The was a group of Japanese political extremists in the Bakumatsu, the Japanese civil war in the 1860s. The term also refers to the 1980s group. A reporter, Tomohiro Kojiri, was killed and another was injured when a gunman used a shotgun and fired at the Hanshin Bureau of the Asahi Shimbun in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture. In February 2009, a group claiming to be Sekihōtai, sent threatening messages to a NHK news anchor.