Stealth SLAPP: How a Japanese Political Party Is Using the Legal System to Silence Critics
In a concerning legal trend, a national political party in Japan is exploiting a procedural mechanism — the amendment of a complaint — to continuously escalate legal attacks on a single individual without launching new lawsuits.
Scholar Akari Iiyama has coined the term “stealth censorship” to describe this tactic, a covert form of SLAPP that hides behind legal formalities while effectively silencing dissent.
This article outlines how this unprecedented strategy is unfolding, and why it poses a serious risk to freedom of expression and judicial integrity in democratic societies.
Japan's First "Stealth Censorship Lawsuit" by a Political Party
Akari Iiyama, a Japanese scholar and columnist, has been repeatedly sued by the Nihon Hoshu-to (Japan’s Conservative Party) for defamation. However, instead of filing new lawsuits, Nihon Hoshu-to has employed a legal maneuver called “amendment of complaint” under Article 143 of the Civil Procedure Code. This tactic allows them to continually add new accusations and increase the amount of claimed damages — without filing new lawsuits.
Iiyama calls this “stealth censorship” — a form of Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) that operates covertly through the legal system.
The amendments to the original complaint now cite:
Her magazine column published in Hanada
A statement calling Nihon Hoshu-to “hypocrites profiting from opposition to LGBT laws”
A YouTube video exposing alleged “doxxing” and online harassment by Nihon Hoshu-to members
The total damages claimed have doubled from 3.3 million yen to 6.6 million yen (about $42,000), and other party members have filed similar lawsuits, pushing the combined claims to nearly 1.65 million yen (about $105,000).
This strategy allows the party to escalate pressure without public scrutiny, sidestepping the media backlash that might follow the filing of multiple new lawsuits. It represents a dangerous precedent of institutionalized legal harassment by a national political party against a private citizen.
