If you defy him, you will be “kept in captivity. ……” Prefectural officials feel “blatant pressure” from Governor Saito of Hyogo Prefecture.

On July 7, Mr. A, director general of the Nishi-Harima Prefectural Office, who had filed a written accusation against Hyogo Governor Motohiko Saito (46) regarding power harassment and improper spending at the Hanshin-Orix professional baseball championship parade and other events, committed suicide. Governor Saito initially dismissed the written accusation as “a pack of lies” and “slander,” and only conducted an internal investigation and disciplined Mr. A. Later, a group of prefectural assembly members conducted their own investigation.

Subsequently, prefectural assembly members conducted their own investigation, which uncovered numerous allegations of power harassment of subordinates and accepting gifts from companies on inspection tours, which were pointed out in the accusation document. The sad news came in the middle of a full-scale investigation that had begun in June, with the establishment of the “Hundred Articles Committee” for the first time in 51 years to address Governor Saito’s allegations.

The deceased Mr. A and Mr. B were not named in the database announcing their deaths.

In addition to Mr. A, there was another person who passed away.

Mr. B was involved in the Hanshin-Orix professional baseball championship parade held on November 23 last year. The parade was not funded by the prefectural government, but was attempted to be held through crowdfunding, but it fell far short of the target because it did not receive sufficient donations from companies and other parties. According to the accusation document, he died on April 20, apparently suffering from depression due to the difficulty in coordinating with the parties involved.

Both Mr. A and Mr. B were employees of Hyogo Prefecture. If they had developed depression as a result of their work, they could have applied for workers’ compensation, but according to a prefectural official who is currently working for the prefecture, there was “still no official acknowledgement of their deaths. The prefectural official revealed, “There are news of the deaths of prefectural employees.

Whenever there is an obituary of a prefectural employee, it appears in the prefectural database, but not for Mr. A or Mr. B. When there is an obituary, it appears in the database for the person in charge. Whenever there is an obituary, the employee in charge is notified of the death and the obituary is posted in the database.

Not only were there no obituaries for Mr. A and Mr. B. One staff member revealed, “Mr. B, who passed away in April, has not yet been reported.

Mr. B, who died in April, had children who were still going to school. This is not part of our job, and it is just customary, but when a staff member with young children dies, we collect and give the bereaved family’s scholarship funds on a voluntary basis. In this case, too, we tried to collect the money by calling on volunteers, but the upper management stopped us from doing so.

On July 23, FRIDAY Digital sent a letter of inquiry to Hyogo Prefecture asking why obituaries of Mr. A and Mr. B were not posted in a database accessible to staff members, and received the following response.

The answer was as follows: “The posting of obituaries in the database is based on the wishes of the families, and is not a uniform posting of information on all employees.

Was it related to the fact that FRIDAY Digital issued a letter of inquiry regarding Mr. B’s obituary, and that numerous more media outlets and council members bombarded the issue with questions? Immediately after the letter of inquiry was sent out, Mr. B’s obituary was posted in the database. It would be highly unusual for a prefectural government employee’s obituary not to be posted for three months after his death, and only after a great deal of commotion had arisen.