the younger generation wEbse minda were yet plastic. The galleries were packed when the trial opened, the majority of those present being relatives and sympathisers o$ the students and officials of the institu« tions to which the students belonged.The accused assumed a defiant attituda towards both tho Judge and the Publia Prpsccutor, the replies of some being ac» tually disrespectful and slighting, s» much so that the Judge and the conit officials were obviously disconcerted and chagrined. One student, when asked whether ha thought it right and proper for a school* boy to study and diffuse the principle* of Communism, declared that his reply; was "emphatically in tho affirmative.'* He went on to add that an independent! study of Marxism and other "social sciences" was absolutely necessary m th l3 age "especially as the schools teacK an extremely garbled version." Another youngster, when confronted with discrepancies made during the pre. liminary examinations, declared thafi such discrepancies were due to the man. ner in which the prosecuting officials and the police sought to obtain evidence. These examinations, he said were conducted in private, and one effect of a public trial, such as they were undergoing that day, would be that even the Judge would have tar guard against possible discrepancies. ' The case has caused something of 4 sensation, especially as the Public Pr<* seeutor has implied, rather than defin* itely declared, that this organisation oi? students intended to propagandise So* eialistn amongst the masses.