Japan’s Flag Desecration Law Could Have a ‘Chilling Effect’ on Artistic Freedoms, Say Country’s Art Critics

Japan’s art critics have warned that a proposed new law criminalising the desecration of the national flag could have a “chilling effect” on artistic freedoms, arguing that it risks encouraging self-censorship by artists and cultural institutions.

In a statement published on 9 July, members of the International Association of Art Critics’ (AICA) Japan branch urged lawmakers to reject legislation that would make intentionally damaging or defacing the Japanese national flag, or Hinomaru, a criminal offence. The statement argues that the bill’s broad wording could affect artistic expression despite provisions intended to exempt creative works. At the time of publication, the statement had been signed by 54 of the international organisation’s 194 Japanese members.

“Many works of art deliberately provoke negative emotions,” art and culture critic Arai Hiroyuki, one of five initiators of the statement, told Ocula. “It is extremely dangerous to punish expression on the grounds that it causes offence, rather than because it inflicts concrete harm or violates another person’s rights.”

The bill passed Japan’s House of Representatives on 30 June and is currently under deliberation in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the National Diet. If approved, it would introduce criminal penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment or a fine of ¥200,000 JPY (£920) for publicly damaging or defacing the Japanese national flag in a manner causing significant discomfort or disgust.

The bill’s instigators—the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the Japan Innovation Party, the Democratic Party for the People and Sanseito—argue that the measure would bring Japanese law into line with protections already afforded to foreign national flags and strengthen respect for national symbols. Critics, however, say it risks restricting freedom of expression and creating legal uncertainty over what constitutes artistic activity.

Among those voicing concern is Human Rights Watch, which argued last month that the proposal threatens internationally protected rights to freedom of expression by criminalising symbolic political speech.

Transforming the flag

For many artists in Japan, the Hinomaru is far from a neutral national emblem. Used in wartime painting to project military courage and national prestige, it was later redeployed by post-war artists to examine wartime sacrifice, colonial violence and the nation-state.

Arai cited artists including Tatsuo Ikeda, Taeko Tomiyama and Yukinori Yanagi as examples of those whose works have transformed the flag from an official symbol into material for historical and institutional critique.

“Particularly from the 1990s onwards, artists began using the national flag to question the state as an artificial product of modernity,” Arai said. “Alongside confronting Japan’s history of aggression, these works express a broader scepticism towards the nation itself.”

One notable example is Mao Ishikawa’s long-running photographic series Here’s What the Japanese Flag Means to Me, begun during the 1990s. Inviting participants from Okinawa, mainland Japan, Taiwan, China and Korea to interact with the flag in personal ways, the project reveals how the Hinomaru can simultaneously signify pride, grief, resentment, colonial violence and contested national identity.

Museums under pressure

Members of AICA Japan also argue that the bill could discourage museums and galleries from exhibiting works involving national symbols, regardless of whether they ultimately fall within any legal exemption.

Arai placed the controversy within a longer history of political pressure on Japanese museums, pointing to a government survey of war museums in the 1990s that, he said, was followed by “improper interference” from local authorities and demands for historical accounts to be “altered or removed”.

The debate recalls the 2019 Aichi Triennale controversy, when the section After “Freedom of Expression?” was suspended just three days after opening following threats and political pressure.

Among the works that drew particular criticism were Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung’s Statue of a Girl of Peace (2011), commemorating victims of Japan’s wartime military sexual slavery, and Nobuyuki Ōura’s video Holding Perspective Part II (2019), which includes footage of the artist’s collages of Emperor Hirohito burned into ashes. The exhibition later re-opened under restricted conditions, but the episode became a defining debate about censorship and artistic freedom in contemporary Japan.

Arai, who served on the executive committee of After “Freedom of Expression?”, said the proposed new law and the Aichi controversy are distinct events, but that they reflect the same underlying pressure.

“Aichi left a deep scar, contributing to greater self-restraint among museums and organisers when dealing with historical and political subjects,” he said. “At the same time, there also seems to be a shared determination not to let the same thing happen again.”

Ocula approached representatives of the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan Innovation Party, Democratic Party for the People and Sanseito for comment.