2025 Expo Osaka: Organizer Bars JCP’s Newspaper Akahata from Covering Preopening Events; Akahata Lodges Complaint

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:55 JST, April 12, 2025

The Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, the organizer of the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, refused to allow Shimbun Akahata, the Japanese Communist Party’s newspaper, from covering the Expo’s test-run on April 4-6 and Wednesday’s press preview, it has been learned.

The newspaper has protested the decision, but the association said it was made in line with the Expo’s media guidelines.

According to Akahata’s Kansai bureau, the association told the newspaper that media outlets not invited to these events were not allowed to cover them. “Refusing media coverage of the Expo is unusual,” the newspaper said, adding that the move “appears to be aimed at shutting out critical media outlets.”

On Friday, a senior official of the association told reporters the guidelines prohibit the use of the Expo for the purpose of specific political, ideological, religious and other certain activities, saying the decision was based on such guidelines. The association will determine whether to allow Akahata to cover the Expo after it opens.