Takashi Tachibana, defendant and leader of the NHK Party, was arrested on suspicion of defamation. His bail request was also rejected. Kobe District Court rejects bail request amid certain concerns Tachibana (58), leader of the NHK Party to Protect the People from NHK, was arrested and indicted for defaming the late Hideaki Takeuchi, former Hyogo Prefectural Assembly member, who passed away in January this year. His request for bail was reportedly denied. According to the Kobe Shimbun on December 10, Tachibana’s lawyer requested bail on November 28, the same day he was indicted, but it was rejected on December 2. A quasi-appeal against this rejection was also dismissed on December 8. Some observers had expected that, barring re-arrest, Tachibana could be released on bail after the New Year, but it appears he will not be able to leave custody for some time. The Kobe District Court has not disclosed the reason for rejecting the bail request, but the Sankei Shimbun reported on December 10: “The district court is believed to have considered the risk of evidence destruction or undue influence on related parties.” In fact, a recent incident seems to evoke the concern about undue influence on related parties. On December 5, some local newspapers reported that in the June Hyogo Prefecture Amagasaki City Council election, Tachibana and three members of the NHK Party, including City Councilor Kanki Fukui (54), were accused of inflating their election poster expenses billed to the city. Two citizens filed a criminal complaint for fraud, which the Hyogo Prefectural Police accepted on November 19. According to the complaint, Fukui, who was elected to the city council for the first time, commissioned Net Election Inc.(based in Nerima, Tokyo), a company represented by an NHK Party affiliate, to produce election posters and billed the city 555,984 yen. A total of 576 posters were produced, making the cost per poster 965.25 yen. It was pointed out that in last year’s Hyogo gubernatorial election, the same company produced posters for about 130 yen each. The complaint claims that approximately 480,000 yen was obtained fraudulently. Fukui has explained and refuted the claims several times in videos. On December 6, he stated on his YouTube channel: “If I stayed silent, people might say that Tachibana committed an even more serious crime. So I’m following the instructions to prevent that from happening.”