Civil Censorship Detachment

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The Civil Censorship Detachment , or CCD for short, was the lead censorship agency of the US military during the occupation of Japan .

Originally a unit under the supervision of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) of the US Army , it was transferred from the Philippines to Japan at the beginning of the occupation in 1945 and integrated into the occupation administration of the GHQ / SCAP as part of the G-2 Section . She was responsible for the censorship of all forms of civil communication, which in practice meant the censorship of books, magazines and around 70 newspapers - up to 1947 before publication - as well as samples of a total of 330 million mail items and 800,000 private telephone calls in four years. Foreign publications were also affected by the censorship. Officially there was no censorship, one of the first SCAP directives guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press in September 1945. By 1949, copies of feature films also had to be translated into English and submitted to the SCAP before publication. Theatrical performances were also censored until 1947. The CCD was dissolved in October 1949, and censorship continued afterwards, but mostly after publication. In later years this was increasingly directed against the political left, in particular against the Communist Party of Japan .

The censorship categories from June 1946 included nationalist, militaristic or Greater East Asia propaganda or the defense of war criminals, criticism of the SCAP, the international military tribunal or allied nations, mention of censorship, comments on "Russia against Western powers", exaggeration of hunger - Criticism of the role of the SCAP in drafting the Constitution [including a mention of the role of the SCAP].

literature

  • John W. Dower: Embracing defeat. Japan in the wake of World War II. Norton, New York 1999, chap. 14, pp. 405-442: Censored democracy: Policing the new taboos.