Filipina allegedly killed by J man, one let out of jail despite killing another Filipina in past

mytest

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Hi Blog. Now here’s where Japan’s judiciary gets really astounding.

We have (insufficient) news reports about a case earlier this month of a Filipina suspected of being killed by a Japanese man, and having her body parts stowed in a locker in Hamamatsu Station (yes, the one with the Monorail; how many times have I walked past that spot?).

Then it turns out this guy, Nozaki Hiroshi, had killed a Filipina some years before, and apparently tried to flush her body parts down a toilet.

For that previous crime, Nozaki was convicted, but only sentenced to three years plus. It wasn’t even judged a murder. And he got out allegedly to kill again.

Oddly enough, Nozaki’s jail sentence was only a bit more than Nigerian citizen Mr Idubor’s, and Idubor’s conviction was for alleged rape, not murder. Yet Nozaki was apparently caught red-handed, while there was no physical evidence and discrepant testimony in Idubor’s Case. Ironically, that means that under these judicial litmus tests, the women involved could have been killed and it would have made no difference in the sentencing. That is, if you’re a Japanese criminal victimizing a foreigner, it seems. It’s getting harder to argue that the J judiciary is color-blind towards judging criminals and victims.

Sorry, I’ve seen a lot of funny things come out of this judicial system. But I’m having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this one.

Sources follow. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Murder suspect hid body parts in locker
Kyodo News/The Japan Times: Tuesday, April 8, 2008
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080408a3.html
Courtesy of notnotchris and Red at Stippy.com

A man suspected of dismembering the body of a Filipino bar hostess in a high-rise Tokyo apartment last week was arrested Monday after he attempted suicide in Saitama Prefecture, police said.

Hiroshi Nozaki, 48, slashed his wrist Sunday evening on a road in Kawaguchi and dialed 119 himself, the police said. In the ambulance on the way to a hospital, he handed a memo to rescue workers indicating where the remaining body parts of Kamiosawa Honiefaith Ratila, 22, were hidden, the police said.

His injury was not life-threatening, they said.

Based on the memo, officers found some 10 body parts, including a piece of the woman’s chest, in a coin locker at the World Trade Center in Hamamatsucho, Tokyo, the police said.

The pieces were packed in a large suitcase, but the head was still missing, the police said.

Nozaki was arrested on suspicion of mutilating a corpse. The police plan to add a murder charge. He has refused to talk to investigators, they said.

According to sources, Nozaki committed a similar crime in 2000. He was convicted and served a prison term for dismembering a 27-year-old Filipino woman he was dating, they said. He was not charged with murder due to lack of evidence.

In Thursday’s incident, a paper bag containing a severed body part of the bar hostess was found in her high-rise apartment in the Odaiba waterfront area in Minato Ward.

The bag contained a 30-sq.-cm piece of human flesh from Ratila’s waist, which was apparently severed by a knife. A blood-soaked futon was found in the kitchen, the police said.

The apartment was shared by Nozaki, Ratila and two other Filipino women who work at the same bar in the Roppongi entertainment district, according to the police.

Although they initially believed Nozaki was employed by the bar to keep tabs on the hostesses, he is unemployed.

Ratila failed to report to work Thursday night, so a roommate went to look for her.

When she got to the apartment she encountered Nozaki carrying a severed body part. She fled to a nearby police box, but he was gone by the time police arrived.

The Japan Times: Tuesday, April 8, 2008
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Eye-opening roundup of the case and media sources by Red at Stippy.com. See photos and video there. Excerpting text:
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What would have happened if she was an American?
Red on Apr 10 2008 at 12:25 am | Filed under: Japan: News and Media
http://www.stippy.com/japan-news-and-media/chopped-up-filipina-body-found-in-tokyo-coin-locker/

PHOTO: Kamiosawa: Murdered and Chopped Up in Tokyo

How many of you have been following the attempted suicide of Hiroshi Nozaki (野崎浩) on April 6? I’m guessing not that many of you, because for some reason it’s not really receiving that much air time on Japanese TV. Nozaki’s suicide is particularly controversial because after calling an ambulance he gave instructions to the doctor to search in a coin locker at the Hamamatsucho Station (浜松町駅) next to the World Trade Center Building. Inside the locker was a suitcase filled with 10 chopped up body parts of a 22 year old Filipina woman, Honiefaith Ratilla Kamiosawa. As foreigners in Japan, there is more to this story than the Japanese media make out. How much different would this situation be if she were say, American? Or perhaps if she was a Japanese national, and the killer was an African American?

In case you haven’t seen the news let me give you a very brief rundown on what appears to have happened:

PHOTO: Hiroshi Nozaki – Cut up Pinay into Pieces

Nozaki shared an apartment in Odaiba with the woman and 2 of her cousins. It seems that the 3 women all worked at the same hostess club in Roppongi.

Nozaki was a regular patron of Kamiosawa’s establishment, and he was hooked on Filipino women. He offered to pay half of Kamiosawa’s rent, on the condition that he could move in with her. She accepted.
Kamiosawa and Nozaki got in to a fight after Nozaki failed to pay his share of the rent. The police believe that Nozaki murdered Kamiosawa on April 3.

After killing Kamiosawa, Nozaki carved her body up in their bath and tried to hide the cause of death by washing her in their washing machine.

Three days later, Nozaki supposedly attempted to commit suicide by slitting his wrists (hmmm) but then called an ambulance for help (hmmm) . That’s a sure fire way of ensuring that you don’t die.

VIDEO: This video is a sample nonchalant media coverage that this case got on Japanese TV (Japanese language). The last line in the story regarding the washing machine trick is particularly interesting. Translation: “It is thought that Nozaki washed the parts of the body in a washing machine before putting them in a suitcase. The police are thinking about whether to charge him with Murder also”.

This alone is a pretty horrific story. But I ask you, Why isn’t this a bigger issue? Why isn’t it getting more press? Why is it that the life of a Filipino is deemed to be so worthless? Would it have been any different if she was an American? Of course it would have. It would be a high profile international crime case. President Bush would be knocking on Fukuda’s door. I know that Japan is an important country for the Philippines but come on? Where is the power of your politicians? Why aren’t they making a bigger issue of this? The future of the Philippines rides on the success of its overseas workers, it can’t afford to allow Japan to get away with something like this? Has anybody seen any comments from the Embassy?

PHOTO: Coin Lockers at the Tokyo Monorail; Hamamatsucho Station where the body was found

What makes it even worse, is that it is not the first time that this has happened. In fact it is not even the first time that this man has carved up a pinay! I can hear your jaw dropping and hitting the floor right now. Nozaki was arrested and sentenced in 2000 for three and a half years jail for carving up the body of another 27 year old Filipina girl that he was living with at the time. After hacking up her body, he flushed it down the toilet of a park in Yokohama!

This raises a few more questions. Why on earth was he only given a 3.5 year jail sentence? You’re never going to believe this, but apparently he wasn’t found guilty of murder at all. He was “only” found guilty of “mutilating and abandoning of a dead body” (死体損壊・遺棄). At the time he claimed that when he woke up she was lying dead beside him. Well, I guess that explains why he then cut her up into pieces doesn’t it. The investigation into the death of the 27 year old is still unsolved. This is wrong in so many ways (unless of course, Nozaki genuinely couldn’t pay for the funeral of the sexy young lady who died of natural causes in bed next to him – in which case chopping her up and disposing of her in a more unorthodox, though frugal way would have of course been the only option…)

How do you decide that three and a half years is an appropriate term for the “mutilating and abandoning of a dead body”?

Why isn’t it obvious that a man who was overheard fighting with a Filipina dancer and then caught flushing her body down a park toilet killed her, too?

Why does Japan allow such sickos to go back out into society?

Why would this story have been so different if either of the girls were American?

Perhaps even more provoking yet, why would this story have been so different if the murderer was an American? (Or even if the girl was British!)
ENDS

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Tabloid Tidbits: Clumsy cop the link between mutilated Filipina, slain stalker victim
Nikkan Gendai (4/10/08) Courtesy of Mainichi Waiwai
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/culture/waiwai/news/20080412p2g00m0dm004000c.html

There’s a link between the arrest of habitual Filipina mutilator Hiroshi Nozaki and one of Japan’s most notorious crimes ever — the slaying of a Saitama Prefecture woman who was ignored by the cops when she complained about being stalked, according to Nikkan Gendai (4/10).

The link is Hiroshi Nishimura, who was head of the Saitama Prefectural Police in October 1999 when the stalker slaying occurred, and the now-62-year-old former top cop was lambasted by the public for his appalling mishandling of the case.

But at the same time, the same force that Nishimura headed had also arrested Nozaki for chopping up the body of another Filipina, but stuffed up that investigation so badly he was never charged with that woman’s murder.

The stalker slaying created public outcry. A young woman filed a criminal complaint to the Saitama Prefectural Police’s Ageo Police Station, saying that she was being stalked by a man threatening her with violence. Police did nothing about the case and the man she had been accusing stabbed her to death in broad daylight on the streets of Okegawa, Saitama Prefecture. Ageo cops later forged paperwork in an effort to appear a little less lax, but eventually several police were punished for their poor handling of the case, including Nishimura.

While all this was going on, Nishimura’s cops had Nozaki in their custody.

“In September 1999, he was charged with embezzlement for not returning a car he had rented. During his trial in January 2000, he said that he had mutilated a Filipina’s body in Soka, Saitama Prefecture, so he was arrested for mutilation of a corpse,” a Saitama Prefectural Police insider tells Nikkan Gendai. “Just like this case, Nozaki cut up the body in an apartment and dumped the parts in a public toilet in a park. The Saitama police tried to pin a murder charge on Nozaki, but they couldn’t find any evidence to pin him to the case and he refused to talk. He wasn’t even charged for the murder.”

Eventually, Nozaki was released from jail after serving just three years behind bars. He’s back in confinement now, having been arrested Monday, accused of chopping up the body of 22-year-old nightclub hostess Honiefith Ratilla Kamiosawa.

Nishimura, meanwhile, quickly bounced back from his tumultuous time at the head of the Saitama Prefectural Police. He was eventually transferred to Kyushu before he retired in September 2003 and landed a cushy job as the president of a security company based in Fukuoka.

“It’s the biggest security company in western Japan, with annual earnings of about 19 billion yen,” the Saitama police insider says.

Considering he let Nozaki go, perhaps Nishimura would like to comment on the current case.

“I don’t really know much about it,” he tells the lowbrow afternoon tabloid in a statement released through his company.

Ironic, Nikkan Gendai muses, considering his reply when asked for a comment about the stalker slaying not long after it happened.

“We haven’t got the investigation documents,” Nikkan Gendai quotes Nishimura saying at the time, “So I don’t really know much about it.” (By Ryann Connell)
ENDS
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死体損壊:女性切断の疑いで同居の男を逮捕 東京・台場
毎日新聞 2008年4月7日 11時37分(最終更新 4月7日 14時45分)
http://mainichi.jp/select/jiken/news/20080407k0000e040041000c.html

遺体の一部が見つかったコインロッカー(右)=東京都港区浜松町で2008年4月7日午前11時47分、石井諭撮影

 東京都港区台場のマンションの一室で、腰の部分とみられる肉片などが見つかった事件で、警視庁捜査1課は7日、この部屋に住む職業不詳の野崎浩容疑者(48)を死体損壊容疑で逮捕し、東京湾岸署に捜査本部を設置した。また、被害者は同居のフィリピン国籍の女性で、東京・六本木の飲食店店員、カミオオサワ・ハニーフィット・ラティリアさん(22)と判明した。

 野崎容疑者は、交際していたフィリピン人女性(当時27歳)の遺体を99年春ごろ切断したとして00年1月に埼玉県警に死体損壊・遺棄容疑で逮捕され、懲役3年6月の実刑判決を受け、服役している。

 調べでは、野崎容疑者は3日夜、この部屋でラティリアさんの遺体を刃物などで切断、解体した疑い。「黙秘します」と供述している。捜査本部は、ラティリアさんを殺害した疑いでも追及する。

 野崎容疑者は6日夜、埼玉県川口市内の路上で手首を切り自殺を図り、自ら119番通報した。その際、持っていたメモに基づき、東京都港区浜松町2のビル2階のコインロッカーを捜索したところ、7日未明、スーツケースに入った胸などの肉片十数個が見つかった。

 部屋の肉片はDNA鑑定でラティリアさんと判明、ロッカーの肉片もラティリアさんとみて調べる。捜査本部は頭部など見つかっていない遺体の捜索を続ける。野崎容疑者とラティリアさんは、ラティリアさんと同じ店に勤めるフィリピン人女性2人と同居していた。【川上晃弘、佐々木洋、古関俊樹】

OFFICIAL TRANSLATION OF THE ABOVE JAPANESE

Man arrested for mutilation of Filipina hostess
(Mainichi Japan) April 7, 2008
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/archive/news/2008/04/07/20080407p2a00m0na026000c.html

A Japanese man who became the prime suspect in the murder of his Filipina hostess roommate was arrested Monday for mutilating her body, police said.

Hiroshi Nozaki, 48, a resident of Tokyo’s Minato-ku and of unknown occupation, was arrested for the desecration of the body of his 22-year-old nightclub hostess roommate Honiefith Ratilla Kamiosawa.

Nozaki, who has served time for mutilating a Filipina he once dated almost a decade ago, is exercising his right to remain silent while being investigated in a criminal case.

Police said Nozaki dismembered Ratilla’s body and chopped it up into little parts on or around the night of April 3.

Police said Nozaki attempted suicide on Sunday night in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, slashing his wrists, but later called for an ambulance when he didn’t die. Based on notes he had with him at the time, police went to a coin locker in the World Trade Center building in Minato-ku, where early Monday they found a suitcase containing several body parts.

DNA testing has confirmed human remains found in Nozaki’s apartment belonged to Ratilla and the parts found in the locker are also believed to be hers. The woman’s dismembered head has not been found and investigators continue searching for it.

Nozaki and Ratilla shared an apartment with two other Filipinas.

In January 2000, Nozaki was arrested for the illegal disposal in about spring 1999 of the body of a 27-year-old Filipina he had been dating. He was later convicted and served time in prison for the offense.
ENDS

Taste the irony: Japan proposes language requirement for foreign long-term visas, yet protests when Britain proposes the same

mytest

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Hi Blog. Yes, you read that right. The GOJ wants to issue Japanese language tests for long-term NJ visa renewals, yet protests when Great Britain proposes the same. Moral: We Japanese can treat our gaijin any way we like. But don’t you foreign countries dare do the same thing to members of Team Japan. Bloody hypocrites. Debito in Sapporo

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Long-term residents may face language test
By KAHO SHIMIZU Staff writer
The Japan Times: Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080116a1.html

The government may require long-term foreign residents to have a certain level of Japanese proficiency, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Tuesday.

The Foreign and Justice ministries will begin discussing the envisioned Japanese-language requirement, Komura said without providing further details, including when the talks will start or who would be subject to the obligation.

“Being able to speak Japanese is important to improve the lives of foreign residents in Japan, while it is also essential for Japanese society,” Komura told reporters.

“I think (the potential requirement) would be beneficial because it would not only prompt long-stay foreign residents to improve their Japanese ability but also promote awareness among people overseas who are willing to come to (and work in) Japan to study Japanese.”

A Foreign Ministry official in charge of the issue stressed that the idea is not exclusionary. “It is not about placing new restrictions by imposing a language-ability requirement,” the official said on customary condition of anonymity.

Someone with high Japanese proficiency may be given favorable treatment in return, including easing of other existing visa requirements, he said. “(High Japanese proficiency) may actually make it easier to come and work in Japan,” he said. “We want to provide incentives for foreigners to learn Japanese.”

A Justice Ministry official said the discussions are neither intended to expand nor restrict the flow of foreign workers to Japan.

He also said the requirement should not be uniformly applied.

“We don’t want to prevent talented foreign workers from immigrating,” he said.

Some media speculated that the move is intended to expand the acceptance of unskilled foreign workers, given Japan’s shrinking population and expected long-term labor shortage.

But the Foreign Ministry official said the government’s stance — which is to issue work visas for foreigners applying for specific jobs that require particular qualifications while restricting foreigners seeking manual labor — remains unchanged.

According to the Foreign Ministry official, the two ministries hope to reach a conclusion on the matter within a year.

The idea of a language requirement emerged as part of the government debate on the conditions of a large number of foreign nationals of Japanese descent in such areas as Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, which has a large population of Brazilians of Japanese descent.

Many such residents, who are often engaged in manual labor because they obtained ancestry visa permits that allow them to do so, are not covered by the social security system and their children are not enrolled in schools.

The Japan Times: Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008
ENDS
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The MOFA offers more details on this in a February 12, 2008 Press Conference here:
https://www.debito.org/?p=1225

But put the shoe on the other foot and see how the MOFA reacts…

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Japanese community concerned about Britain’s plans for English tests
Japan Today.com/Kyodo News Friday, March 21, 2008 at 04:43 EST
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/431717
Courtesy of Mark Mino-Thompson and Paul Hackshaw

LONDON — The Japanese community in Britain is hoping the government will rethink plans for a new English language requirement for foreign nationals coming to work in the country.

The Japanese Embassy in London has expressed “serious concern” at initial government plans to ensure that all skilled workers from outside the European Union seeking work visas have an “acceptable” level of English language proficiency.

It was felt that the level suggested was too high for the many Japanese who come to Britain on “intra-corporate transfers” (ICTs) for periods of around three years.

The Japanese Embassy in London, along with other foreign governments, has been lobbying hard to ensure that ICTs are exempted from the English language requirement or that the level of English required is reduced.

An embassy spokesman told Kyodo News that the initial level of English proficiency suggested by the government would have been a “hindrance” to Japanese firms dispatching staff on regular transfers. But the spokesman said he now feels the government was listening to the concerns of the Japanese and is awaiting a statement from the government in the next few weeks.

The Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Britain said it believes that, if implemented in its present form for ICTs, the plan would have a “profoundly negative impact” on Japanese firms here, and could lead to some relocating to other parts of the European Union.

However, there are indications the government may be about to water down its plan following pressure from foreign governments.

The government says no final decision has been taken on the English language requirement for ICTs but a statement will be made shortly. Informed sources have told Kyodo News that the Home Office is likely to lower the level of the English requirement for ICTs.

The English requirement is due to be introduced toward the year-end.

It is part of a general tightening up of Britain’s visa regime in an effort to make it fairer and more objective. The requirement is designed to ensure that foreign nationals can properly integrate into the country and are best equipped for working here.

Patrick Macartney, spokesman for the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the majority of Japanese expatriates are working in Britain for a limited period of between three and five years and should therefore be treated differently from immigrants who are seeking to work and stay indefinitely.

He said, “If the English proficiency requirement were to be compulsory, even for people who stay for such limited periods in this country, this would create a huge problem for the personnel rotation policy of many Japanese companies.

“This is especially true in cases where companies need to send their technical or engineering experts, for whom the priority is their skills and/or knowledge and not language.

“The impact would be most severely felt by the manufacturing industry. Japanese companies who have factories in the United Kingdom might be forced to scale down or even relocate their operations because they could not secure the necessary number of technical people from Japan whose knowledge or experience was crucial to their operations.”

Danny Sriskandarajah, from the left-leaning think tank the Institute of Public Policy Research, said, “It (the English test) is going to be an issue. I don’t actually know the level required, but if it is to be meaningful it has to be reasonably high. It will pose a challenge for people.

“A significant proportion of the work permits are intra-corporate transfers. If you assume that some of those are coming from non-English speaking countries that do jobs which might not require English, they may be affected.”

Liam Byrne, the minister in charge of visa rules, acknowledged Japanese concerns at a recent parliamentary committee when he said, “If you talk to many Japanese investors, they will say that people coming over under intra-corporate transfers from a Japanese company, skilled engineers contributing quite considerably to the strength of the U.K. manufacturing base, are quite nervous about the kinds of English requirements that we would insist on.

“You cannot look at migration policy purely in terms of the economics. I think you do have to look in terms of the wider impact that migration has on Britain and that is why the prime minister has been right to stress the ability to speak English,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Britain’s Home Office said, “We will publish a statement of intent shortly setting out the detailed policy in this area. We are fully aware of the concerns expressed by Japanese businesses operating in the United Kingdom over the proposed English requirements, especially in relation to ICTs.”

In order to simplify immigration procedures, Britain has recently introduced a points-based system, similar to that in Australia. Basically, applicants are given more points the higher the level of skills they possess.

Entrepreneurs and scientists are classed as tier one and are very likely to get a visa. Skilled workers with an offer of a job in occupations such as nurses, teachers and engineers are classed as tier two and must also have met the English language requirement. This tier also includes those on intra-corporate transfers.

Under Home Office plans, tier two applicants should have reached level B2 in English according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

This would require applicants to “understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics.” And they should be able to “interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party.”
ENDS

J Times et al on homicide of Scott Tucker: “likely to draw leniency”

mytest

HANDBOOKsemifinalcover.jpgFranca-color.jpg
Hi Blog. We have a situation here I’ve been waiting to draw conclusions on for some days now. But here are some articles which substantiate what I’ve been fearing all along. The indication of differing judicial standards for similar crimes based upon nationality.

When a NJ killed a J in 1984 (see the Steve Bellamy Case, where a NJ defending a woman against a drunk and disorderly Japanese wound up killing him with his advanced martial arts skills), he was exonerated, then convicted, then exonerated again for, colloquially, “yarisugi” (and it became a case that changed jurisprudence for kajou bouei in Japan).

Now we have the opposite circumstance–a J killing a NJ–and according to the Japan Times, leniency is expected.

Historically, America had the expression, “he doesn’t have a Chinaman’s chance” (the modern-day equivalent of “a snowball’s chance in hell”), showing how bent the American judiciary was towards Asians a century or so ago. In Japan’s judiciary, are we to say, “he doesn’t have a gaijin’s chance”? Mr Yuyu Idubor, convicted for a rape he says he never committed, Mr Valentine, crippled due to police medical negligence during interrogation and completely ignored in court, or Mr Steve McGowan, barred from an Osaka eyeglass store express ‘cos the owner “doesn’t like black people”, again ignored in lower court (tho’ awarded a pittance in High Court), just might.

Here are two articles on the Scott Tucker homicide, one with conclusions, the other with details. The relative silence within the Japanese media on this case is pretty indicative. Contrast that with all the sawagi that would probably ensue if the opposite happened, where a NJ (especially a Beigun) killed a Japanese in this way. Arudou Debito in Sapporo.

(PS: If you want to comment on this case, please do so within the next 24 hours. After that, I’m going to be on the road with the book tour and unable to approve comments promptly.)

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Death of American in bar fight likely to draw leniency
Japan Times Thursday, March 13, 2008
By JUN HONGO Staff writer
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080313a3.html
Courtesy of Colin

The death of an American resident in Tokyo in a fatal bar fight late last month is not likely to result in any severe punishment being meted out due to the circumstances of the case, legal experts say.

Richard “Scott” Tucker, 47, died at Tokyo Metropolitan Hiroo Hospital after being punched and choked at Bullets, a nightclub in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, on Feb. 29. Police arrested Atsushi Watanabe, a 29-year-old disc jockey at the club, for the fatal assault.

While some media reports have suggested the West Virginian visited the club to complain about the noise, a police official told The Japan Times on Tuesday that Tucker appeared “heavily drunk and acted violently toward other customers,” at times striking a boxer’s pose, on the night of the incident.

Watanabe has told investigators he attempted to halt the disturbance in his club “because (Tucker) was picking a quarrel with everyone,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Legal experts suggest such circumstances would likely result in Watanabe receiving relatively minor punishment.
ENDS
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Tokyo killing of Charleston native ‘seeded in past events’
Tucker’s brother: Japanese bar’s noise led to fatal fight
The Charleston Gazette March 7, 2008
By Gary Harki Staff writer
http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/200803060766

A Charleston native killed in a Tokyo bar last weekend went there because he was angry about the noise, his brother said Thursday.

“Based on the information we have, Scott went into the bar with an attitude,” Chip Tucker said. “He was upset with the noise and commotion of what was going on, which was a routine. … He was not there for the party.”

Scott Tucker, 47, a Charleston native and West Virginia University graduate, died in a hospital after being choked and punched at a nightclub called Bullets in the Azabu section of Tokyo on Feb. 29, according to japantoday.com, an English-language news Web site.

Atsushi Watanabe, 29, a disc jockey at the club, is charged with killing Scott Tucker, according to the Web site.
“This was a specialized technique intended to do harm,” Chip Tucker said of how Watanabe allegedly killed his brother. “It’s a murder case. Everything points to that being the situation.”

The club was known for parties, noise and fights, Chip Tucker said. “His wife feels part of [Scott Tucker’s actions] were seeded in past events,” he said.

Tucker had been drinking and recently had developed a drinking problem, his brother said: “We are not sure if he had been home or was coming home when it happened.”

Chip Tucker said that based on Japanese law, the family will seek the maximum penalty for Watanabe. That won’t be determined until Watanabe is formally charged after the investigation has ended, he said.

“They determine punishment not only on a case-by-case basis but on the wishes of the family,” he said.
Some investigation records will be released in about 20 days, when police pull their records together and present the case to a judge, he said.

Tucker said it does not appear that Watanabe, who had no previous criminal record, intended to kill his brother. “It appears as though this was not premeditated, but he used force well beyond what he should have,” he said.

Scott Tucker lived in a building he had bought and – as is Japanese custom – named it after himself, said Chris Mathison, Scott’s former business partner.

Tucker had lived in the downtown Tokyo building, in an upscale section of the city, for at least 12 years, Mathison said. Two doors down was the jewelry studio of Tucker’s wife, Yumiko Yamazaki. Between the buildings was the Bullets club where Tucker was killed.

Mathison said he and Scott Tucker had traveled the world together in the early 1990s, working for various computer companies. The two still talked frequently, he said.

“He was rich. And not only did he do well, his wife is one of Japan’s leading jewelry designers,” Mathison said. “He had this career of closing enormous deals.”

Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said he remembered the Tucker family when they lived in Charleston in the 1960s, particularly Jean Tucker, Scott and Chip’s mother. He remembered waiting on her when he worked at the Pure Oil station in South Hills, he said.

“They were very nice people. They lived on Oakmont Road,” he said. “I stayed friends with them until I was drafted in 1969.”

Scott Tucker moved to Japan about 24 years ago, shortly after graduating from WVU with a degree in foreign languages and linguistics.

Chip Tucker said he attended a private service for the family at a crematory in Japan on Thursday. He will bring part of his brother’s ashes back to the United States to be spread in San Diego.

On Thursday, he and Yamazaki went to a neighborhood bar frequented by his brother to pick up a picture of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards that he kept there.

“Scott loved music. He had a wide range of tastes,” he said.

There were a few regulars in the bar, Chip Tucker said.

“Everyone came over and showed their condolences to Scott’s wife. They couldn’t believe the situation. They had never seen Scott angry,” he said. “They all showed up at the funeral. They were overwhelmed.

“They had never seen Scott get in a fight. They couldn’t believe it.”
ENDS

Kyodo says foreign crime down in 2007, yet NPA stresses need for further crackdown (UPDATED)

mytest

HANDBOOKsemifinalcover.jpg
Hi Blog. Quick article with comment following:

===========================

No. of crimes committed by visiting foreigners down
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8V30PFO0&show_article=1

Courtesy of COJ

TOKYO, Feb. 28 (AP) – (Kyodo)—The number of crimes committed by foreigners visiting Japan dropped for the second straight year to 35,800 last year, down 10.8 percent from the previous year, after hitting a peak in 2005, the National Police Agency said Thursday.

However, the number of crimes detected by police during the five-year period from 2003 to 2007 increased some 70 percent from the period of with an NPA official stressing the need for further crackdown on them.

Of the 35,800 cases, 25,753 cases were violations of the criminal code, down 6.2 percent from the previous year, while 10,047 cases were violations of special law, such as immigrant control and refugee recognition act, down 20.7 percent, according to the NPA.

The number of foreign criminals arrested, excluding permanent residents in Japan, in the reporting year fell 15.6 percent to 15,923, of whom Chinese constituted 5,346, South Koreans 2,037, Filipinos 1,807, Brazilians 1,255 and Vietnamese 806.

For nine criminals, Tokyo asked their home countries to punish them as they fled from Japan after committing crimes, bringing the number of such criminals to 48 since 1999.
ENDS
=============================

COMMENT: Pretty lousy social science. Not sure what “foreigners visiting Japan” refers to. Tourists? As opposed to “foreigners living in Japan”? Rainichi gaikokujin I assume is the original Japanese (that’s the word frequently used in this context by the NPA). That means residents.

And what an odd sentence to make it through the editing process:

“However, the number of crimes detected by police during the five-year period from 2003 to 2007 increased some 70 percent from the period of with an NPA official stressing the need for further crackdown on them.”

From the period of what? From the period of the NPA official stressing the need for a further crackdown between 2003-7? No, that doesn’t make sense. It makes more sense that there’s an NPA official commenting for this article, meaning once again the NPA stresses a need for further crackdown. That’s illogical given this news.

Which means the press is once again merely parroting without analysis. And we really need some better translators at Kyodo.

The point is: the NPA will say anything, even make bad news out of good, to keep budgetary monies flowing in… Debito in Okinawa

=============
EVENING UPDATE

Here’s the original Japanese (and yes, it’s rainichi gaikokujin, and it does not include Permanent Residents. That still doesn’t mean “visitors”–there are hundreds of thousands of people who live here without PR as residents, not tourists.)

=============================
社会
外国人犯罪、2年連続で減 警察庁「高止まりの状態」
http://www.sanyo.oni.co.jp/newsk/2008/02/28/20080228010001941.html

 昨年1年間に全国の警察が摘発した来日外国人(永住者らを除く)による犯罪は前年比10・8%減の3万5800件と、過去最多だった2005年から2年連続で減少したことが28日、警察庁のまとめで分かった。

 一方で、摘発件数を5年ごとに見た場合、03-07年は、1993-97年に比べ約7割増えており、警察庁は「多少の増減はあるものの、近年は『高止まり』の状態。今後も取り締まり強化など一層の取り組みが必要」としている。

(Literally: “On the other hand, when looking at the number of cases committed within five year periods, comparing the number of crimes committed between 2003-2007 and 1993-1997, there has been been a 70% rise. The NPA says, “Although there have been some rises and falls, in recent years it’s ‘been stopped at a high point’. From now on it’ll be necessary to for us to strengthen our crackdown even more.”)

 まとめによると、07年に摘発された3万5800件のうち、刑法犯は前年比6・2%減の2万5753件、入管難民法違反など特別法による摘発は同20・7%減の1万47件だった。

 摘発人数は、前年比15・6%減の1万5923人。国籍別では、中国が最も多く5346人、次いで韓国2037人、フィリピン1807人、ブラジル1255人、ベトナム806人の順だった。

(2月28日10時19分)山陽新聞
=============================

FURTHER COMMENT: So how many more years are we going to back up and say crime has increased? Why not go back to a time when there were a lot fewer NJ and look at crime stats back then? Calculating this way will always give you a higher number. Then you get perpetual justification for cracking down in the face of falling crime.

Under this method, when can the police say, “We’ve done enough, we don’t have crack down any more on foreign crime”? Answer: Never. Because even if foreign crime fell to zero, they could still say that their past crackdowns have brought that about and we’ll have to continue cracking down.

This is no longer anything even approaching a scientific method. Or even a logical method. It’s clearly just a political method.  And the Japanese press swallows it whole.  Debito in Okinawa

Terrie’s Take on GOJ crackdown on dual nationality

mytest

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Hi Blog. Although Terrie’s Take this week (yet another excellent essay) concentrates more on J citizens abroad taking NJ citizenships, there is also good mention and argument about J children in international marriages and the pressures upon them to conform to single nationality. As Terrie rightfully points out, this is ludicrous in a country which needs citizens; it shouldn’t be taking this degree of trouble just to put people off possibly maintaining a J passport just in the name of some odd nationality purity.

And dual nationality in itself would resolve many problems… I personally know several long-term NJ (and even some Zainichi) who would be happy to become Japanese citizens if it didn’t mean the sacrifice of one’s identity to having to choose. If you are a product of two cultures, why not have the legal status to back that up? Not half, but double. That’s what I would call the real Yokoso Japan. Debito in Sapporo

* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E ‘S T A K E * * * * * * *
A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd. (http://www.terrie.com)
General Edition Sunday, February 24, 2008 Issue No. 458

With all the recent goings on for foreigners over immigration entry requirements, it is easy to think that the Japanese Justice Ministry especially has it in for non-Japanese. But that isn’t true. They are just as tough on their own citizens who want to be dual nationals.

After publishing Terrie’s Take 456 about our opinions on why the immigration authorities are tightening up, we received some interesting email from Japanese readers wondering why immigration is picking on them as dual nationals, as well.

Most readers will know that Japan allows only one nationality. However, for the longest time, so long as a person was registered as a Japanese citizen first, whether or not you had gained a second nationality was politely ignored by the authorities. You just had to make sure that you didn’t make it too obvious that you held a separate nationality.

But now it appears that things are changing and the Justice Ministry seems to be conducting checks on Japanese citizens living overseas to make sure that they do not have dual nationality. For a sense of the situation, here is an extract from one reader’s letter:

“…I recently decided, after many years as a green card holder, to apply for US citizenship. This was partly triggered by the increasing tension of the US immigration process, which has understandably changed in attitude since 9/11. The tipping point for me was when a lawyer in Japan advised me that although dual citizenships are technically forbidden in Japan, it is a law that is not enforced.

Before I could complete my application process, however, I was told by another person that things in fact had changed. I confirmed this with the authorities. It seems that if you are Japanese and you renew your Japanese passport at your local US consulate, when you go to pick it up you are asked to show your green card or other residency documentation which allows you to be in the US. If you cannot produce this documentation, and you wouldn’t be able to if you held a US passport, they won’t hand over your new Japanese passport. Apparently this is how they are now catching dual citizens living abroad.

To avoid this, I could renew my passport in Tokyo, but if I do, I have to show them my juminhyo [Ed: personal register of your residency matters]. That means I have to re-establish residency and live back in Japan for a few months — which of course is difficult to do when one has a career to fulfill.

With all the dual Japanese nationals living abroad, it seems to be bad policy to make people have to sneak around the dual nationality issue. Japan needs to maintain and grow its population, not shrink it. And chances are that many of those people living abroad are either decent wage earners contributing tax back to Japan, retirees who take their health care costs with them, or simply good emissaries for Japanese culture…”

Our thanks to the reader submitting this succinct summation of the dual nationality problem. Two issues come to mind: 1) not only people resident overseas, there is an increasing problem with dual nationals back here in Japan, as the children of 37,000 (approx.) international marriages a year start to come of age, and 2) might it be that Japan’s cooperation on fingerprinting databases with the USA and elsewhere will lead to an increased enforcement of the policy as well?

1. As a study by Sean Curtin, a former professor at the International University of Japan in Niigata found, the average number of children had by couples of an international marriage in Japan is 2.9, more than 3 times the average number of kids had by a Japanese-only couple living in Tokyo (national average is higher at 1.23). Further, of the 700,000 or so marriages a year, the 37,000 international ones comprise about 5%-6% of the total. By inference, then, it is likely that somewhere between 50,000 to 180,000 kids of mixed-nationality parents are born in Japan each year.

And each one of these dual national kids, most raised at home in one culture and at school in another, after turning 20 (plus an additional 2 year’s grace) has to choose which parent’s nationality they want to take. We think it’s a morally bankrupt question to force on those kids. It thrusts upon them the cold reality of the Japanese judicial concept of one allegiance, one home — also, we believe, the same reason why there is no judicial acceptance of joint custody of children in Japan.

It’s not hard to imagine that if the child has a parent from a poor country, indeed, most foreign mothers here are from developing Asian countries, then they will choose to be Japanese, despite any personal feelings of discrimination and disadvantage that they have probably been subjected to throughout their lives. If the child’s parent is from a first world country, then the choice is more likely to be for the other country.

And so Japan loses one potential contributor to its future, and gains a less than happy second one.

We interviewed some mixed-nationality kids who are nearing adulthood, asking them about what they thought of being forced to choose. The common response was that they wanted to keep both nationalities, but if forced, those that experienced the most discrimination didn’t want to remain Japanese.

2. According to 2005 government statistics, one third of all the approximately 1m (now probably around 1.1m) Japanese living overseas are resident in the USA. They are joined by an additional 115,000 Japanese who are considered permanent expatriates. Interestingly, the stats come from the Ministry of Justice, and carry the comment that it knows that a large number of Japanese living overseas are in fact dual nationals. One wonders when they are going to start acting over this information.

Perhaps the answer lies with the new immigration fingerprinting system being used on foreign residents and visitors. In implementing this screening system, the Japanese government has started sharing a US fingerprint tracking database, and within the year it will share with other countries as well. Although we’re assured that the data is private, we are equally sure that the Ministry of Justice will be “fascinated” by the opportunity to analyze migration data of Japanese nationals drawn from other countries’ ingress-egress points — something that they’re unable to do in Japan. In fact, this could be happening right now.

The scenario is obvious: a Japanese national uses their passport to exit Japan, then the same person should be trackable as they enter the USA. If they don’t show up, but they were on a given US-bound flight, then clearly they either have a green card or they are a dual national.

But apart from consular checks overseas, it is not clear that the government has chosen to act on a wide scale yet. Indeed, it knows many Japanese are dual nationals and until now has allowed people to maneuver around this inconvenient fact.

So how do people manage to keep both passports?

Firstly, they make sure that they are registered as Japanese first, since other countries allowing dual nationality do not require the new citizen to announce their new status to their original country. Secondly, in becoming a citizen of the second country, the Japanese national ensures that they maintain their juminhyo in Japan. This means that they pay taxes, vote, etc., just as if they are expecting to return to Japan. It is a cumbersome arrangement, but basically this is the price they pay for the flexibility offered by being dual national.

Thirdly, they use their passports in a way that doesn’t challenge the status quo. The rule for usage is important: Japanese passports for entry and departure from Japan, and the other nationality passports for entry and departure from the other country. Never show the other country’s passport when entering Japan. If you do, and if the consequences are followed through, the Japanese government can (and threatens to on its web site) strip the Japanese citizen of their nationality.

We end by saying that this is a crazy situation. On the one hand, we have a possible crack down on hundreds of thousands of people and a deliberate policy of alienating (pun intended) all these potential citizens. On the other hand, we have a government panel that advised back in December the government should spend up to JPY2.44trn (US$22bn) on measures to help counter the declining birth rate!

Since the number of people likely to lose their citizenship amounts to 5%-10% of the birth rate, we suggest that part of that JPY2.44trn outlay be spent on making a phone call to the Justice Ministry to prepare legislation allowing Japanese to do what many have practiced for generations — become law-abiding citizens of the countries of both of their parents.

The remainder of the money could be spent on nursing homes for those loyal citizens who decided to grow old at home…

ENDS

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Aly Rustom compares treatment of NJ as crime suspect with crime victim

mytest

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ESSAY FROM ALY RUSTOM.  THOUGHTS ARE HIS ALONE.  POSTED HERE TO STIMULATE DISCUSSION. THINK FOR YOURSELVES ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT YOU AGREE.  ARUDOU DEBITO

Recently, we all heard about the alleged rape of an Okinawan junior high school girl that took place a few weeks ago. Of course, we all did. It was on the front page and made the headline news. Japanese people were shocked and appalled at the incident. The US military apologized and promised to take steps to deter further incidents in the future. The girl is now safe at home with her family.

However, even before all that happened, there was a more harrowing but unknown crime. This time the criminals were Japanese and the victim was an American. On December 29th, 26 year old David James Floyd, an American tourist, was hit by a taxi in Sendagaya, Shibuya ward around 12:30 at night. The taxi sped off, didn’t bother to call an ambulance, phone the police, take Floyd to the hospital, or even get out of the car to see if he was ok. He just hit him and ran.

As Floyd was lying on the ground, he was run over by another car only about 5 minutes later. This time, a 19 year old man was driving. Floyd was killed and this man too fled the scene. Both men were arrested, but get this: “due to lack of evidence” the taxi driver was released.

Now honestly, if we compare the above with the Idubor case a terrifying truth comes to light: not only are foreigners framed for various crimes and sentenced without evidence and faulty testimony the Japanese government and its police force protect Japanese who murder foreigners. How is it possible that the Japanese government found Mr. Idubor guilty and the taxi driver innocent? The taxi driver is guilty of at least 2 crimes: hit and run, reckless endangerment, and a few more. The 19 year old is guilty of involuntary manslaughter at least. However, the taxi driver is free and I’ll bet you the 19 year old will get a slap on the wrist- if that.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this happen when a foreigner is murdered. Lucy Blackman’s killer was acquitted of her murder, and Lindsay Ann Hawker’s killer escaped from the police… or did he? Did they just turn the other way while he escaped?

The most basic right- the right not to be murdered- and the most basic justice- punishing a killer, is denied to foreigners in Japan. The American military took some steps to try and avoid such instances in the future and the head of the armed forces in Japan bowed and apologized.

For the murder of 3 young foreigners in Japan, cut down in their prime for absolutely no good reason, what have we got? We can’t even get justice for these people. Not even a conviction, let alone an apology. Is this a civilized government?

I have traveled around the world, have lived in dictatorships, monarchies, and under tyrannical governments, but even under those regimes, if you murdered someone you would be prosecuted under the law, no matter where you came from. I have never seen a country that condones the murder of foreigners by its own citizens. What really makes me sick to my stomach is that now Japan is trying for a seat in the UN Security Council. Is this really a country that is ready for a veto vote and is ready to make decisions that will affect the entire world? I hope not.
ENDS

“Foreign crime” in reverse: The Miura Kazuyoshi Case

mytest

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Hi Blog. A lot of people have brought this to my attention, and it’s of interest to Debito.org for reasons quite convoluted.

We usually hear about the crimes NJ commit in Japan. Very rarely about crimes committed by Japanese abroad, when we are the foreigners. Even more interesting is where a murder is committed and blamed on “foreign crime” overseas, namely the Americans and their society allegedly riddled with random crime.

Then we have the case of Miura Kazuyoshi. As you can see by the details below, we had a person convicted of killing his wife in a lower Japanese court unusually vindicated by a higher court. Then the guy gets arrested in US territory (which avoids double jeopardy) for the same crime nearly 25 years later. Wouldn’t it be yet another black eye for the Japanese judiciary if the US convicts him instead? We won’t know for a little while (but it will take definitely less time than the Japanese judiciary; hey, it took Miura four years for his High Court verdict, and Asahara has been on trial for more than a decade now…), but it should be interesting.

As an aside, crooked Dietmember Suzuki Muneo just got put away yet again today after his case was on appeal for close to four years too (in the interim he forms his own party and gets reelected; Hokkaido no haji!). About time. Still, he didn’t kill anybody. Couldn’t blame his corruption on foreigners, I guess.

Is Miura the Japanese O.J. Simpson or what? Instead of using the race card, he uses the “foreign crime” card… Debito in Sapporo

//////////////////////////////////////////////
Japan interviews arrested businessman
By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer
Sun Feb 24, 5:58 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080224/ap_on_re_us/businessman_s_wife_19;_ylt=AgwOdRE1FDr6pXh63kG7nMQE1vAI
Courtesy Chad Edwards, Tony Kehoe, and Erich Meatleg

LOS ANGELES – Japanese officials on Sunday interviewed a businessman from their country who was arrested in a U.S. territory on suspicion of killing his wife a quarter-century ago in a Los Angeles parking lot.

Kazuyoshi Miura was apprehended by U.S. authorities late Friday as he tried to pass through immigration control at Saipan’s airport to take a flight home, said Toshihide Kawasaki, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of Japanese citizens overseas. Japanese consular officials later talked to him at a Saipan detention center.

“He seemed in good health, and was receiving a fair treatment,” said Kenji Yoshida, one of the two Japanese consuls in Saipan.

“We talked about an hour, but not so much about his past crimes,” Yoshida said. “Naturally, he expressed hopes to see his family, and was very anxious to know what may happen to him.”

Miura, 60, had already been convicted in Japan in 1994 of the murder of his wife, Kazumi Miura, but that verdict was overturned by the country’s high courts 10 years ago. The 1981 shooting caused an international uproar, in part because he blamed the attack on robbers, reinforcing Japanese perceptions of America as violent.

“Why now?” Japan’s Mainichi newspaper asked in a headline. “His turbulent life entered a new phase.”

The LAPD said Miura was awaiting extradition, and details on the arrest were not made available.

“I think U.S. investigators have all along believed that they can make the case with the evidence they had already collected,” Tsutomu Sakaguchi, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police investigator at the time of the shooting, told TV Asahi in an interview Sunday. “If they have a new evidence, that could be a decisive step.”

Miura’s attorney, Junichiro Hironaka, has said the latest arrest is astonishing.

Miura, a clothing importer, and his 28-year-old wife were visiting Los Angeles on Nov. 18, 1981, when they were shot in a downtown parking lot. She was shot in the head, went into a coma and died the following year in Japan.

Her mother said Sunday that she never gave up hope that the case would be resolved.

“I burned incense for my daughter and prayed at a family Buddhist altar, telling her that Americans will put an end to the case, so let’s hold onto our hopes and wait,” Yasuko Sasaki told Japan’s public broadcaster NHK.

Miura reportedly collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from life insurance policies he had taken out on his wife. In addition, an actress who claimed to be Miura’s lover told a newspaper that Miura had hired her to kill his wife in their hotel room on a trip to Los Angeles three months before the shootings.

Miura was arrested in Japan in 1985 on suspicion of assaulting his wife in the hotel incident. He was convicted of attempted murder and while serving a six-year sentence was charged under Japanese law in 1988 with his wife’s murder.

Miura was convicted of that charge in 1994 and sentenced to life in prison. Four years later, a Japanese court overturned the sentence.
___

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
ENDS

Interesting forthcoming book: “Another Japan is Possible”, citing Tony Laszlo of long-defunct “Issho Kikaku”

mytest

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Hi Blog. Speaking of books…

We have another book on Japan’s internationalization coming out. Press release below. It looks to be a serious and interesting study of the forces of minority voices in Japan. Well done Professor Chan.

There is one thing I found odd. Chapter 42 below reads:

42. Issho Kikaku
Tony Laszlo
Ethnic Diversity, Foreigners’ Rights, Discrimination in Family Registration

Hang on. Tony Laszlo of “Issho Kikaku”? Issho Kikaku has been a moribund organization for more than two years now (its archives taken offline for “site renewal” December 4, 2005! Here’s today’s screen capture:).
isshosite021808.jpg

By taking the work of hundreds of activists offline like this, Laszlo in fact has a history of deleting the historical record of Japan’s internationalization. Likewise, the Shakai Mailing List Archives, which he was also involved in, also mysteriously disappeared about a year ago. Substantiation for all these assertions here.

How can a “non-active” activist representing a non-existent organization pop up like this in a serious academic work? Well, Jennifer by sheer coincidence contacted me a couple of weeks ago for some introductions into Japan’s Muslim Community. When queried about this situation, she said she conducted the interviews with Laszlo about two years ago. Probably before Laszlo deep-sixed his site. So she probably didn’t know about his impending conversion to cartoon character and cute keitai mascot (beats sullying his hands in real activism, anyway, or tainting his cutie-pie salability with any connection to controversial topics). I wish Jennifer had done a follow-up check before publication, though. Perpetuates an incorrect job description for other serious researchers.

Anyway, without any sarcasm, I think this looks to be a great book. Bonne chance. I’ll be getting a copy. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////

NEW BOOK RELEASE:
Another Japan is Possible: New Social Movements and Global Citizenship Education
Edited by Jennifer Chan, Stanford University Press 2008.
ISBN: 0804757828
Price: USD 27.95

Book summary:
This edited volume, a sequel to my first book – Gender and Human Rights Politics in Japan – looks at the emergence of internationally linked Japanese advocacy nongovernmental networks that have grown since the 1990s in the context of three conjunctural forces of neoliberalism, militarism, and nationalism. It connects three disparate literatures on the global justice movement, Japanese civil society, and global citizenship education. Through the narratives of 50 activists in eight overlapping issue areas—global governance, labor, food sovereignty, peace, HIV/AIDS, gender, minority and human rights, and youth—this book examines the genesis of these new social movements; their critiques of neoliberalism, militarism, and nationalism; their local, regional, and global connections; relationships with the Japanese government; and their role in constructing a new identity of Japanese as global citizens. Its purpose is to highlight the interactions between the global and local—that is, how international human rights and global governance issues resonate within Japan and how in turn local alternatives are articulated by Japanese advocacy groups—and to analyze citizenship from a postnational and postmodern perspective.

Advanced Praise
***
“A surprise for observers who view Japan as a developmental state, run by a powerful central bureaucracy and aligned with a conservative party whose policies often override public interest, this book casts new light on a vital aspect of Japan’s emerging political economy. A remarkable group of scholars, professionals, and citizen activists reveal the growing numbers of committed Japanese participating energetically in local and global organizations.”
˜Daniel I. Okimoto, Stanford University

“Jennifer Chan vividly illustrates the recent flourishing of nongovernmental organizations in Japan. With good contextualizing narratives and rich, informative examples of the thinking and sentiments nongovernmental organizations generate, she delivers a must-read in the study of globalization and localization.”
˜Inoguchi Takashi, University of Tokyo

“This book is rich in primary material on the human side of NGO activity in Japan, along a wide spectrum of organizations. This is a nuanced view of advocacy, strategies, and institutions, sometimes against the grain of existing views, and it adds the perspectives of new global citizens of Japan, engaged in knowledge production.
˜Merry White, Boston University

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Global Governance and Japanese Advocacy Nongovernmental Networks
I. Global Governance
1. AM-Net/Advocacy and Monitoring Network on Sustainable Development
Kawakami Toyoyuki Global Governance Monitoring and Japan
2. Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society
Sakuma Tomoko Education, Empowerment and Alternatives to Neoliberalism
3. Peoples’ Plan Study Group
Ogura Toshimaru Building a People-based Peace and Democracy Movement in Asia
4. Association for the Tobin Tax for the Aid of Citizens, Kyoto
Komori Masataka Tobin Tax, Kyoto Social Forum and Pluralism
5. Pacific Asia Resource Center
Fukawa Yoko Education for Civil Society Capacity Building
6. Japan International Volunteer Center
Takahashi Kiyotaka Community Development, Peace and Global Citizenship

II. Labor
7. Japan Trade Union Confederation (Rengo)
Kumagai Ken’ichi Globalization and Labor Restructuring
8. Shinjuku Homeless Support Center
Kasai Kazuaki Corporate Restructuring and Homelessness
9. Equality Action 21
Sakai Kazuko Gender, Part-time Labor and Indirect Discrimination
10. Filipino Migrants Center Nagoya
Ishihara Virgie Migration, Trafficking and Free Trade Agreements
11. Labor Net
Yasuda Yukihiro Neoliberalism and Labor Organizing
12. All-Japan Water Supply Workers’ Union
Mizukoshi Takashi Water, Global Commons and Peace

III. Food Sovereignty
13. No to WTO – Voice from the Grassroots in Japan
Ohno Kazuoki Agricultural Liberalization, World Trade Organization and Peace
14. Food Action 21
Yamaura Yasuaki Multifunctionality of Agriculture over Free Trade
15. No! GMO Campaign
Amagasa Keisuke Citizens’ Movement against Genetically Modified Foods
16. Watch Out for WTO! Japan
Imamura Kazuhiko Self-sufficiency, Safety and Food Liberalization

IV. Peace
17. Grassroots Movement to Remove US Bases from Okinawa and the World
Hirayama Motoh “We Want Blue Sky in Peaceful Okinawa”
18. World Peace Now
Hanawa Machiko, Tsukushi Takehiko and Cazman World Peace Now
19. No to Constitutional Revision! Citizens’ Network
Takada Ken Article 9 and the Peace Movement
20. Japan Teachers’ Union
Nishihara Nobuaki Fundamental Law of Education, Peace and the Marketization of Education
21. International Criminal Bar
Higashizawa Yasushi Japan and International War Crimes
22. Japan Campaign to Ban Landmines
Kitagawa Yasuhiro Landmine Ban and Peace Education
23. Peace Depot
Nakamura Keiko Nuclear Disarmament, Advocacy and Peace Education
24. Asia-Pacific Peace Forum
Ôtsuka Teruyo Building a Citizens’ Peace Movement in Japan and Asia

V. HIV/AIDS
25. Japan AIDS and Society Association
Tarui Masayoshi HIV/AIDS from a Human Rights Perspective
26. Place Tokyo
Hyôdô Chika HIV/AIDS, Gender and Backlash
27. Africa Japan Forum
Inaba Masaki Migrant Workers and HIV/AIDS

VI. Gender
28. Japan NGO Network for CEDAW
Watanabe Miho International Lobbying and Japanese Women’s Networks
29. Japan Network Against Trafficking in Persons
Hara Yuriko Gender, Human Rights and Trafficking in Persons
30. Soshiren/Starting from a Female Body
Ohashi Yukako Gender, Reproductive Rights and Technology
31. Regumi Studio Tokyo
Wakabayashi Naeko As a Lesbian Feminist in Japan
32. Sex Workers and Sexual Health
Kaname Yukiko Sex Workers’ Movement in Japan
33. Women’s Active Museum of War and Peace
Watanabe Mina Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace
34. Feminist Art Action Brigade
Shimada Yoshiko Art, Feminism and Activism

VII. Minority and Human Rights
35. Japan Civil Liberties Union Subcommittee for the Rights of Foreigners
Fujimoto Mie A Proposal for the Law on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
36. The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR)
Morihara Hideki Antidiscrimination, Grassroots Empowerment and Horizontal Networking
37. Buraku Liberation League
Mori Maya Multiple Identities and Buraku Liberation
38. Citizens’ Diplomatic Centre for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Shimin Gaikô Centre)
Uemura Hideaki Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Multicultural Coexistence
39. Association of Rera
Sakai Mina On the Recognition of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights of the Ainu
40. Association of Indigenous Peoples in the Ryûkyûs
Taira Satoko “I would like to be able to speak Uchinâguchi when I grow up!”
41. Mirine
Hwangbo Kangja Art Activism and Korean Minority Rights
42. Issho Kikaku
Tony Laszlo Ethnic Diversity, Foreigners’ Rights, Discrimination in Family Registration
43. Japan National Assembly of Disabled Peoples’ International
Hirukawa Ryôko Disability and Gender
44. Japan Association for Refugees
Ishikawa Eri The UN Convention on Refugee and Asylum Protection in Japan
45. Center for Prisoners’ Rights Japan
Akiyama Emi Torture, Penal Reform and Prisoners’ Rights
46. Forum 90
Takada Akiko Death Penalty and Human Rights

VIII. Youth Groups
47. Peace Boat
Yoshioka Tatsuya Experience, Action and the Floating Peace Village
48. A Seed Japan
Mitsumoto Yuko Ecology, Youth Action and International Advocacy
49. BeGood Cafe
Shikita Kiyoshi Organic Food, Education and Peace
50. Body and Soul
Takahashi Kenkichi “Another Work is Possible”: Slow Life, Ecology and Peace

Conclusion: Social Movements and Global Citizenship Education
Appendixes
Notes

Target audience:
Japanese studies, Asian studies, feminist studies, human rights and globalization researchers, transnational and local social movement studies.

To order:
Chicago Distribution Center
11030 South Langley Ave.
Chicago, IL 60628
Tel. 1-800-621-2736
Fax: 1-800-621-8471
E-mail: custserv@press.uchicago.edu
or through
www.amazon.com

For more information, please contact:
Jennifer Chan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor,
Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Education; and
Faculty Associate, the Centre for Japanese Research, the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies; and Institute for European Studies.
University of British Columbia
2125 Main Mall,
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Tel: (604) 822-5353
Fax: (604) 822-4244
Jennifer.chan@ubc.ca
http://www.edst.educ.ubc.ca/faculty/chan.html
ENDS

Japan Today/Kyodo on US pressure re Japan’s NJ fingerprinting

mytest

Hi Blog. Thus spake the hegemon:
========================

U.S. official hopes Japan will shift to 10-finger immigration screening
Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 07:00 EST
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/427187

TOKYO — A U.S. Homeland Security Department official voiced hope Tuesday that the Japanese government will start sometime in the future to take the fingerprints of all 10 fingers of each foreign visitor to step up accuracy of the screening system at immigration.

Robert Mocny, head of the US-Visit Program of the department, told Kyodo News the U.S. government is “willing to talk with the government of Japan to follow what we’ve done,” referring to the 10-finger system the United States has launched at some airports since November.
ENDS
========================

COMMENT: Once again, the US is sticking their fingers where they don’t belong… I don’t really understand why the US is so concerned about how other countries fingerprint (when Japan is already doing more biometric border control than most countries). The last gasps of a waning administration pulling whatever levers they can before November elections? Or just lobbying for more business for Accenture?

To me, this is just more proof that the NJ Fingerprinting policy in Japan is but a clone of the US’s. For once, I’m in agreement with the likes of Ishihara about a Japan that can say no. Arudou Debito
ENDS

産經:ギョーザだけじゃない?年金記録転記ミスは外国人のせい?

mytest

ギョーザだけじゃない? 派遣中国人が年金記録転記ミス
産經新聞 2008.1.30 22:23
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/affairs/crime/080130/crm0801302223050-n1.htm
このニュースのトピックス:年金問題

 年金記録紛失問題で、オンラインシステムに未入力の「旧台帳」と呼ばれる手書き台帳記録約1466万件について、手書きデータをコンピューター入力用紙に転記する際に、中国人などの派遣労働者が漢字を読み間違い、誤記するトラブルが発生していたことが29日、民主党の厚生労働・総務部門会議で明らかになった。

 社会保険庁によると、昨年12月10日から20日までの間、外国人派遣労働者約60人に転記作業を行わせたところ、名字と名前の区切りを間違うなどのミスを連発。社保庁は全員を日本人に交代させた上で、すでにすべての転記ミスを修正しており、今後は派遣会社への派遣料支払額を減らすことも検討している。
ends

Kandai PR Harassment: Why you don’t let non-Immigration people make Immigration decisions…

mytest

Hi Blog. As regular readers know, as of October 1, 2007, all employers must report their NJ employees to the MHLW’s unemployment office, Hello Work, or face fines for potentially employing NJ in violation of their visas.

We’ve already uncovered on Debito.org some enforcement difficulties in deciding whether this meant NJ employed “full-time” or “part time” (this, as usual from a GOJ that likes grey areas of enforcement, has been left vague), with one case of somebody being demanded his Gaijin Card for receiving 500 yen compensation! Ludicrous.

Now here’s the next phase. An angry email from a friend of a friend, edited somewhat but with preserved emphases. About a person being hassled by his workplace (Kansai University) regarding issues they clearly know nothing about: over a Re-Entry Permit (being told he’s illegal visawise unless he gets one; wrong) despite being a Permanent Resident. Blogged with permission.

This is why you don’t let people who know nothing of Immigration law make Immigration decisions. Expect more of this sort of thing in future. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

//////////////////////////////////////////

PREAMBLE FROM FORWARDING FRIEND:

I got this mail from a colleague the other day. I am sending it (mostly uncut) to the PALE list to show how schools, which are not immigration officials, can mess up and abuse their power in potentially harmful ways.

Some background:
Apparently the govt. has asked employers to make sure all of their employees have valid papers to work in Japan. Some colleges, such as Kansai University, has therefore been asking non Japanese teaching personnel to prove their status. Others have ignored this, or gone about it another way. Signed, RR.

PS The letter did no good, and KanDai is still hasseling the instructor in question. His gaijin card, which they initially told him had expired (it did not, it is good until late 2008) stated that he was on a spouse visa, and since he was recently divorced, KanDai’s interpretation was that he was no long legally in the country. The problem is that the cards are good for 10 years, and that the card holder had subsequently moved to permanent resident status, a change that was not reflected in the actual card.

FORWARDED EMAIL FOLLOWS:

————————–
Maybe you can clarify this issue for me. Please read the letter below that I sent to Kandai.

While I have not renewed my Reentry Permit yet (which expired in October; from what I understand from many foreign teachers who have Permanent Resident status here, the only problem with having this expire and not renewed is that I cannot get back into Japan–if I leave), I planned to renew it after my classes ended. I have been too busy to go to the Marutamachi office during the semester.

I went to the ward office with a Japanese friend after Kandai told me that I was here illegally. The ward office staff there told me (after seeing my passport and Gaijin Card) that there was no problem with me being here illegally–that I am a PR and therefore legal–and that there is no PR visa that expires.

Kandai still insists that there is a problem. I will go to Marutamachi office later this week–when my friend has time to go. I do not want to go alone, because, if there is a problem, I would be arrested and probably thrown in jail. I want someone to know that I have been arrested, so that they can contact a lawyer or the union.

====================================

Dear Ueno-sama,

Enclosed are copies of the relevant stamps in my passport. Please pass them—and this letter—on to the appropriate person.

I am a PERMANENT RESIDENT in Japan. Please be clear on this point. I have talked with NUMEROUS people (ward office staff and foreign permanent residents teachers of long standing here) about the problem that your office has with my “Gaijin Card”–and they all say that your office is reading the card wrong and that your office apparently does not understand the laws and regulations concerning foreign resident status.

On Christmas Day (a religious holiday for me), I went down to my ward office—and they told me that there was NOTHING ILLEGALLY WRONG with my status here and that they see NO PROBLEM.

Now, I must go down to the Immigration Office (and waste one more day of my time to sort this problem out because after the new year began, your office, again, insisted that there was a problem.

I am sure that there is NOTHING ILLEGAL about my documents—the pertinent one has not expired. From what I understand, the PR visa does not even have to be renewed.

Nevertheless, because your office keeps INSISTING THAT I AM HERE ILLEGALLY, I MUST WASTE ANOTHER DAY IN ORDER TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THIS MATTER. I WILL ASK THE IMMIGRATION OFFICE TO CALL YOUR OFFICE—OR TO WRITE YOUR OFFICE A LETTER–TO INFORM YOU AS TO HOW PERMANENT RESIDENCY STATUS HERE WORKS.

Your office has asked to see my card a few times now and you have made numerous copies. You have asked to see my passport, which, legally, there is no reason your office needs to see this.

I HOPE THAT THESE COPIES FINALLY SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

I only say all of this because your office has caused me much stress over this matter (having an expired visa is cause for arrest, imprisonment–and deportation here—quite harsh punishments—and quite racist, as a matter of fact). So, your office has caused me much worry and wasted time on this matter.

It really makes me wonder if I have been singled out for harassment because I am a union member at Kandai. I will forward a copy of this to my union president, just so my union is aware of this issue. (Ueno-sama, I realize that you are only doing what you are told—but the people in the office should make it a point to understand the law.)
Sincerely,< < __._,_.___ ENDS

“Human Rights” when enforced in Japan: Chest hair equals “sexual harassment”

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s what happens when somebody in a position of authority (like a faceless boss at JR East) acts on what he or she katte ni considers “human rights”. Comment below article.

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JR East links ‘naked festival’ posters to sexual harassment
Mainichi Shinbun January 8, 2008

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080108p2a00m0na012000c.html
oshuchesthair1.tiff
One of the rejected posters for the Somin Festival in Oshu, Iwate Prefecture.
(Screen capture courtesy Japan Probe)

OSHU, Iwate — East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) has rejected calls to stick up posters promoting a local “naked festival,” saying there are many women who aren’t comfortable seeing men naked.

The Oshu Municipal Government had sought permission from the Morioka branch of JR East to display the posters advertising Kokuseki Temple’s Somin Festival at stations, but JR East said the posters could not be displayed unless the images were changed.

“As sexual harassment becomes more of a problem, the standards for displaying posters in public spaces are becoming stricter,” a representative of the Morioka branch of JR East explained. “It wasn’t just that it was out of line because there was nakedness; the pictures showed things that were particularly unpleasant for women, such as chest hair, and it was decided that showing them things they didn’t want to see was sexual harassment.”

In the festival, crowds of men wearing nothing but loincloths participate in scrambles using sacks called sominbukuro. The festival, which has continued for about 1,000 years, is held in the hope of warding off plagues and producing bumper crops. This year, it will be held between the evening of Feb. 13 and early Feb. 14.

The poster in question combines three photos, showing a close-up of a bearded man with a hairy chest, and men in the background wearing loincloths.

The city retouched some of the loincloths, but decided that it would be difficult to completely alter images as JR had requested. It has reportedly decided to decrease the number of posters by about 200 to 1,400, and will display them in the city and in the Tokyo metropolitan area instead.

Oshu Municipal Government official Yuzuru Sasaki said that efforts to liven up the festival would continue in spite of the setback.

“The number of tourists might drop, but we want to display the posters in the city and ask tourist facilities in the metropolitan area to display them to pump up the festival,” he said.

Click here for the original Japanese story
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

COMMENT: How silly. I have written in depth on how vague the notion of human rights is in Japan (yes, it tends to be vague everywhere in the world, but what the GOJ considers human rights in its surveys is especially confusing, even discriminatory in itself!). Under half-baked concepts (where it’s okay to discriminate against NJ but not okay to ignore allegedly oversensitive people who might swoon in shock at stray muna-ge), it’s no wonder some people go over the top and construe something like “chest hair” as “sexual harassment”.

And the issue is chest hair, not nudity in itself. If you look at the previous year’s (approved) poster for the same event:
oshuchesthair2.tiff
(Screen capture courtesy Japan Probe)
you still have the same thing (it’s a festival celebrating male near-nakedness, after all)–fundoshi, asses–except no hairy chest in the foreground.

Better not ask even me to bare my semi-hirsute pecs, such as they are. And let’s see if JR East will enforce this on Sumo, and not allow broadcasts of matches on TVs on their premises. Same degree of nakedness (if not even more flesh)–and yes, before you say it–some sumo wrestlers have chest hair. Horrors!

There is a happy end to this, however. Thanks to the scoffing media coverage given this tempest in a teapot, this festival has gotten more publicity nationwide than ever before, and according to Sunday Japon January 13, 2007, they’re anticipating the highest level of attendance ever!

Mattaku mechakucha! Grow up, people. Chest hair isn’t, say, pubic hair–you might as well be offended by beards. Establish some concept of what real human rights are. That’s supposed to be the job of places like the absolutely useless MOJ Bureau of Human Rights…, and even if BOHR bothered to weigh in, they’ll only say, “we have no enforcement authority” and go back to soaking up tax monies for their own festivals. No wonder the public has trouble taking people who promote human rights seriously!

Sumo wrestlers, get your razors out! And there are some rikishi I would pay money to see get a Steve Carell-style body waxing… Debito in Sapporo

Permanent Resident protests US Embassy’s inaction towards protecting human rights of own citizens

mytest

Morning Blog. Got this letter last night from a friend who’s gotten disgusted with the US Embassy’s inaction towards protecting the human rights of its citizens. Myself, I think the USG has long forgotten it’s primary duty to its taxpayers/citizens, and sees its main duty as selling weapons and maintaining military bases and regional interests. Even though it has plenty of wherewithal (especially vis-a-vis Japan) to take on issues that affect the NJ residents here under their purview. The Canadian Govt. does, what with the Murray Wood Case, for one example. They even commented personally during the Otaru Onsens Case. (The USG did comment on its Country Reports on Human Rights, which I appreciate very much, but it was essentially too little, too late) Here’s the letter. Debito in Sapporo

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

[Kyushu Permanent Resident, reproduced with permission and anonymized by Debito.org] January 10, 2008

Dear U.S. Embassy,

I just finished reading your January newsletter. In it, like the previous two, you mentioned the new Japanese immigration control law without comment.

What I have not read in recent newsletters – what I and probably many other permanent-resident Americans in Japan are wondering – is what you have done to protest the new law. Regrettably, I have not heard a peep from the embassy regarding this discriminatory law. In case you don’t know, many permanent-resident Americans are upset about it.

I know you diplomats are exempt from the humiliating experience of having to be fingerprinted and photographed. But, what about those of us who have lived her many years (34 in my case), have been good, tax-paying, contributing residents? I am not talking about time or inconvenience. I am talking about being separated from Japanese spouse and kids upon return from abroad, singled out as a potential criminal or terrorist. This, in spite of having already been thoroughly investigated, fingerprinted, etc. to obtain permanent-resident status.

The U.S.A. does not require Japanese who are permanent residents in the U.S. to be fingerprinted when they return to the country. This is grounds enough for a protest to the Japanese government. It is often “gaiatsu” that gets things changed here.

More than just consular services and benign announcements, we Americans expect you to stand up for our rights here. Did the Japanese government ask the Embassy for comment on a law that affects thousands of Americans here, and if so what did you do/say?

Fifteen years ago, Ambassador Walter Mondale fought for the rights of over 100 U.S. citizen teachers at Japanese national universities (I was one.) who were slated to be released because they were in the high pay brackets and close to getting retirement benefits. He met personally with a representative group of affected teachers at the Embassy, and he took the matter to the highest levels of Japanese government and did not give up until they relented and reversed the policy. One point he made was that such an indignity would not happen to the many Japanese academics employed at American universities.

I hope you can so something about this fingerprinting issue; at the very least inform the Japanese government that most Americans resent this new requirement. If you are not sure about the depth of feeling on this issue, you could invite U.S. citizens to write in with feedback/comments on the law.

If your answer is simply that the law is a matter of Japanese internal policy, then you are not serving us well at all.

Thank you,

[Name Withheld]

U.S. Citizen

ENDS

Humor: Charles Kowalski letter to Yomiuri on Ishiba’s UFO fears

mytest

Hi Blog. This is so good I couldn’t just let it languish within the comments section of this blog. It deserves an entry all its own.

Charles Kowalski sent this letter to the Yomiuri when Defense Minister Hashiba (inter alia) was getting all nerdy about defenses against a theoretical UFO invasion late last year. Charles takes the issue and runs with it. Hilariously. The Yomiuri, not known for any sense of humor (or for brooking any criticism of Japan from outsiders), wouldn’t publish it. So I will. Debito in Sapporo

/////////////////////////////////////////

UNPUBLISHED LETTER TO THE EDITOR AT THE YOMIURI, BY CHARLES KOWALSKI:

To Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba:

I urge you to reconsider your comment that UFOs “can’t be categorized as coming from a foreign country” (Yomiuri December 21, page 2). Please take a moment to think about the dangerous precedents this policy would set.

If UFOs could enter Japanese airspace without resistance, they could easily spirit away Japanese citizens. Japan has enough abduction issues already! But even worse, what if the extraterrestrial visitors liked our beautiful country so much that they decided to stay – and without the limitations that apply to humans from other countries?

First of all, with no visa restrictions, they could take jobs away from Japanese citizens. In the fields of astrophysics and aeronautics, an interstellar pilot would have a grossly unfair advantage over a Japanese graduate who shuffled through university with a perpetual hangover. Do you want more of our young people to become NEETs?

And if men from Mars, or women from Venus, were to marry Japanese citizens, what would prevent their names from being recorded in the juminhyo? Tama-chan was cute as a one-time joke, but do you really want to see Qrlzak Wzaxo from Jupiter listed on equal terms with Hanako Sato from Morioka? And their children, with one parent from a planet with higher gravity, would always beat their Japanese classmates in athletic competitions! How unsporting!

Our course of action should be clear: Treat extraterrestrials the same as any other aliens. When they arrive at the UFO terminal at Narita, take prints of their claws, tentacles, antennae or whatever they use for fingers. Make them carry Space Alien Registration Cards that the police could inspect at any time. Interplanetarization is all very well, but we Japanese must take measures to prevent these aliens from going where no gaijin has gone before.
ENDS

Japan Focus: Michael H. Fox translates Justice Minister Hatoyama interview re capital punishment

mytest

Hi Blog. I mentioned in my last Japan Times Article (December 18, 2007) the following oddity about our Justice Minister:

As the party cream floats to the top, debates become very closed-circuit, intellectually incestuous–and even oddly anti-gaijin. For example, Justice Minister Kunio “friend of a friend in al-Qaeda” Hatoyama was quoted as saying (Shuukan Asahi Oct 26, 2007 p. 122), “The Japanese place more importance on the value of life… European civilizations of power and war mean their concept of life is weaker than the Japanese. This is why they are moving towards abolishing the death penalty.” Then he approved three execution orders. Earth to Kunio, come in?

The thing is, there’s a lot more screwballity here. Here’s a link to the whole Shuukan Asahi interview I referred to translated by Michael H. Fox. I’ll excerpt Mike’s commentary here, but the interview is a long one, so I’ll let you go directly to the Japan Focus page for it.

Pretty remarkable opinions from a politico who has risen this far. Then again, as I’ve said, Japan’s parliament is a peerage in disguise, so for anyone who comes from a country with an inherited ensconced class, we all know what silly things their “upper-class twits” get up to. Pity they get elected and given this much unvetted political power here. Debito in Monbetsu
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“Why I Support Executions”
An interview with Justice Minister Hatoyama Kunio
Translation and Commentary by Michael H. Fox
http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2609

COMMENTARY:

Hatoyama Kunio, current Justice Minister of Japan, is one of Japan’s most candid politicians. He has a penchant for speaking his mind, and startling the public, his party and even his ministry. In the wide ranging interview below, originally published in the weekly magazine Weekly Asahi (Shukan Asahi) on October 26 [2007], he sounds off on a number of timely and important issues regarding Japan’s justice system, particularly the death penalty, and upcoming changes to the socio-legal structure.

Hatoyama was born into a political dynasty. His father Seiichiro served in the Diet and was a Minister of Foreign Affairs. His grandfather Hatoyama Ichiro was Prime Minister from December 1954 to December 1956. And his great-grandfather Kazuo, served in the Diet and was president of Waseda University. His elder brother Yukio, is a Diet member and a leader of the opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan). According to his website, Hatoyama declared that he would enter politics when he was in the second year of elementary school. His wish started to materialize when he became a secretary to Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei after graduating from Tokyo University’s Department of Law in 1972.

Hatoyama has had a long political career. Elected to the Diet in 1976, he has served as Education Minister and Labor Minister. He left the LDP in 1996, and was elected to the Diet as a Minshuto candidate. Three years later, he abandoned the party and resigned his seat in the Diet. He ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Tokyo in 1999. Soon after, he returned to the LDP and won a seat in the diet in 2000 under the system of proportional representation. He became Minister of Justice under previous Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in August of 2007, and continued in the post in the present cabinet of Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo. At what turned out to be the last press conference for the Abe cabinet, he suggested that “executions should be carried out automatically without involving the Minister of Justice.”

The comment sent shock waves through the country. The last step in the long process of trying, sentencing and finally executing a convicted criminal is the signature of the minister of justice. Once signed, the execution of a death warrant must be carried out within five days. The justice minister’s involvement in the process is so critical that several of Hatoyama’s predecessors refused to carry out executions.

As a result of his reluctance to sign death warrants and a desire to continue executions, Hatoyama was widely criticized. Kamei Shizuka, a former director of the National Police Agency and LDP bigwig, now represents The People’s New Party in the diet. He was progenitor of the non-partisan Parliamentary League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. Hosaka Nobuto, a member of the Social Democratic Party, is one of the country’s most progressive politicians and an outspoken opponent of the death penalty.

In addition to the death penalty, Hatoyama has voiced opinions on other areas of the criminal justice system, including the upcoming quasi-jury system for major criminal trials scheduled to begin in May 2009. Suspects charged with committing crimes that carry a sentence of three years or more will have the right to a jury composed of three sitting judges and six citizens. While supporting the quasi-jury system, in this interview he attacks the policy of increasing the number of attorneys in Japan’s severely under-lawyered society. Currently, approximately 1,200 people, or roughly two percent of candidates pass the National Bar Exam and begin careers as lawyers, prosecutors, or judges. This number is scheduled to grow to 3,000 in the near future as the first crop of students graduate from newly established law schools.

Also mentioned in the interview is the Toyama Rape Case, a now infamous miscarriage of justice. In 2002, a man was wrongly convicted of rape and attempted rape in Toyama Prefecture and served twenty-five months in prison before being exonerated this year when the real culprit confessed. The conviction was based on a coerced confession and the suppression of exculpatory evidence. This case has galvanized public opinion and stimulated the need for greater transparency in police investigations, especially the filming of interrogations.

Hatoyama suggests that executions should be carried out automatically after an objective examination by a third party who will “review the transcripts.” However, no such system has ever been proposed or even discussed in Japan. The idea of an objective third party seems to be a face-saving measure designed to deflect the storm of criticism that followed Hatoyama’s comments. He also suggests that executions should only be carried out after retrial requests and petitions for amnesty have been exhausted. The Japanese Code of Criminal Procedure does not limit retrial requests — Sakae Menda, the first Japanese man freed from death row – went through six retrials. Likewise, the mention of amnesties is irrelevant: none have been granted since the mid 1970’s.

Other Hatoyama comments are puzzling. He mentions that “some countries do not even have laws banning jeopardy” as if to infer that Japan is superior in this respect. Though Article 39 of the constitution prohibits double jeopardy, the prosecution in Japan may appeal any verdict, and almost always appeals innocent verdicts and sentences considered too light. Likewise, his statement that “in Japan there is a right to silence, but in England, if you keep silent, this means you acknowledge guilt.” In fact the complete opposite is true. Silence in Japan is considered an acknowledgement of guilt.

Hatoyama’s preference for reducing the number of lawyers is reactionary and contrary to his ministry’s policy. The increase occurred after a long process of judicial policy making involving the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education (which has set up law schools) and Parliament. All agreed that Japan has far too few lawyers, and is ill equipped for dealing with the complexities of International business law.

Hatoyama, like many of his LDP colleagues, has capitalized on the mostly docile electorate. An increase in lawyers, despite the pressing need, will certainly agitate this mind set. His comment about lawyers being unable to find work in contemporary Japan is completely askew from reality. His opinions indicate a deep mistrust of empowering the public and independent legal policy, and strong support for top-down decision making and bureaucratic control.

Just over a month after this interview was originally published, Hatoyama demonstrated his resolve to execute: three convicts, two in Tokyo and one in Osaka, were hung on December 7. Hatoyama’s imprint on the process was clear. In a clear break with previous policy, the ministry openly announced the names of the executed, and the crimes leading to conviction. From 1998, the ministry only announced the number of executions, omitting all other details. Before 1998, there were not even any announcements. In both cases the names of the executed were revealed only to attorneys and designated guarantors of the accused. These parties were charged with directly informing the press, or informing the public indirectly through the offices of Amnesty International.

The dramatic increase in executions –thirteen– over the last 12 months signifies a departure from policy. Double digit hangings in such a span have not occurred since 1975.

The flurry has generated a shock-wave of concern in a society trying to grapple with a rapidly ageing population: three of those executed have been over age 70. Akiyama Yoshimitsu, one of four convicts hung on Christmas Day 2006, became the oldest person executed in post-war Japan. Aged 77 and quite infirm, he was transported to the gallows in a wheel chair. Ikemoto Noboru, executed in Osaka on December 7th, was hung two weeks before his 75th birthday. Originally sentenced to life imprisonment, his sentence was raised to death upon appeal. Had the government allowed the original sentence to stand, Ikemoto would most likely have been paroled in 2006, eighteen years into his sentence.

INTERVIEW:
Go to
http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2609
ENDS

J Times’ Philip Brasor on Sasebo Shooting: “Japan faces up to a world of gun crime”

mytest

“I’m worried that Japan may have become just like foreign countries…we have to think of a good way to prevent such occurrences.”
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, commenting on the fatal shooting at a Sasebo sports club. (NHK)
Japan Today Sunday, December 16, 2007

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/quote/2398

Hi Blog. More on the Sasebo Sports Club Shooting last December 14 (where the J media speculated a gaijin dunnit just because the shooter was reputedly tall). Seems that according to Philip Brasor of the Japan Times, the willful “exceptionalism” that Japan practices as part of its national narrative (“Gun crimes are a foreign problem, not something that happens in our peaceful society”–as alluded to by our PM above) has made it quite blind to just how deep gun control problems go here.

Most of the 300,000 (!!) privately owned firearms in Japan are shotguns, and ammunition is this loosely regulated?? And that’s just for starters. Read on.

Excellent investigative journalism, Philip. We should have more of it in the vernacular media, dammit. Arudou Debito in Monbetsu

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MEDIA MIX
Japan faces up to a world of gun crime
By PHILIP BRASOR The Japan Times: Sunday, Dec. 23, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20071223pb.html”
Courtesy James Eriksson

As is often the case with breaking news stories, the on-site, real-time television coverage of the shooting at the Renaissance Sports Club on the evening of Dec. 14 in Sasebo City, Nagasaki Prefecture, was a flurry of vague incidentals and conflicting accounts.

The basic truth was stark enough to make an impression: A person dressed in camouflage-style clothing entered the club and started firing a gun, injuring several people, two of them seriously, and then fled into the night. Anything more specific was speculation.

But speculation was all that TV had, since the police were barely on the case at the time. The gunman was wearing a motorcycle helmet, or maybe it was a ski mask. He was tall or he was heavyset, or both — one witness described him as “well built.” Some said he entered the building and started blasting away indiscriminately, while others thought he acted purposefully.

When reporters asked how many shots were fired, one person said 30 or 40, another said fewer than 10. Some said the gunman looked “like a foreigner”; one even conjectured he was black.

Some of the witnesses appeared on TV, but most did not, and if anything was clear, it was that none of these testimonials could be called reliable. The information changed from one TV station to another. The foreigner angle was eventually dropped, but not before it was given some credence by TV Asahi’s “Hodo Station,” where that night’s guest commentator, veteran journalist Shuntaro Torigoe, explained it was natural for some people to think the shooter was not Japanese, since Sasebo hosts a major U.S. naval base, and recently there have been so many shooting incidents in America.

However, Torigoe added to this suspicion, perhaps inadvertently, by commenting on the gun that was used, saying that if the shooter had in fact fired off 30 or 40 rounds then he might have been using “a machine gun,” and though he didn’t say so, it’s obvious he was thinking that only military people have access to such weapons in Japan.

What makes this remark strange is not so much the underlying implication that a renegade American sailor had decided to carry out some bloody personal agenda, but that Torigoe knows nothing about guns. The police had already stated that the shooter was armed with a sandanju, a shotgun, and while the U.S. military does use such weapons, the bulk of the 300,000 privately owned firearms in Japan are, in fact, shotguns.

Torigoe wasn’t the only media person who didn’t really understand what a shotgun is and how it works. In the days since, the suspected shooter, a Japanese man who owned three shotguns, apparently killed himself later the same night. Meanwhile the press has been busy educating itself in matters to do with guns. Perhaps because the Japanese word “tama” is used for all ammunition, be it bullets, slugs or shotgun shells, people were understandably confused at what distinguishes a shotgun from other guns. On Sunday night, NHK spread this confusion to some of its foreign viewers when its English-language news broadcast said that the shooter had in his possession “2,700 bullets,” instead of the more accurate “2,700 shells.”

As an American who has never fired a gun much less owned one (which disqualifies me for citizenship in the eyes of many of my countrymen), I have nevertheless absorbed the lore and science of firearms by forced osmosis, and I found the media’s general ignorance of the subject surprising. No American newspaper would have ever had to print a tutorial on shotguns and shells as the Asahi Shimbun did on its front page last Monday. Had the reporters on the scene in Sasebo known anything about the mechanics of a sandanju, they would have realized that the shooter couldn’t have fired off 30 to 40 rounds in rapid succession.

There are people who will no doubt find comfort in the media’s implied ignorance, since it would seem to represent a popular sensibility that isn’t interested in guns. But disinterest can also be a sign of apathy, and another aspect of guns that the media has had to learn about since the Sasebo shooting is the legal side of firearm ownership in Japan.

The general impression one gets living in Japan is that only the police, soldiers and yakuza have guns. Of course, there are some hunters and sportsmen who own rifles, but they are a small group and the law regulates such ownership very strictly. Consequently, everyone wants to know how the suspected Sasebo killer was able to buy three shotguns and enough ammunition to blow away an entire neighborhood.

Apparently, it was easy. The laws may be strict, but their application and enforcement are not. A license must be obtained for each gun and renewed periodically, but these seem to be mere formalities. Various news reports cited instances of local police doing background checks on gun owners following complaints from neighbors, but such checks are pointless, since they are carried out after the licenses have been granted.

The only uses allowed for firearms are hunting and sports, but the authorities don’t check to see if the applicant really is hunting or skeet shooting — the alleged Sasebo shooter did neither. And while ammunition is also strictly regulated, it is more or less self-regulation. The suspected Sasebo shooter bought 1,000 shells at one time, though it’s against the law to possess more than 800. However, it isn’t against the law to sell that many at one time, and the owner of the store who sold the alleged shooter those 1,000 shells told reporters that he informed the man he would have to use 200 that day, otherwise he’s be breaking the law.

This is a common bureaucratic pattern in Japan: Regulations are treated more as road maps than as rules subject to active enforcement. Japan is still a very safe country when it comes to guns, a reality that has less to do with laws than with prevailing attitudes, which is why the Sasebo shooting received such breathless, blanket domestic coverage. Overseas, it barely merited mention.

The Japan Times: Sunday, Dec. 23, 2007
ENDS

GOJ now worried about aliens. No, not foreigners.

mytest

Hi Blog. It must be Christmas or New Year Holiday craziness (I too intend to limit myself to one blog entry per day, off the beaten track from the usual fare on Debito.org)–but get a load of this:

==================================
Japan’s defence minister braces for aliens
AFP Dec 19, 2007
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hHGF47XsVoM_97L8olNf_j3b1MBA
Courtesy Monty DiPietro

TOKYO (AFP) — As Japan takes a more active role in military affairs, the defence minister has more on his mind than just threats here on Earth.

Shigeru Ishiba became the second member of the cabinet to profess a belief in UFOs and said he was looking at how Japan’s military could respond to aliens under the pacifist constitution.

“There are no grounds for us to deny that there are unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and some life-form that controls them,” Ishiba told reporters, saying it was his personal view and not that of the defence ministry.

Ishiba, nicknamed a “security geek” for his wonkish knowledge of defence affairs, noted that Japan deployed its military against Godzilla in the classic monster movie.

“Few discussions have been made on what the legal grounds were for that,” the minister said with a slight grin, drawing laughter from reporters.

Due to the US-imposed 1947 constitution, Japan’s de facto military is known as the Self-Defence Forces and has never fired a shot in combat since World War II.

But Japan has gradually sought a greater global military role, sending troops to support US-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ishiba said he was examining different scenarios for an alien invasion.

“If they descended, saying ‘People of the Earth, let’s make friends,’ it would not be considered an urgent, unjust attack on our country,” Ishiba said.

“And there is another issue of how can we convey our intentions if we don’t understand what they are saying,” he said.

“We should consider various possibilities,” he said. “There is no need at all to do this as the defence ministry, but I want to consider what to do by myself.”

Ishiba’s remarks came after the government this week said it had no knowledge of UFOs, prompting a surprise rebuttal from the top government spokesman.

“Personally, I absolutely believe they exist,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said on Tuesday.
ENDS

==============================
Japanese Minister O.K.’s Fighting Godzilla
By MARTIN FACKLER The New York Times: December 21, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/world/asia/22japan-briefs.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

TOKYO — Japan’s defense minister stirred a minor media squall after joking with reporters about possible invasions by space aliens and movie monsters during a regular news conference.

Responding to a question, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters on Thursday that he was studying whether the nation’s pacifist Constitution would limit a military response to an attack by space aliens.

“There are no grounds to deny that there are unidentified flying objects and some life-forms that control them,” Mr. Ishiba said, smiling at first, but then launching into a straight-faced explanation. “If Godzilla attacked, that would probably be a natural disaster relief operation,” making military action legally permissible, he said.

But the legal grounds for mobilizing militarily against a U.F.O. would be less clear unless the aliens attacked first, he said.

The comments drew widespread disbelief here, coming after verbal gaffes that helped sink the previous prime minister’s administration, and days after the chief cabinet secretary, who is the government’s top spokesman, professed a belief in U.F.O.’s.
==============================
ENDS

COMMENT: No mention if Godzilla or E.T. would be fingerprinted upon entry. Or whether E.T.’s “ouch” finger would fit properly into the biometric machinery.

An off-the-cuff remark here or there, okay. But this discussion has gone on too long and taken too much media and time from real govt. business. And these representatives of the world’s second biggest economy still want to be taken seriously? Are there not more important things to discuss, such as the ongoing Nenkin debacle? I told you in my most recent Japan Times essay that Japan’s legislative peerage was out of touch with reality. They lining up to prove it?

Somebody call a snap election and get these fools out. Arudou Debito in Sapporo
ENDS

Japan Times: My Dec 18 Zeit Gist column on premeditated xenophobia in Japan

mytest

Hello Blog. Here’s the last Japan Times column I’ll do this year–and it’s a doozy. I’m very happy with how it came out, and judging by the feedback I’ve gotten others are too.

It’s about how Japan’s xenophobia is in fact by public policy design, due to unchallenged policymakers and peerage politicians, and how it’s actually hurting our country. Have a read if you haven’t already.

Best wishes for the holiday season, Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan

=====================================

“THE MYOPIC STATE WE’RE IN”

Fingerprint scheme exposes xenophobic, short-sighted trend in government

By ARUDOU DEBITO

THE JAPAN TIMES COMMUNITY PAGE

Column 42 for The Zeit Gist, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007

“Director’s Cut” of the article with links to sources at

https://www.debito.org/japantimes121807.html

Excellent illustration by Chris MacKenzie at the Japan Times website at

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20071218zg.html

We all notice it eventually: how nice individual Japanese people are, yet how cold — even discriminatory — officialdom is toward non-Japanese (NJ). This dichotomy is often passed off as something “cultural” (a category people tend to assign anything they can’t understand), but recent events have demonstrated there is in fact a grand design. This design is visible in government policies and public rhetoric, hard-wiring the public into fearing and blaming foreigners.

Start with the “us” and “them” binary language of official government pronouncements: how “our country” (“wagakuni”) must develop policy for the sake of our “citizens” (“kokumin”) toward foreign “visitors” (rarely “residents”); how foreigners bring discrimination upon themselves, what with their “different languages, religions, and lifestyle customs” an’ all; and how everyone has inalienable human rights in Japan — except the aliens.

The atmosphere wasn’t always so hostile. During the bubble economy of the late ’80s and its aftermath, the official mantra was “kokusaika” (internationalization), where NJ were given leeway as misunderstood outsiders.

But in 2000, kicked off by Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara’s “sangokujin” speech — in which he called on the Self-Defense Forces to round up foreigners during natural disasters in case they riot — the general attitude shifted perceptibly from benign neglect to downright antipathy….

==============

REST AT

https://www.debito.org/japantimes121807.html

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20071218zg.html

ENDS

MG International ballet school in Tokyo Azabu refuses Pakistani child–with responses from school & people who were refused

mytest

Hi Blog. Report from Ms Amira Rahman, the wife of a foreign diplomat, Mr Rahman Hamid, Commerce Section, Embassy of Pakistan in Tokyo, who received a terrible shock when trying to enroll their 3-year-old daughter in a Tokyo ballet school.

Letter of protest from the Pakistani Embassy (click on image to expand in browser):
Balletschool001.jpg

Report follows. Contact courtesy of the Tokyo With Kids.com website forum. Text authored by Ms. Amira Rahman, adapted by Arudou Debito from the original. Copious debate and comments follow.

////////////////////////////////////////////////

Dear Sir,

I am a wife of a foreign diplomat representing the Government of Pakistan, and we wanted our little girl to start ballet (she is almost 4)–we thought she would look soooo cute in a tutu.

The place we went to enroll her MG International Arts of Ballet located in Photo house MG Hall, 5-5-9 Azabu Minato Ku Tokyo, December 13th 2007, around 4pm.

MGインターナショナル・アーツ・オブ・バレエ
東京都港区麻布5丁目5-9 後藤ハウスB1F MGホール
地下鉄日比谷線 広尾駅下車 徒歩 5分
info@mg-ballet.org, Person in charge Gotou Mariko.
No phone number listed at 104.
http://www.mg-ballet.org/home.html
MG International Arts of Ballet, MG Hall, B1F GOTO House 5-5-9
Minami-Azabu Minato-ku, Tokyo.

My husband took his official translator along for this exchange also. At the reception we were greeted coldly from the start, and when we requested information about ballet for our daughter we were told that this school does not accept international students.

Thinking she meant they needed students to understand ballet instruction in Japanese we argued that our daughter goes to a local Hoikuen and can understand Japanese. But to our surprise the lady told us that we would need a reference to enter this school.

Still misunderstanding her attitude my husband informed her that his blood relative, an aunt who is Japanese, referred us to this particular school. The lady flat out refused to entertain anything, and after being insulted in such a fashion we left the place with our daughter crying.

We will not under any circumstance be sending our child to such a racist establishment and have already enrolled her in another school.

My husband will be raising this issue with the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the Minato ]-Ku ward. He says that it is not a petty issue. Such people and establishments should be exposed for their racist behavior, and the general public should be made aware of their attitude.

Your dissemination on your blog of what happened to us to other people will serve as a means to identifying such people, and save a lot of them the heartache and disgust we felt when we left that place. Turning such a beautiful art form into something this ugly is a crime in our books.

I have no need to be anonymous because I want people to know what happened, and want to find ways to make sure this does not happen to other expatriate families.

Yours sincerely,
Amira Rahman
////////////////////////////////////////////////

COMMENT: I have tried to contact Ms Gotoh to confirm for myself what happened (I will send her this blog entry at the email address listed above), but cannot find her phone number by any public means. I also called the Japan Ballet Association (Nihon Barei Kyoukai) at 03-5437-0371 and talked to two people there, but they neither could tell me much about what might have gone on (as MG is not a member of their association), nor could believe that she could be turning away a student on the basis of her nationality.

Nor can I. Ms Gotoh clearly has benefited a great deal from her contacts and opportunities in foreign countries. According to her school’s site, she has trained at Academic de Dense Classique Princesse Grace in Monte-Carlo, The Royal Ballet School in London, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Staats Theater Hannover, and Buhnen der Landeshauptstadt Kiel in Germany. She was also in the New National Theatre Tokyo in Japan.

The site says she also “speaks English well” (she even advertises her classes on a website in English), so what’s with the language barrier?

The author is willing to be identified by name, is willing to take responsibility for her claims, and has given sufficient detail in her report, so I’m blogging it. I hope that after I email Ms Gotoh this blog entry at info@mg-ballet.org that she will contact me and clear this issue up.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
ENDS

================================
UPDATE DEC 15:

I received a very prompt response in English and Japanese from the ballet school:

/////////////////////////////////

From: info@mg-ballet.org
Subject: Re: To Ms Gotoh: “Japanese Only” Ballet school in Azabu, Tokyo?
Date: December 14, 2007 11:45:46 PM JST
To: debito@debito.org

有道 出人 様、
お問い合わせありがとうございます。
日本がお長く、ご堪能なご様子ですので日本語で失礼いたします。
小樽の「湯の花」の件は、日本人としても恥ずかしく改めなくてはならないと共 感を感じておりました。

今回、このようなメールを突然頂き驚きました。
下記の英文(あまり英語に自信が無いのでお許しください)に述べました通り、 事実誤認に基づく
一方的なクレームであり当惑しています。

有道さんの断定的な発言は大変残念で、下記文書をc.c.のメーリング・リストを 含め回答しようかと
思いましたが、大きな誤解があるようなので、熟慮の末、無用な行き違いを避け るためにも事前に
当メールを差し上げる事としました。ご容赦ください。

下記文書をお読みの上、もしコメントがあればお知らせください。

当方の要望は有道さんのblogの当件に関する文書の即時削除と既に配信なさった メーリングリスト
に対する訂正文の配布です。

今回の件は”Japanese Only”には該当しませんが、クレームをいただいた夫婦の 方に嫌な思いを
させてしまったことは大変残念で申し訳ないと感じております。
今後とも対応には十分注意したいと考えております。

上記要望が有道さんにとって難しければお知らせください。
下記文書を本日頂いたメールに返信する形にて配信させていただきたいと思います。

ご連絡をお待ちしております。

事務局 内野秀紀

== DRAFT ====================================

Mr. Arudou Debito
Thank you for your inquiry to us.

Regrettably I suggest that you should examine the “FACT” before blogged in public.

You made a couple of critical mistakes on this claim.
We have international students now and for these past 8years after establishment of our school.
And Ms. Goto did not meet this lady yesterday because of class teaching, it was our school staff woman that I confirmed having interview..
I’m afraid that you, Mr. Arudou Debito, already have a kind of preoccupation based on a one-sides e-mail from a lady.
If our school is “Japanese Only” and refuse foreigners having racial discrimination, Why do we have international students now and in the past?
Why do we have website in English as you know?

Before confirming these facts and truth, you’ve already blogged one-sides story and Ms.Goto’s privacy in public.
How do you take your responsibility against the fact?
If you would like to injure reputation of our school or Ms.Goto , we should consider taking official steps to deal with the situation
like you do with several cases.
I also would like to ask you on the “RIGHTS” standing point, what’s your idea of keeping Ms.Goto’s privacy and rights?
You may say you tried to contact us but could not find phone number…but you should send a e-mail like many people do before blogged.

The reason why we could not accept her application yesterday was simply “pre-ballet class” is full capasity now.
A little pretty girl had no blame, including her nationality, for the reason why we couldn’t accept.
We are trying to treat fairly all people if they are Forigner, Japanese or any nationality even a diplomat or any occupation.
And our staff confuzed hearing this lady’s reaction…..We dazed our communication gap.
I know we both side have each story to tell and it’s not appropriate to claim each other’s story in public,,because we don’t
have international human rights issue here..

We sometime don’t accept application even Japanese if someone, or parents of small child, is not appropriate to our
school with some reason….. manner, attitude, decency, cooperation, security etc.
Our ballet school is small private school for membership.

Your claim is coming from human rights standing point and we have foreign student now and in the past as I mentioned.
If you would like to confirm this fact/truth, I’ll accept your coming to observe students with no making trouble condition.
I know we have no obligation to accept you but I do .
After your confirming this evidence by yourself, I strongly request your apology in public for giving irrationality impression in public,
I think that’s the fair manners for RIGHTS of our ballet scool and Ms.Goto.

I took a look at your website and your book “Japanese only”, and I can understand your claim on this.
Personally I have 20years experience of working for foreign company, so I understand we have multiculturalism
issue to solve in Japan.
I understand your point and I’m sorry that our case does not fit to your campaign.
I don’t response to your further question on this except your coming request to confirm the FACT/Truth.

I know Sapporo got into very cold winter season with lots of snow.
I hope you take good care of yourself.

Thank you for living Japan and your social activities.

Love People, Love Arts, Love Ballet!
Secretary < < MG International Arts of Ballet >>
MG Hall B1F GOTO House 5-5-9 Minami-Azabu Minato-ku, Tokyo.
/////////////////////////////////

HERE’S HOW I RESPONDED:

/////////////////////////////////

内野さま、ご返答ありがとうございました。有道 出人です。

ラーマンさまからいただいたレポートの件ですが、ご返答を転送しました。時間の節約のため、英語で答えさせて下さい。

To M. Uchino,

Thank you very much for your speedy response. I reply in English for the sake of saving time.

I have forwarded your response to Ms. Rahman, and will await her response before taking any further action on my blog. I will of course put your answer in both English and Japanese on my blog, and Ms Rahman’s answer (if there is one) also on my blog later. If there is a discussion to be had, I will gladly facilitate it. Please feel free also to respond directly on the blog if you would prefer.

And yes, I would be happy to stop by your school in January (when I will be in Tokyo for speeches) to meet you and hear your side of the story.

You do admit in your explanation that your school does refuse students. Of course, the reasons for refusing any student are very important (and I have a hard time believing that “security” could ever be a concern). If, as Ms. Rahman claims, your representative refused her daughter because MS School does not take international students, there clearly is a communication problem, especially in the face of how your school portrays itself on its website.

In any case, Ms Rahman is very upset at this situation. Having this much upset happen in customer relations is something that should be avoided. Let’s hear her side of the story next.

Thank you for engaging in a dialog on this issue, and, as you note in the Japanese version of your email, for reading my website so carefully. I hope we can reach an understanding on this issue between you and Ms. Rahman.

Sincerely, Arudou Debito in Sapporo
December 15, 2007

===============================

UPDATE: 8PM SATURDAY DEC 15, 2007:

I JUST RECEIVED A PHONE CALL FROM THE HONORABLE RAHMAN HAMID, HEAD OF THE COMMERCE SECTION IN THE EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN. I HAVE RECEIVED HIS CONTACT DETAILS FOR CONFIRMATION AT THE EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN, AND CAN REPORT TO DEBITO.ORG THE FOLLOWING DETAILS:

1) MR HAMID CAME TO JAPAN FOUR MONTHS AGO, CHOOSING JAPAN OVER SEVERAL OTHER POSSIBLE COUNTRIES BECAUSE HE WANTED HIS CHILDREN TO LEARN JAPANESE AND THE DISCIPLINE AND MANNERS OF JAPAN. HE SAW THE DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS IN THE YOUTH OF OTHER COUNTRIES, AND THOUGHT JAPAN WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE FOR HIS CHILDREN.

2) HE HAS SENT PROTEST LETTERS ABOUT THIS INCIDENT TO VARIOUS OTHER JAPANESE AGENCIES, AND WILL SEND ME A COPY OF THE LETTER (IT’S A PUBLIC DOCUMENT) FOR INCLUSION ON DEBITO.ORG IN DUE TIME.

3) HE HAS SINCE BEEN CONTACTED BY OTHER BALLET SCHOOLS THANKS TO THIS INCIDENT COMING OUT ON DEBITO.ORG, AND HAVE BEEN ASKED TO ENROLL THEIR DAUGHTER THERE INSTEAD.

NOW THAT THIS IS A MATTER OF THE EMBASSY OF PAKISTAN TAKING OVER RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS ISSUE, THE THREAT OF LAWSUIT FROM THE SCHOOL (MADE CLEAR IN THE ENGLISH BUT NOT THE MUCH MILDER JAPANESE VERSION OF THE LETTER FROM THE SCHOOL) IS A NON-ISSUE.

THANKS FOR EVERYONE’S CONCERNS. ARUDOU DEBITO IN SAPPORO

===============================

RESPONSE FROM MS RAHMAN AGAIN:

From: Amira Rahman
Subject: Response to MG International
Date: December 15, 2007 8:11:55 PM JST

Dear Sir,
I can believe their claim that they have had foreign students in the past but I would like to contradict one small important point which is we were told that this school does not accept foreigners and no mention whatsoever was made of pre ballet classes being full. If they had said this in the first place we would understand immediatly and have had no hard feelings at all because we had a list of 6 other schools in the area we were going to visit.

My only question is have they ever had a student from Pakistan in their school. Please accept their invitation to see their school for yourself and verify the information I have asked. If there has been even one of us there I will gladly chalk it up to misunderstanding on my behalf and apologize otherwise my husband and I will continue in trying to get an apology for their behaviour towards us.

I can also believe that the owners of the establishment or the teachers may have no clue as to what happened at the reception and were not a part of this incident at all but they must acknowledge that somehow, somewhere a misunderstanding took place that led to us feeling insulted. I know the owner is a ballerina of repute and has international credentials to her name and her business is in Hiroo which incidentally is a center of Embassies from around the world, therefore it is my observation that she should lay great emphasis on training staff to deal with “Foreigners”. If I have not stated this earlier the lady at the reception was most cordial but her changing requirements for enrollment and attitude left no room for error that we were not wanted in this place.

Yours sincerely,

Amira Rahman

Dear Arudou,
My husband says it was nice talking to you and he will be emailing his letter to the school to you on Monday first thing in the morning.

Please do not apologize to anyone on our behalf because you are the voice with which people like us can speak and because of you 2 schools contacted us for our daughter already.
Please keep up the good work and our prayers and blessings are with you.
ENDS
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

UPDATE DEC 18, 2007:
Balletschoolending.jpg
ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL. ARUDOU DEBITO

Alberto Fujimori really gets his–6 years’ prison; and that’s not all

mytest

Well, well, well… Idi Amin escaped the rap. So did Augusto Pinochet. But Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic didn’t. And now Alberto Fujimori–who foolishly left his safe haven provided by the Japanese government and has wound up getting his. Ii kimi da.

See why Debito.org has something against Fujimori here. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

////////////////////////////////////////////////

Fujimori convicted
Associated Press
Canadian Globe and Mail, December 11, 2007 at 6:15 PM EST
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071211.wfuji1211/BNStory/International/home

LIMA — Former President Alberto Fujimori was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday on a charge of abuse of authority stemming from an illegal search he ordered as his government imploded in scandal seven years ago.

Supreme Court Judge Pedro Guillermo Urbina declared that Mr. Fujimori was guilty of abusing his power when he ordered an aide to pose as a prosecutor and search the luxury apartment of the wife of his spy chief without a warrant in November 2000.

Mr. Fujimori, who ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000 before fleeing to Japan as his government collapsed, faces a total of seven human rights and corruption charges in multiple trials.

On Monday, an indignant Mr. Fujimori shouted his innocence and waved his arms in outrage as he went on trial in a separate case on charges he authorized an army death squad to kill leftist rebels and collaborators. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted for his alleged role in the killings, which came amid a government crackdown on a bloody Maoist insurgency.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

Fujimori convicted and sentenced in illegal search

Peru’s former president gets six years behind bars for abuse of power. He still faces charges on other serious counts.
By Adriana León and Patrick J. McDonnell, Special to The Los Angeles Times
December 12, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-fuji12dec12,1,4508479.story?coll=la-headlines-world

LIMA, PERU — Former President Alberto Fujimori was convicted of abuse of power Tuesday and sentenced to six years in prison after a judge found him responsible for an illegal search at the home of the wife of his onetime intelligence chief.

It was the first conviction in a series of criminal charges Fujimori has faced since being extradited from Chile in September.

Human rights advocates have hailed the multiple cases against Fujimori as blows against impunity. But supporters of the ex-president call him the victim of political persecution.

The abuse of power charge is among the least serious faced by Fujimori, but his conviction was a setback for the ex-president.

His daughter, Keiko Fujimori, a popular congresswoman, was visibly upset afterward, and called the decision “unjust.”

However, she added that her father had conceded the “irregularity” of the disputed search, which took place in the waning, convulsive days of his administration.

The ex-president, whose legal team had hoped for a suspended sentence, indicated that he would file a partial appeal of the conviction.

The conviction came a day after Fujimori stunned Peruvians with an emotional outburst in a separate, far more serious, case in which he stands accused of dispatching death squads to kill 25 suspected leftists. The ex-president faces a 30-year prison term in that case.

During Monday’s court session, Fujimori, 69, shouted that he was “totally innocent” of ordering the killings and argued that his decisive tactics had saved Peru from terrorism and economic ruin.

The former president also faces charges of kidnapping, corruption and bribery.

Fujimori, who is being held in a special lockup without bail, was subdued in court Tuesday as the judge took three hours to read his findings.

As the ex-leader was being led away, local media reported, he flashed a smile at his three children, who were watching proceedings from behind a glass partition.

The search at issue took place Nov. 7, 2000, in the former apartment of the wife of Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori’s shadowy spymaster. At the time, Montesinos was a fugitive in a mushrooming corruption case that would ultimately topple Fujimori’s government. Montesinos is now jailed here and, like Fujimori, facing multiple trials and life behind bars.

Prosecutors suspect that Fujimori ordered an aide to conduct the warrantless search in an eleventh-hour effort to collect videos or other evidence that could have implicated his administration in corruption. Montesinos, a purported master of blackmail, was known to have made clandestine videotapes of lawmakers and others receiving bribes.

Fujimori eventually fled Peru and filed his resignation by fax from Japan, his parents’ homeland.

/////////////////////////////////////////

Fujimori outburst sets tone for Peru human rights trials
Christian Science Monitor December 12, 2007 edition – http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1212/p07s02-woam.html

Peru’s former leader let loose a tirade as his human rights and corruption trials began Monday.

By Lucien Chauvin | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Lima, Peru
The multiple human rights and corruption trials of Peru’s Alberto Fujimori got off to a colorful start this week when the former president launched into a tirade denying the charges against him and taking credit for the country’s current economic boom.

Mr. Fujimori, who ruled Peru from 1990-2000, began facing a three-judge panel Monday on charges that he approved the death-squad murders of 15 people in 1991 and nine students and a professor the following year. The trial also includes the charge of authorizing the kidnapping and torture of a journalist and a businessman, also in 1992.

He also may face a seven-year sentence in a separate trial on abuse of authority charges.

Fujimori disrupted the mundane administrative chores of the initial hearings Monday when he asked permission to briefly address the court before entering a plea.

The former president immediately threw up his arms, contorted his face, and started screaming that he had saved Peru from imminent collapse when he first took office in July 1990.

“I received Peru in 1990 in a state of collapse, with hyperinflation, international isolation, and widespread terrorism… Peru is progressing today because there were reforms in the context of respect for human rights,” he yelled. “I totally reject the charges. I am innocent.”

After shouting down the chief judge for a few moments, Fujimori stopped, politely thanked the court for the chance to speak and, smoothing his dark gray, pinstripe suit, calmly returned to his seat in the center of the small courtroom built for the trial on a police base where he has been incarcerated since September.

The outburst fits the image that both Fujimori’s supporters and detractors hold of him, and it is likely to set the tone for the trials, which are expected to last at least six months.

“If he acts this way, in the context of a trial and while under arrest, imagine how he must have been when he had all the power in his hands as president,” says Gloria Cano, a lawyer representing victims of those killed in the 1991 massacre.

Fujimori is proud of his legacy

Fujimori, a math professor, stunned Peruvians in 1990 by coming out of nowhere to win the presidency. He took office with inflation galloping in four digits, the economy shrinking by double digits, and nearly 75 percent of Peru’s territory under a state of emergency because of the actions of two leftist rebels groups, the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

Fujimori’s economic reforms stopped inflation and reinserted Peru into the world financial community while new antiterrorism laws facilitated the arrests of the heads of the two subversive groups, effectively stopping them as threats to the Peruvian state. Fujimori and his followers hope that this is what Peruvians remember, and it is what he focused on in Monday’s outburst.

Opponents do not deny these successes, but say they came with a high cost to the country’s democracy.

When Congress balked at economic and legal changes, Fujimori simply closed it and the judiciary in April 1992, originally trying to govern alone with the Army and intelligence service. When that was not possible, he had a new Constitution written. The main change, foreshadowing a current trend in the region, allowed for immediate presidential reelection.

Fujimori ran and won again in 1995, and reinterpreted his own Constitution to allow for a third bid in 2000. He also won that contest, although later evidence would show that massive voter fraud committed throughout the electoral cycle helped him.

His third term only lasted four months. He fled Peru in November 2000, escaping a massive corruption scandal that would land his closest collaborators, including former Army chief Gen. Nicolas Hermoza and security adviser Vladimiro Montesinos, in prison.

Fujimori spent five years in Japan, his parents’ homeland, but flew secretly to Chile in 2005, with the alleged intention of returning home in time for elections the following year. He never made it. Chilean authorities arrested him and the country’s Supreme Court approved this past September seven of the 12 extradition requests filed against him.

Fujimori’s supporters are confident that he will be exonerated and make a comeback for the 2011 elections.

Supporters confident

“Today was an opportunity to the president to set the record straight. He is the man responsible for Peru’s good fortune. Peruvians are going to see through this charade. They are the real judges here and the verdict will be in our favor,” says Rep. Carlos Raffo.

Recent trials of former collaborators, however, are not promising. Ten of Fujimori’s former cabinet members were found guilty in late November of violating the Constitution because of their support for the 1992 move that closed Congress. Nine received suspended sentences, while one was given a 10-year sentence.

Even more damaging, his former security adviser and right-hand man, Mr. Montesinos, testified last week that he did not make any decisions on his own, always taking orders from Fujimori. That trial was about election fraud in 2000, but Montesinos, already found guilty in more than 20 cases from the Fujimori era, will also be one of the principal witnesses in the trial of his former boss.

///////////////////////////////////////////////

Law and Order | 11 December, 2007 [ 12:00 ]
Peru: 30-Year Prison Sentence Recommended for Alberto Fujimori
Living in Peru.com
http://www.livinginperu.com/news-5281-law-order-peru-30-year-prison-sentence-recommended-alberto-fujimori
© La Republica

(LIP-ir) — In a 20-minute statement, government prosecutor, José Antonio Peláez requested that Peru’s Supreme Court sentence Alberto Fujimori to 30 years in prison and fine him 100 million soles for the massacre that took place at Barrios Altos, the death of students and a teacher from La Cantuta University and the kidnapping of two people.

The government prosecutor clarified that Alberto Fujimori was not being tried for his fight against terrorism but was on trial for the “dirty war” led by the Grupo Colina, a paramilitary death squad.

He added that Fujimori had been the person responsible for giving the Colina Group its orders and was therefore responsible for the people that were killed and the kidnapping of a journalist and a businessman.

These accusations and others caused Peru’s former president to cry out his innocence in the courtroom.

César Nakasaki, Alberto Fujimori’s lawyer stated that it was natural for a man that felt he was innocent to respond in this manner while unfairly being accused.

He added that the former Head of State was offended and that he could not ask an innocent man not to speak out against the unjust accusations that were being made.

Fujimori’s outburst was a desperate political speech made when he lost control after realizing that the trial was not going in his favor, said political analyst Carlos Reyna. He stated that this did not help the former president at all.

The Australian/Japan Today on Kanagawa Police rape case lawsuit loss

mytest

Hi Blog. Developing a case for police patterns of behavior. If it’s a foreigner allegedly committing a crime against Japanese (as in the Idubor Case), the police go after it even if there is no evidence. If a Japanese commits a crime against a foreigner, it’s either not pursued (see the Valentine Case, for the time being) or handled with different standards (see the Lucie Blackman Case).

And when it’s a foreigner on foreigner crime, free pass. See below. Arudou Debito in Tokyo

===========================

Australian woman, raped by U.S. sailor, loses 5-year court battle with Japanese police
By Peter Alford
Japan Today/The Australian Friday, December 7, 2007 at 05:53 EST
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/422548

TOKYO — After being dealt another bitter blow by the justice system Tuesday afternoon, Jane seemed oddly jaunty: “I’m going to keep fighting. I’m fighting this not only for myself, but for other women who’ve been raped — Japanese women.”

Early on the morning of April 6 2002, Jane, an Australian expatriate, was raped near the American naval base at Yokosuka by a sailor off the USS Kitty Hawk, whom she had met earlier that night in a bar.

Then, Jane says, she was violated again, by the Kanagawa prefectural police who denied her medical attention for more than six hours while carrying out a callous and botched “investigation,” who forced her into a re-enactment of the assault and who then refused to charge her attacker.

On Tuesday, in the Tokyo District Court, the same court that found in November 2004 she had in fact been raped, Chief Judge Kenichi Kato and two colleagues ruled the Kanagawa police had acted within the law and fulfilled their responsibilities to the victim. “The case is rejected,” he said brusquely. “Costs will be paid by the plaintiff.” A woman in the courtroom began crying.

Minutes later as her lawyers, Mami Nakano and Masako Shinno who have stood beside her for the whole 5 1/2 years, hurriedly prepared their appeal to the Tokyo High Court, Jane told The Australian: “I hoped my case would cause a positive attitude to improving justice here and support for victims of sexual assault. But, so far, no. Deans is still a free man, free to rape other women, and the police did nothing … they wouldn’t even tell me his name — if that’s what his name was!”

Jane isn’t her real name. Nor, probably is the name given to the police by the Navy: Bloke T. Deans. That, Jane suspects, was just an offhand sneer at a woman who inconveniently got assaulted by one of their young men — just some Aussie woman stirring up trouble over a Bloke!

Apart from her being a foreigner, Jane’s case isn’t so unusual in most aspects; neither the rape, nor the police’s primitive methods of dealing with it, nor that the perpetrator was a U.S. serviceman, nor that the system let him get away.

What has made Jane’s case a cause celebre with Japanese women’s rights groups and with campaigners against military sex assault cover-ups, is that rather than slink away as she was supposed to from those humiliations, she stood and fought.

Nor was she content to be yoked to victimhood. Though still today struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, Jane works with two doctors at a Tokyo university hospital to establish a 24-hour children’s sexual assault clinic.

Once established, she hopes, the clinic can gradually broaden its scope to rape victims generally. The doctors declined to be named or interviewed, apparently because publicity in association with a campaigner like Jane would hurt their project.

Set up self-help network for victims

She has set up a self-help network for victims of sexual abuse and campaigns for a 24-hour rape crisis center. There is not yet such an establishment in Tokyo or anywhere else in Japan.

“The government does provide a rape hotline,” says Masako Motoyama of the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Centere. “But there are no adequate facilities, almost everything else is done by volunteers.”

The Tokyo Rape Crisis Center, which has been open for 24 years is restricted to telephone counseling twice a week. An official, who again asked not to be identified, says the center’s operations are severely restricted by the lack of any public funding.

Sometimes the police recommend victims to the centere but, reflecting their distrust of investigation procedures, center workers do not refer assaulted women to the police.

“The Japanese police have a prejudice against victims,” says the center official. “They don’t care for the rights of the women; they don’t feel any obligation to the victims.”

Though some large public hospitals and general crime victims’ services do provide some basic support services for sexual assault victims, there is just one other rape crisis center in this land of 126 million people. It was established on Okinawa, the island prefecture that hosts the largest number of U.S. bases and American servicemen, by an anti-military women’s group.

Jane’s case has also been taken up by a coalition of Japanese women’s groups in their submission on violence against women and rights violations to a U.N. Committee Against Torture report, released this year, was highly critical of Japanese official methods.

While welcoming the recognition, Jane is mildly bitter that until she won her Tokyo District Court civil case against the so-called Deans in late 2004, it was just her and her stalwart lawyers, Nakano and Shinno, against the system.

“Yes, she has a right to feel we were not giving her adequate support,” says Motoyama. “But our group did not become aware of her case until last year … Now we definitely want to support her. What she has done in bringing this case has been so courageous.”

Single mother living in Japan for 20 years

When Jane encountered Deans, she had lived in Japan for 20 years — half her life, having come here first with her parents as a teenager. She was separated from a Japanese husband and caring for three sons. An actress and model who appeared on Japanese network TV, she was an active and lively presence in Tokyo’s expatriate circles.

That all stopped immediately after the assault and the nightmarish 12 hours spent in the “care” of the Kanagawa prefectural police. “Working on TV was something that I truly enjoyed, but after I got raped, I could no longer bear to be near a camera,” she says. “I could not even bear to look in the mirror anymore. The rape made me feel so ugly, depressed, suicidal.”

At the station, she says, she was denied medical treatment during the first six hours, though bruised, scraped and suffering a whiplash injury from the force of the assault. The attitude of the policemen throughout was coarse and mocking. She says no attempt was made by the police to preserve bodily samples as evidence.

“Not only the rapist but even the Japanese police contributed to an abridgement of my civil and human rights,” she says. “I begged to be taken to a hospital from the onset of reporting the incident, but my pleas were repeatedly denied.”

Even after finally being taken to a nearby hospital about 9 a.m., she says she was returned to the station about midday for a further three hours of questioning.

(In court, the police contested her account of the timing, saying she was taken to the hospital earlier and released earlier. However Nakano and Shinno produced medical records that refuted this account.)

Deans, in the meantime, was enjoying the relative ease of the Yokosuka naval base. No long night at the police station for this Bloke.

The Status of U.S. Armed Forces in Japan agreement between the two governments stipulates that a serviceman accused of a civilian criminal offense shall be dealt with by the Japanese police and courts.

But the agreement also says: “The custody of an accused member … shall, if he is in the hands of the U.S., remain with the US until he is charged by Japan.” This means, in effect, U.S. military authorities can restrict civilian police access to military suspects.

Unfortunately for Jane, however, Deans did agree to one police procedural: a reenactment of the incident at the scene, her car.

Police reenacted the rape

In most modern jurisdictions, even hardened investigators would balk at the idea of putting an alleged rape victim through a reenactment. But that’s what happened — the only concession to her horrified protests was that a policewoman “played”Jane’s role, while she stood alongside the vehicle, giving directions. Deans had a separate reenactment of the encounter, which he claimed was consensual

And, at the end of it all, the Kanagawa police decided against charging Deans. The Yokahama district prosecutors endorsed this in June 2002, without giving reasons.

That, in the authorities’ view, is where the matter should have rested — as it has in a recent Hiroshima case. There last month, the district prosecutors’ office dropped charges against four U.S. Marines, aged 19 to 38 years, who were accused of raping and robbing a 19-year-woman in a car in October. The Marines said she consented to sex.

“We made the decision based on evidence,” said the assistant prosecutor, who then refused to give any further information.

But Jane wouldn’t go away. Unable to get a criminal prosecution, her lawyers started a civil action. In November 2004, the Tokyo District Court ruled Deans had raped her and ordered him to pay 3 million yen in damages and costs. But it was a Pyrrhic victory.

Two months after Jane filed suit, the U.S. Navy discharged Deans who immediately left Japan. Jane’s side wasn’t aware of this until 11 months later, the day before Deans was to testify, when his lawyer disclosed to the court what obviously he had known for at least some months.

Around then, Jane and her lawyers resolved to take the unprecedented step of suing the Kanagawa police, on the ground that their investigation had denied her proper justice and abrogated her human rights.

The events that literally changed her life, the rape and the Kanagawa police’s shabby treatment, happened within 15 hours. But in refusing to let go of those experiences, Jane has subjected herself and those close to her to more than five years of strain and misery.

She still suffers post-traumatic stress disorder and stomach ulcers. Each of her teenage sons, she believes, has been made ill by their experience of her unhappiness.

She’s perpetually broke and currently way behind in her rent; what money she gets in goes to supporting herself and the boys and funding the legal struggle. Her extraordinarily dedicated lawyers, Nakano and Shinno, have carried the case often without payment.

Jane tells The Australian she would happily reveal her identity — “I am not ashamed, I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of — but cannot risk any more damage to her family, particularly the boys. But I mostly feel so sorry for the next women that gets raped in this country — right now I would say to her: do not go to the police. Go to the hospital yourself, go home, don’t go near them. The police will treat you like trash.”

Peter Alford is Tokyo correspondent for The Australian newspaper, where this story ran on Wednesday.
ENDS

UN News: UNHCR dismayed by secret death penalty of J convicts

mytest

Hi Blog. This is tangental to Debito.org, as it involves issues of the death penalty, not internationalization and multiculturalization. But it’s yet another example of Japan not following treaties. Do read to the very end, and goggle at a comment from Justice Minister Hatoyama…

//////////////////////////////////

TOP UN HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICIAL DISMAYED BY EXECUTION OF THREE JAPANESE PRISONERS
UN News.org. New York, Dec 7 2007 7:00PM
Courtesy UNNews AT un.org

The top United Nations human rights official today deplored the execution of three prisoners – including one aged over 75 – in Osaka, Japan, and appealed to the East Asian nation to reassess its approach to the death penalty.

The executions reportedly took place suddenly and neither the convicts nor their families were given advance warning.

“This practice is problematic under international law, and I call on Japan to reconsider its approach in this regard,” Louise Arbour, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said.

Expressing particularly dismay at the execution of the prisoner over the age of 75, she said that “it is difficult to see what legitimate purpose is served by carrying out such executions of the elderly, and at the very least on humanitarian grounds, I would urge Japan to refrain from such action.”

In contrast to carrying out executions in secret as it has done in the past, Japan publicly released the names of those executed, the High Commissioner noted.

Japan is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which legally obligates States Parties to ensure strict safeguards when applying the death penalty. It is widely accepted that executions cannot be carried out in secret and without warning, as this could be seen as inhuman punishment and treatment under the ICCPR.

Ms. Arbour urged the Japanese Government to implement a moratorium on executions or ban the practice altogether, as a growing number of nations have.
2007-12-07 00:00:00.000
ENDS

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COMMENT: And this is where our Justice Minister, Hatoyama “al-Qaeda” Kunio, was referring to about the higher value put on life in Japan than in the West? I included this in an earlier Newsletter, but it bears repeating:

========================================
Interview with Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama
Shuukan Asahi, October 26, 2007 P.122.
Title: “The Reason I will carry out Executions.”

Partial translation by Michael H. Fox, Director, Japan Death Penalty Information Center
http://www.jdpic.org

Q: There is a big trend to abolish the death penalty worldwide. Why do you want to keep it in Japan?

HATOYAMA: The Japanese place so much importance on the value of life, so it is thought that one should pay with one’s life after taking the life of another. You see, the Western nations are civilizations based on power and war. So, conversely, things are moving against the death penalty. This is an important point to understand. The so called civilizations of power and war are opposite (from us). From incipient stages, their conception of the value of life is weaker than the Japanese. Therefore, they are moving toward abolishment of the death penalty. It is important that this discourse on civilizations be understood.
========================================

Go figure.
The entire article translated with commentary by Michael H. Fox was recently published on Japan Focus. See
http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2609
Debito in Sapporo

James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly on NJ Fingerprinting

mytest

Hi Blog. They fingerprinted the wrong guy already… Given how critical Jim Fallows was when he lived in Japan more than a decade ago (famously writing “Containing Japan” for The Atlantic in 1989–something I read in grad school!), this was not long in coming… And as always he produces angles we never thought of–such as how if China instead had instituted this, the Western Media would be talking about “Big Brother in Beijing”. Touche. Arudou Debito in Hirosaki.

=================================

Not so thankful for this at Thanksgiving (Japan Big Brother dept)
The Atlantic Magazine online 24 Nov 2007 09:39 am
By James Fallows, courtesy of Yanpa
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/not_so_thankful_for_this_at_th.php

Flying from Beijing to Tokyo this morning — generally an invigorating experience! Japan looks startlingly neat and organized even if you’re arriving from Switzerland. And when you’re coming not from Switzerland but from China…. Anyhow I arrived excited at the prospect of a few days here.

Unfortunately Japan’s way of ushering in the Thanksgiving holidays has been to institute mandatory fingerprinting and photographing of all foreigners entering the country. Let me put this bluntly: this is an incredibly degrading, offputting, and hostility-generating process. The comment is not anti-Japanese: when the U.S. does this to foreigners, it’s wrong and degrading too (as many people, including me, have pointed out over the years). But Japan has just ushered in this procedure, and they deserve to take some heat for it.

Partly this is a nuisance because of the sheer time drag. Today’s flight time Beijing->Tokyo: 2 hours, 50 minutes. Today’s time spent in the passport clearance line for foreigners at Narita: 1 hour, 30 minutes. But mainly there is no getting around the insult factor of having entry to the country be like getting booked into County Jail.

In specific this means: you have to stick your left and right index fingers simultaneously into a scanner, and press them down until a signal shows that the system has captured both prints. A sign that flashes up in a variety of languages — Korean, English, Portuguese, Chinese, Spanish, etc — tells people that if “for whatever reason” they are “unable” to offer prints, then they can ask to see the supervisor. I assume that they’re talking about people who have no hands etc. (Or Japanese gangsters, yakuza, who often get fingers cut off as part of their careers? Oh, wait: they’re not foreigners.) I was considering saying that my “whatever reason” is that I objected to the policy. Then I realized how much good that would do, and stuck my fingers into the contraption.

Five seconds after the prints, a camera snaps a picture. As a long time admirer of Nick Nolte, and in a state of mind enhanced by the forced-fingerprinting, I made sure my photo looked very much like this:
nicknolte.tiff

Does this requirement make any practical difference to me? No. I’ll only be here a few days, and if I’m going to rob a bank in that time, I’ll put tape over my two index fingers so they’ll never catch me. Presumably most of the several million foreigners who are long-time permanent residents of Japan, and who will be required to go get prints and photos too, will avoid the practical consequences as well.

But it’s worth saying this is a bad policy, because:

– The reasoning is predictably fatuous. A video explains the change as an important anti-terrorist tool. Puh-leeze.

– It’s one thing, and wrong enough, for the U.S. to apply similar measures in the panicky, immediate, “we’re for anything that is called ‘anti-terrorist’ ” mood of the 9/11 aftermath, which is when the U.S. began discussing similar “biometric” measures. It’s even worse to do it six years later, after a chance for cold deliberation about the prices society is and is not willing to pay to keep itself “secure.”

– Fewer tourists are visiting the U.S. because we’ve made it such a nightmare for foreigners to get in. That is just deserts for a misguided policy on America’s side. Japan is repeating the same mistake — with eyes wide open.

– Think how the alarm bells would go off if China tried to impose a scheme like this! The editorials about “Big Brother in Beijing” practically write themselves. But now the two countries that apply the most intrusively big-brotherish surveiliance over those trying to visit are two liberal societies: the United States and Japan.

C’mon Japan, set a good example for America rather than imitating something stupid we do now. The people around me in the passport line — and, in 90 minutes, we had time to talk – were from a dozen different countries and many walks of life. But they were united in one sentiment as they moved toward the fingerprint machine, and it’s not one that Japan’s diplomacy is designed to foster.
ENDS

Irony: Japan Post Office issuing “YOKOSO JAPAN” stamps January

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s your daily hohoemi–with irony. Courtesy of HG:

===========================
Hey Debito, Japanese Post is planning 10 commemorative stamps for Jan. 23, 2008 to promote the YOKOSO JAPAN campaign.

http://www.post.japanpost.jp/kitte_hagaki/stamp/tokusyu/2007/h190123_t.html

(Nothing on the stamps in English, of course. And nothing on the official YOKOSO JAPAN Blogs about the new Fingerprinting rules, of course.)

10 million foreign tourists by 2010? Say WHAT?

So far, less stringent measures (Green Card holders are exempt) in the US have led to a drop totalling 6 million tourists on a yearly basis since introduction of the FP requirement. Despite an ever weaker dollar (shall we now call it “North American Peso”?? *ggg*).

BTW, face value of the stamps is 80 yen each – domestic first class postage. So the foreign tourists are mainly left out of this… ;-).
===========================

Amazing. Stamps for tourists that tourists can’t even use to send a letter home? Provided the tourists want to come here anyway and be treated like terrorists and criminals. Makes you wonder if policymakers ever think things through. Debito

John Spiri reviews Gregory Clark’s book “Understanding the Japanese”

mytest

The Japanese and Ware Ware Non-Japanese
A review of UNDERSTANDING THE JAPANESE by Gregory Clark
By John Spiri, former Assistant Professor at Akita International University

(written for a mass media outlet, unpublished)

UNDERSTANDING THE JAPANESE: Gregory Clark. First published 1982 by Kinseido, Tokyo

It is difficult to imagine a book written by a Japan “expert” having as little of substance to say as Understanding the Japanese by Gregory Clark. The book, awash with trivial generalizations, simplistically attempts to dichotomize everything—brains, societies, and the entire world—while presenting “theories” that would be better left to barrooms and pubs.

The mother of all Clark’s dichotomies is between “Japanese” and “non-Japanese.” Clark writes, “For us non-Japanese peoples the identity of a nation lies in its ideas and culture.” Clark even goes so far as to title a section, “The Non-Japanese Nation” citing stereotypes about the French (who are happy to accept even millions of refugees and workers), Chinese (who have even refused to accept Western technology), and Americans (who exclude homosexuals since they are seen as a threat to Christian ideology). The conclusion is “culturally advanced non-Japanese peoples are more exclusive to foreign ideas and culture than they are towards foreigners” while Japanese are the reverse.

Later, after generalizing that Japanese have a “dual morality” (with his evidence being banal inconsistencies that exist within every human), Clark claims, “With non-Japanese it is not possible to admit to such a dual morality. Our behavior is supposed to be guided by law and principles.” One example of Japanese morality that Westerners supposedly lack is the “generosity” of booksellers who allow customers to read books for free. Clark might be a little shocked to see evidence of this “Japanese morality” in any Barnes & Noble bookstore in the United States, where customers sit around in lounge chairs reading unbought books.

Towards the end of the book readers are told the Japanese negotiate “heart to heart” while all the other peoples in the world negotiate “mind to mind.” “It is as if Japan were to insist on playing shogi while the rest of the world plays chess.” Oh, those Japanese are so, so, what’s the word?, different!

As the thin book wears on, we learn that “non-Japanese” might not really be meant to include everyone; only the “advanced” peoples are worthy of the ultimate comparison. After telling his readers again that “the Japanese seem to be very different from other peoples” Clark claims the reason is that all the other “advanced peoples” had protracted conflict with foreign nations. “Meanwhile,” readers are told, “the rest of us, for the past thousand years or much more, have been constantly involved in fighting each other.” Besides the historical falsity, Clark doesn’t bother to explain how the experience of warring samurai factions of generations past has failed to affect modern Japanese in the same way that warring knights in medieval Europe has supposedly affected modern Europeans.

Clark’s efforts to engage readers in Socratic dialog are juvenile: “Do the Japanese lack a sense of morality?” (answer No! their morality is different from ours), and, “Why does (Japanese flexibility) exist?” (answer: Japan is a nation without ideology!). Then, Clark resorts to citing “someone” to modify: “Someone once said that the ideology of Japan is Japanism!” One would think an “expert” would be held to higher standards.

However, readers learn that if a writer tosses around enough unsupported opinions and generalizations, some will resonate. My favorite was the section about the Japanese propensity for booms. Clark notes that when he first came to Japan there was a “hula hoop boom,” followed by the bowling boom. “The businessmen had convinced themselves,” he writes using his finest prose, “that the Japanese people wanted to do nothing else for the rest of their lives except throw large balls at distant pins, and the relics of their emotionalistic judgment still dot the nation in form of unused bowling parlors.” Hopefully, one day the same can be said of pachinko parlors.

The Japanese, according to Clark, are comparable to one other nation. The Chinese? Never! They are like Westerners. The Koreans? Perish the thought. The Mongolians? They’re not “advanced.” It may come as a surprise, but the one nation that resembles the Japanese are Cretes! Like Japan, the Cretes could “borrow the ideologies of the advanced rationalistic societies around it” and was also a “very durable civilization, lasting almost 1,500 years.” Of course, concrete comparisons are tough to make considering the fact Crete society perished 2,500 years ago in a massive volcanic eruption. “Perhaps there is a message there for Japan,” Clark tells readers, without elaborating.

Some of the stereotypes are downright mean-spirited. “Under the Christian ethic stealing is forbidden,” Clark tells readers, “But that does not stop taxi drivers from trying to short-change their passengers.” The recent stories of the New York city cabbies would undoubtedly surprise Clark. One returned a bag of diamonds; a second sped to the airport to return a forgotten wallet containing thousands of dollars.

The book, constantly hammering home the theme that “Japanese are unique,” is clearly trying to cash in on a writing style, and topic, that appeals to Japanese. Clark frequently tosses in yokeina (superfluous) Japanese: tanitsu minzoku, gyousei shidou, and nantai doubutsu, to either benefit the Japanese reader or put his knowledge of the Japanese language on display, and ends with 13 pages of notes in Japanese.

If Clark weren’t writing with apparent seriousness, the book might be amusing; the illustrations, however, give a hint that the book is not to be taken seriously. As Clark himself has (according to Brad Blackstone, a former associate professor at AIU) been heard to say, “I milked that baby (Understanding the Japanese book) for 20 years, going to speaking engagements around the country.” So, in a sense, it’s “hats off” to the author for getting away with elevating barroom blather to social theory and still maintain status as a culture commentator and Japan expert.
======================

More on Gregory Clark, columnist at the Japan Times, on Debito.org at
https://www.debito.org/gregoryclarkfabricates.html
https://www.debito.org/HELPSpring2001.html
ENDS

Accenture, producer of NJ fingerprinting machines, is hiring in Japan, thru Tiger Woods!

mytest

Hi Blog. Accenture ( formerly the crooked and now defunct Arthur Andersen, accounting firm and book-cooker for Enron), is riding the wave of its cheap bid to build Japan’s biometric machines by expanding its operations in Japan! As reader Leslie writes:

//////////////////////////////////////////////
Debito,

Saw this ad in the subway yesterday. Seems Accenture, the offshore company with the contract to collect biometric data on foreigners in Japan, is hiring!

(Click on image to expand in your browser)
accenture.jpg

I am also astounded that foreigners arriving in Japan and refusing to give MOJ/Accenture their data will now officially have physical force used against them to force the extraction of the personal data. Nightmarish. Leslie
//////////////////////////////////////////////

The profiteering never stops from companies like these, especially when the GOJ is under pressure from the local hegemon to contribute to the war effort (plus, buying American sure helps). Perhaps Tiger Woods, pictured in the advertisement, would enjoy being treated as a potential terrorist and criminal next time he comes for a round of golf in Miyazaki?

See more about Accenture’s involvement in the biometric data market on Debito.org here. Arudou Debito in Tokyo
ENDS

Asahi: Tokyo Narita Immigration loses personal data for 432 NJ

mytest

Hi Blog. Been a busy day, what with the Fingerprinting fiasco. This will be the last article (for tonight anyway) related to the issue.

One of Immigration’s mantras has been how they will take proper care of all the biometric data they drag out of their gaijin patsies.

I’m not confident of that, in light of what happened last May. This article has been sitting in my blog intray for months now, but I had a feeling it would become very relevant soon. Here it is. Incompetence in spades, these people. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

=======================

TOKYO IMMIGRATION BUREAU LOSES PERSONAL DATA FOR TOTAL 432 FOREIGNERS
Asahi Shinbun March 28, 2007
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0528/TKY200705280376.html
or
https://www.debito.org/?p=437
(Translated by Arudou Debito)

TOKYO – Tokyo Immigration announced on March 28 that it had lost flash memory at its headquarters and Narita Airport Branch, regarding personal information for visa overstayers and deported foreigners. They say that no trace of it remains, and there is no danger of the data being misused.

The same agency said last December that an Immigration official in his thirties, based at headquarters, had lost saved memory–names, dates of birth, embarkation points, and other documented details–for 137 foreign overstayers currently being processed for deportation. Also last December, another official in his twenties based at Narita had lost saved memory in the form of a “deportation notebook”. In that, an additional 295 foreigners had had their names, dates of birth, reasons for deporting etc. recorded for deportation.
ENDS

朝日:外国人計432人分の個人情報を紛失 東京入管

mytest

ブログの皆様、入管は「指紋などのデータを大事にする」というものの、こういうことも今年5月にあったことです。きちんと管理することに自信はありません。有道 出人

=======================

外国人計432人分の個人情報を紛失 東京入管
朝日新聞 2007年05月28日18時47分
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0528/TKY200705280376.html

 東京入国管理局は、外国人の不法残留者や強制送還対象者の個人情報が書き込まれた小型記録媒体(フラッシュメモリー)を本庁舎と成田空港支局内でそれぞれ紛失した、と28日発表した。現時点では情報が悪用された形跡はないという。

 同局によると、昨年12月、本庁舎内で30代の入国警備官が不法残留・滞在などで退去手続き中の外国人137人分の氏名や生年月日、入国の経緯などの調査書類を保存したメモリーを紛失した。成田支局でも昨年12月、20代の入国警備官が「送還台帳」を保存したメモリーを紛失。強制送還対象の外国人295人分の氏名や生年月日、送還理由などが記録されていたという。
ENDS

Sankei Shinbun on Fingerprinting equipment SNAFUs

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a funny article. In high school psychology class, we learned about a mental process called “projection”, where a batter blames the bat instead of himself for the strike-out. Well, Immigration today was a paragon of projection. Maybe the system is just no damn good from the start. Or maybe it’s just plain Karma. Read on. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

========================

First Day of New Immigration System: Continuous Troubles
Sankei Shinbun Nov 20, 2007

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/life/lifestyle/071120/sty0711201251002-n1.htm
(Translated by Arudou Debito)

November 20, the day the new biometric system was inaugurated for foreigners at Immigration, has seen continuous troubles at every port of entry with taking prints and equipment failure.

There were errors with reading data for about 30 people at Hakata Port, and after redoing the procedure, only four people were recorded. The Immigration official in charge decided to waive the procedure and everyone in. The official claimed the equipment was not faulty, rather, “It seems there were a lot of elderly people whose fingerprints had been worn down after years on the farm.”

At Narita Airport, one Australian man’s fingerprints were unreadable, and the process took more than an hour. According to the Immigration Bureau at at Narita, there are cases where people’s fingertips were too dry to be read. At Shin-Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, there were reports of more failures, the cause seen as dry skin.

At Fushiki Toyama Port, Toyama Prefecture, three out of five portable fingerprint readers were inoperative right after the start of usage. After rebooting their systems, only one machine became operable, and it died after 30 minutes. Use was discontinued.

ENDS

Immig Fingerprinting NJ from today, media coverage (or lack of), GOJ data security breaches

mytest

Hi Blog. It’s Nov 20, FP Day. Keep your eyes peeled for how the media talks about the event, send in briefs (or copies of whole articles, duly credited) about what you see. A reader wrote in last night to say:

===========================
NHK 7PM NEWS NOV 19TH
Absolutely no mention of fingerprinting NJ entering Japan starting tomorrow. I’ll give them another chance tomorrow night, but that’s it. If they don’t find this new policy newsworthy, why should the foreign community pay for NHK?

Also notable that it is still hard to find a regular Japanese person who is even aware the policy is coming into effect. Not surprising really if NHK has nothing to say about it.
===========================

Wow, the anger runneth over these days. Quite so. Speaking of media, here’s a post from a friend who also considers the dearth of coverage (except to justify it as a domestic crime-prevention measure by hiring former baseball pitchers as spokespeople). Have a read. Debito in Sapporo

===========================

Hi Debito. Guess what was just posted to YouTube? If you guessed official (painless looking) instructions for fingerprinting and photographing, complete with elevator music and a smiling foreigner, you’d be right!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZiBFYSXKu10

Is this the official video to be shown on flights entering Japan??? Doh! To be fair, I don’t know how they can offer in-flight instructions without coming across like they see us as criminals.

Again…

I really hope someone can post a catchy video on YouTube WITH a link to the petition right below this watered-down load of rubbish! So far, only TWO videos uploaded to YouTube on fingerprinting in Japan. I’m surprised no one else has thought to do this, yet. The other video is a news clip from Japanese television. Anyway, only 38 “views” so far on that link I included.

Also found some information on Japan Today that may interest you. I’m going to quote it since it didn’t come from me:

=============
“Here’s an interesting development…”
WhatJapanThinks (Nov 19 2007 – 17:07)

http://www.chunichi.co.jp/article/national/news/CK2007111902065426.html
外国人の指紋、20日から採取 「テロ対策」で入国時
2007年11月19日 朝刊 中日新聞
 16歳以上の外国人を対象に、入国審査で指紋と顔写真の提供を義務付ける改正入管難民法が20日施行され、全国の27空港や126の港で一斉に運用が始まる。
 こうした「生体情報」採取システムは、米中枢同時テロ後に導入した米国に次いで2番目。政府はテロ対策のためとしているが、日弁連や人権団体などから「情報の保存期間が不明で、犯罪捜査に際限なく利用される」と懸念の声が出ている。
 新システムでは、スキャナーで両手人さし指の指紋を読み取り、続いて顔写真を撮影。パスポートに記載された氏名などの情報とともに電磁記録として保存する一方、過去に強制退去処分を受けた外国人や警察による指名手配者など、計80万−90万件の生体情報データベースとその場で照合する。
 指紋や顔写真の提供を拒んだり、生体情報がデータベースと一致した場合、別室で特別審理官による口頭審理などを経て、強制退去や警察への通報などの処分を受けることがある。
 16歳以上でも(1)在日韓国・朝鮮人ら特別永住者(2)外交・公用での来日(3)国の招待者−などは制度の対象外。
 入管が収集した情報は捜査当局が必要に応じて照会し、利用できる。保存期間について、法務省は「テロリストに有益な情報を与えることになる」として明らかにしていない。
 日本人や特別永住者らが事前に指紋を登録しておき、指紋照合だけで出入国できる「自動化ゲート」も20日から、成田空港で先行導入される。
—————

Focus on last paragraph:

日本人や特別永住者らが事前に指紋を登録しておき、指紋照合だけで出入国できる「自動化ゲート」も20日から、成田空港で先行導入される。

Japanese and Zainichi, etc (or since this is news to me, “also”) can preregister their fingerprints for the express lane(s).”

——

Posted by: nigelboy (Nov 19 2007 – 18:31)

“Posted by nigelboy November 14th 14:04

http://www.moj.go.jp/NYUKAN/nyukan63-3.pdf

It’s part of the SPT program (Simplyfying Passenger Travel)

http://www.spt.aero/about

Also some stories in there regarding the current conditions before the procedures are brought in:

——-

“Today at Narita”
genkidave (Nov 19 2007 – 23:55)

“went to see a buddy off back to New Zaland and as usual showed my alien card as ID after getting off the train. Was then singled out by an overzealous policemen for no reason (apparently spot checks) and given the 3rd degree. I even had to hand over my current mobile number. While asking me many questions he was flatout filling in a form. I guess they are trying to get more data than they have now on record. We must be given a chance to register our prints and a photo once and that should be the end of it. From then on we should be in the re-entry line!!”

———

“Immigration fingerprinting, photographing device unveiled at Narita”
Richard_III (Nov 19 2007 – 16:59)

“I flew out of Narita a couple of weeks ago and they were separating gaijin from J then. That pretty much narked me off as I had to queue for 25 mins (this is in spite of paying J taxes and employing people here). The thought of then either having to queue and answer questions or go through the typically bureaucratic and petty minded pre-application procedure – which would nark me even more – then the stresses of flying out of Narita are bound to quadruple.”

——–

All these quotes come from:
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/421530

By the way: I love the idea of having a page for the stories of those that are coming through the airports. That’s apparently being done over here too:

http://reentryjapan.blogspot.com/

Well worth a look. I, too, am interested in hearing those stories.

You may also want to do a small story on how the government is losing personal info right, left, and center these days. I can point you in the right direction:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

731 SDF applicants’ details leaked onto Internet

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20071118TDY02309.htm
731 SDF applicants’ details leaked onto Internet
The Yomiuri Shimbun

Personal details of 731 people who passed the first-stage entrance examination for recruitment by the Self-Defense Forces have been accidently uploaded onto the Internet, it has been learned.

The Defense Ministry learned the list had been online for six weeks and has begun investigating how the information was compromised.

The list–confidentially created using spreadsheet software by Yokohama-based SDF Kanagawa Provincial Cooperation Office, which recruits self-defense officers in Kanagawa–included Kanagawa Prefecture-based applicants’ personal details including their name, sex, date of birth, address, cell phone number and parents’ names.

On the list, each candidate’s former high school was recorded as well as the prefectural rankings of the high schools, taken from a commercially available information book for high school examinations.

In addition, the list was sorted by applicants’ preferred personnel assignments such as the Ground, Maritime or Air Self-Defense Forces. The list also included the names of self-defense officers–likely the recruiters of the individual candidates.

The recruitment office said it conducted the first-stage entrance examination in September. Though the office intended to make only the identification number of those who passed the first-round examination available online, the office likely mistakenly posted the entire list on the Internet on Oct. 1 when it uploaded the ID numbers.

Later, the site was updated, hiding the list, but the Web page remained accessible via search engines.

After a family member of an examinee whose name was on the list made the office aware of the problem Friday evening, the office barred access to the list.

“We intend to inform the examinees [about the leak] and apologize to them,” the office said. “We’ll study what measures should be taken to prevent such leaks occurring in the future.”

Families of examinees have expressed their dismay over the mishandling of the information.

“The situation, which saw detailed personal information made available online, is a serious error that caused problems for the examinees,” the man who told the office of the errors said. “They have to realize the severity of the situation.”

“I worked as an SDF officer. I think it was disgraceful,” the father of a male examinee said. “They let their guard down…now we’re afraid what the information could be used for. The Defense Ministry has been hit by so many scandals that even as a former officer, I find it hard to be proud of it.”

The Defense Ministry and SDF have been hit by a succession of information leaks. In February last year, confidential data on the MSDF destroyer Asayuki was leaked onto the Internet through members’ privately owned computers, which had been installed with a file-exchange program.

In April last year, the Defense Ministry prohibited the use of privately owned computers in the workplace, and barred personnel from handling business data on privately owned computers. Then, SDF members were visited at home by inspectors who checked whether personnel had stored business data on their computers.
(Yomiuri Nov. 18, 2007)

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Japanese finger virus for police document leak

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/07/japanese_keystone_cops/

Japanese finger virus for police document leak
Bug in Japan
By John Leyden The Register
Published Wednesday 7th April 2004 14:56 GMT

Japanese police are blaming a computer virus for a leak of information about criminal investigations.
Information from 19 documents – including investigation reports, expert opinions and police searches – found its way from the hard disk of an officer from Shimogamo Police Station in Sakyo Ward, Kyoto, onto the Net last month.

The names, birthdays, addresses and other personal data of 11 people were listed in the leaked documents, along with a detailed description of an alleged crime. Police have promised to notify the 11, including an alleged crime victim, to explain the cock-up.

Japanese newspaper Daily Yomiuri reports that police suspect that a computer virus might have sucked up this sensitive data and spread it over the Net. Viruses like SirCam are capable of this kind of behaviour but an equally likely scenario is that the hapless officer’s PC was hacked into.

The leak only came to light after the data was made available to all and sundry over the popular Winny P2P network, the Asahi Shimbun reports.

The officer at the centre of the debacle created the leaked documents in 2002 while practicing how to fill out forms using real data instead of dummy entries.

He was on police box duty and authorised to use his own PC but not to save sensitive data on it, a violation in police procedures that has become the subject of disciplinary inquiry.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Nine laptop computers stolen from Japanese Embassy in Belgium

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071105p2a00m0na005000c.html
Nine laptop computers stolen from Japanese Embassy in Belgium

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Thieves broke into the Japanese Embassy in Belgium and stole nine laptop computers, including one belonging to the consul, embassy officials have announced.

The break-in is believed to have occurred between the evening of Nov. 2 and the predawn hours of Nov. 3. Officials said nothing besides the computers had been stolen. They added that no confidential diplomatic information had been leaked outside the embassy.

The embassy is located on the sixth and seventh floors of a seven-story building in the middle of Brussels. Investigators said the locks on double-layer doors at the entrance on the sixth floor had been broken.

The embassy was closed between Nov. 1 and 4 for national holidays and the weekend. Japanese officials have asked the government in Belgium to boost security in the wake of the incident.
(Mainichi Japan) November 5, 2007
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
Original Japanese story:
ベルギー:日本大使館でノートパソコン9台盗難
http://mainichi.jp/select/jiken/news/20071105k0000m040100000c.html

 【ブリュッセル福原直樹】ブリュッセルの在ベルギー日本大使館は4日、何者かが大使館に侵入し、領事をはじめ館員のノートパソコン計9台が盗まれたことを明らかにした。侵入は2日夕から3日未明の間とみられる。パソコン以外に被害はなく、外交上の秘密情報は外部に持ち出されていないという。

 同大使館は王宮やベルギー政府庁舎が並ぶ市内中心部にある7階建てビルの6~7階部分に入居する。調べでは、6階入り口の2重ドアの鍵が壊されており、ここから侵入されたらしい。地元警察は窃盗事件として捜査を始めた。

 同大使館は1~4日の間、ベルギーの祝日と週末で休館中だった。事件後、日本側はベルギー政府に大使館の警備強化を求めたという。
毎日新聞 2007年11月5日 1時10分 (最終更新時間 11月5日 1時13分)
///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Yomiuri has it at eleven laptops with details on the contents of those laptops —

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

11 laptop PCs stolen from Brussels embassy

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20071115TDY02303.htm
11 laptop PCs stolen from Brussels embassy
The Yomiuri Shimbun

Eleven laptop computers were stolen from the Japanese Embassy in central Brussels earlier this month, leading to fears that personal information on about 12,700 Japanese living in Belgium may have been exposed, the embassy said Wednesday.

The robbery is believed to have taken place early Nov. 3. Security guards alerted by an alarm found the lock broken on the seventh-floor entrance to the embassy in an office building.

Some of the stolen computers held electronic data on matters such as the expats’ residence certification, overseas voting registration and passport information, according to the embassy.

The residence certification contains details such as a person’s name, birthdate, permanent address in Japan, occupation, family information and passport number.

(Yomiuri Nov. 15, 2007)
///////////////////////////////////////////////////

If they can’t take care of personal information for their own citizens, how can they be expected to take care of foreigners’ information?

Still digging around and keeping my eyes open for new information. I will contact you again if I find anything. Hope this helps! M
============================
ENDS

Former Giants pitcher tarento promotes Narita Fingerprinting NJ system as “Anti-Crime” measure

mytest

Well, here’s the ultimate in government greenmailing: Get a real pitcher to pitch the system. Check out this chucklehead:

========================================
miyamotokazutomo1.jpg
FINGERED — TV celebrity Kazutomo Miyamoto tries out the new foreigner fingerprinting system at Narita Airport. As a Japanese national, Miyamoto will not need to have his fingerprints taken when the new system comes into operation from Nov. 20. (Mainichi)

Celebrity uses fingerprint photo-op to call for cut in foreign crime
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071114p2a00m0na030000c.html

NARITA — TV celebrity Kazutomo Miyamoto urged immigration officials during a photo-op to use a new process to fingerprint inbound foreigners to fight foreign crime, not terrorism as the government claims the system will be used for.

“I think it’d be best if we could cut the amount of crime foreigners are committing and make Japan a safer place,” Miyamoto said at Narita Airport, where he was serving as the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau Chief For a Day as a promotional event for the fingerprinting process.

Starting from Nov. 20, Japan will follow the United States to become the second country in the world to implement individual recognition software for foreigners entering and leaving the country.

With the new system, nearly all foreigners will have to have fingerprints from both hands and a picture of their face recorded. Fingerprints will be verified with a list in what the government says will be an attempt to prevent terrorists or known criminals from entering Japan.

Japanese nationals will be able to pass through Immigration via an automated gate instead of waiting in line to be processed by officials if they have applied for permission and submitted fingerprints in advance.

Miyamoto, 43, was once a pitcher for the Yomiuri Giants.

======================================

COMMENT: Anything for a photo-op–even if it’s at the expense of Japan’s NJ residents (whom Kazutomo-kun probably knows next to nothing about). He isn’t going to be fingerprinted under any circumstances anyway, so I guess this is his only chance.

Pity he thinks that it’s for stopping foreign crime (which is, in fact, falling). Sorry chum, it’s allegedly for preventing terrorism and disease; and if you think it will make Japan a safer place, your publicist is as uninformed as you.

Then again, profiteering helps. According to a reliable source, these photo-ops run JPY 300,000 to 500,000. Nice bit of pocket change to get your fingers on afterwards.

Let Kazutomo-kun know your feelings at his official site:
http://www.m-bravo.com/

Steve Koya below also notes that Mr Miyamoto’s manager’s office number is Tel:03-3224-1681 Fax:03-3224-1682 for anyone else who would like to make a complaint.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo
ENDS

毎日:タレント宮本和知は東京入管成田支局で指紋採取について、「外国人犯罪が減り、日本が安全になればベストだと思う」

mytest

一日入国管理局長:宮本さん、個人識別の手続き体験−−東京入管成田支局 /千葉
11月14日12時5分配信 毎日新聞 11月14日朝刊
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20071114-00000132-mailo-l12
miyamotokazutomo.jpg

 東京入国管理局成田空港支局は13日、タレントの宮本和知さん(43)を「一日入国管理局長」に招き、指紋などの個人識別情報を活用した新しい入国審査手続きを公開した。個人識別情報を出入国手続きに用いるのは、米国に続き世界で2番目。全国の空港や港湾で20日、一斉に導入される。
 新たな手続きでは、外国人旅客の両手人さし指の指紋採取と顔写真の撮影を実施。指紋情報をリストと照合し、テロリストや犯罪者の入国を防止する。事前申請と指紋提供をした日本人旅客を対象に、出入国審査の自動ゲートの運用も始まる。
 宮本さんは入国審査場で指紋採取などの手続きを体験。「外国人犯罪が減り、日本が安全になればベストだと思う」と話した。【倉田陶子】11月14日朝刊

==========================

コメント:(ちなみに減っている)「外国人犯罪」と無関係で、「反テロ措置」というのは入管の正当化でしたよ。和知君、何という無知ですよ。どうせあなたの指紋は入管で採取されないので、なぜプロモーションに加わるのですか。

どうぞ、感想は和知君のオフィシャルサイトへ
http://www.m-bravo.com/
ENDS

LA Times on how J police ignore certain crimes. Like murder.

mytest

Hi Blog. We get some more press light on the Tokitaizan Sumo death last June, and how the police are NOT investigating it properly. No arrests have been made in conjunction with his brutal manslaughter. Turns out, according to this excellent article in the LA Times (well done Bruce Wallace), this is quite routine for the Japanese police. Read on.

This is far better than the recent NY Times outing on the subject. And it raises suspicions about a number of suspicious high-profile deaths in modern-day Japan. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down… on the coffin? Arudou Debito in Sapporo

///////////////////////////////////////////

Japan’s police see no evil
The boy had been badly beaten but his death was ruled natural. The case was closed in an official culture that discourages autopsies.
From the Los Angeles Times November 9, 2007
COLUMN ONE
By Bruce Wallace Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-autopsy9nov09,1,5774455.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Courtesy of Jon Lenvik

TOKYO — Photos of the teenager’s corpse show a deep cut on his right arm, horrific bruising on his neck and chest. His face is swollen and covered with cuts. A silhouette of violence runs from the corner of his left eye over the cheekbone to his jaw, and his legs are pocked with small burns the size of a lighted cigarette.

But police in Japan’s Aichi prefecture saw something else when they looked at the body of Takashi Saito, a 17-year-old sumo wrestler who arrived at a hospital in June. The cause of death was “heart disease,” police declared.

As is common in Japan, Aichi police reached their verdict on how Saito died without an autopsy. No need for a coroner, they said. No crime involved. Only 6.3% of the unnatural deaths in Aichi are investigated by a medical examiner, a minuscule rate even by nationwide standards in Japan, where an autopsy is performed in 11.2% of cases.

Forensic scientists say there are many reasons for the low rate, including inadequate budgets and a desperate shortage of pathologists outside the biggest urban areas. There is also a cultural resistance in Japan to handling the dead, with families often reluctant to insist upon a procedure that invades the body of a loved one.

But Saito’s case has given credence to complaints by a group of frustrated doctors, former pathologists and ex-cops who argue that Japan’s police culture is the main obstacle.

Police discourage autopsies that might reveal a higher homicide rate in their jurisdiction, and pressure doctors to attribute unnatural deaths to health reasons, usually heart failure, the group alleges. Odds are, it says, that people are getting away with murder in Japan, a country that officially claims one of the lowest per capita homicide rates in the world.

“You can commit a perfect murder in Japan because the body is not likely to be examined,” says Hiromasa Saikawa, a former member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police security and intelligence division. He says senior police officers are “obsessed with statistics because that’s how you get promotions,” and strive to reduce the number of criminal cases as much as possible to keep their almost perfect solution rate.

Japan’s annual police report says its officers made arrests in 96.6% of the country’s 1,392 homicides in 2005.

But Saikawa, who says he became disillusioned by “fishy” police practices and in 1997 left the force in disgust after 30 years, claims that police try to avoid adding homicides to their caseload unless the identity of the killer is obvious.

“All the police care about is how they look to people; it’s all PR to show that their capabilities are high,” Saikawa says. “Without autopsies they can keep their percentage [of solved cases] high. It’s all about numbers.”

The former policeman has written a memoir of his time on the force. Called “Policeman at the Scene,” it describes a police culture that has chipped away at the effectiveness of an autopsy system created during the U.S. occupation after World War II.

“The police textbooks taught us not to trust doctors,” he says, adding that police officers indirectly pressure doctors to sign death certificates without an autopsy. “Doctors are afraid of the police. They are afraid of retaliation. They worry the police could prosecute them for malpractice. So they are easily pressured.

“There is no one refereeing the police,” Saikawa says. “It’s scary.”

After the war, Americans created a medical examiner’s office for Tokyo after learning that thousands of deaths in the postwar rubble were being ascribed to starvation without any forensic examination. It was soon discovered that a tuberculosis epidemic was the main culprit.

The system was soon expanded to six other big cities which, for the most part, are the jurisdictions where autopsies are done with the most frequency (in 2004, autopsies were conducted in 29% of Kanagawa prefecture’s unnatural deaths; 18% of those in Tokyo). But much of the country remains without a fully functioning medical examiner system.

“There aren’t many doctors who want to do this kind of work and that means some areas don’t have a medical examiner at all,” says Dr. Masahiko Ueno, a former chief medical examiner in Tokyo who spent 30 years in the coroner’s office until he retired in 1988. Since then he has written more than 30 books about the cases that animated his career and the cold cases that intrigue him in retirement.

Ueno says his experience leaves him convinced that many homicides are being missed and he, too, blames a system that gives police great discretion over when an autopsy is performed. Although doctors are legally required to report “unnatural deaths” to police, the country’s medical act does not precisely define what that is.

The philosophical approach to death investigations differs between the West and Japan.

In the West, autopsies are performed to determine the cause of death. That is one reason the autopsy rate for people who die in hospitals has fallen in most Western countries: Improved medical diagnostics has removed much of the uncertainty about why a patient died.

But in Japan, investigations are not as concerned with uncovering the cause of death as with whether a crime has been committed. Without obvious signs of homicide, police are less likely to ask for an autopsy.

That applies to investigations of apparent suicides.

Japan has one of the world’s highest suicide rates, accounting for more than 30,000 deaths a year, but police request “almost no autopsies on suicides,” which could determine whether the cause of death is what it appears, Saikawa says.

Many police examinations of the body are cursory, he alleges, sometimes nothing more sophisticated than a visual examination.

Take the case in January 2006, when financial advisor Hideaki Noguchi was found dead in an Okinawa hotel with knife wounds. Noguchi was a close associate of Takafumi Horie, the brash founder of the Internet company Livedoor, which had just been the target of a nationally televised police raid and seen most of its multibillion-dollar value evaporate.

But despite being a central figure in a sensational criminal investigation and privy to Livedoor secrets, police declared Noguchi’s death a suicide. They did not ask for an autopsy, and the body was cremated.

Or take the suicide in April of Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who was found hanged in his Tokyo apartment. Matsuoka was embroiled in a scandal involving the misappropriation of political funds that suggested a broad system of organized influence peddling. Even though Matsuoka’s troubles were destabilizing the government and his death occurred just hours before his scheduled appearance to answer questions before a parliamentary committee, no autopsy was conducted to ensure that he had not died from something other than hanging.

A day later, Shinichi Yamazaki, a businessman implicated in the same scandal, plunged to his death in a parking lot outside his Yokohama apartment. No autopsy was conducted in that case either.

“The police said it was suicide,” says an incredulous Saikawa, “because he had left his shoes placed neatly together on the balcony.”

Japan’s forensic specialists have long been calling for an overhaul of the coroner system, but it took the death of the young sumo wrestler to finally bring the shortcomings under sharper scrutiny.

Doctors at the hospital where Saito was brought in, unconscious and battered, have since acknowledged that they had doubts about the police verdict. They said they initially attributed his death to acute cardiac failure, which occurs when the heart stops suddenly and does not rule out foul play.

But the police insisted otherwise. So the hospital signed a death certificate that blamed a diseased heart for killing the 17-year-old. It released the body to Junichi Yamamoto, the master of the training facility where Saito lived and had collapsed after what was described as a “strenuous” practice session. No need to pick up the body, the boy’s grieving family claims Yamamoto told them by phone. We’re having him cremated.

Had Saito’s parents not demanded to see their son’s body, the truth about the wrestler’s death might never have been known.

But when the body was returned home in another prefecture, they were shocked by its battered state. The family asked medical professors at Niigata University to perform an autopsy, which revealed that Saito’s heart stopped from the shock of injuries inflicted upon him. He probably had been beaten to death.

On this wisp of suspicion rested justice for a dead boy.

More than a month later, under pressure from the family and Japan’s muckraking weekly magazines, Aichi police opened an investigation that found the stable master and other wrestlers had viciously beaten Saito. It was punishment, they said, because he was trying to quit sumo. The stable master has admitted hitting Saito in the forehead with a beer bottle the night before he died.

Leaks to the media from the police investigation indicated that the boy was beaten again the next morning, punched, kicked and hit with a baseball bat by other wrestlers while Yamamoto watched.

Under fire from an appalled public, the Japanese Sumo Assn. last month finally acted and banned Yamamoto from the sport. Aichi police did not respond to questions about the investigation, or the agency’s policies and practices on requesting autopsies.

They have yet to file charges.

————————-
bruce.wallace@latimes.com

Naoko Nishiwaki and Hisako Ueno of the Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.
ENDS

Protest pays off: Now separate lines for residents when fingerprinting NJ at Narita

mytest

Well, well, well. Look what cyberspace just sent me…

“On the way out of the country, I picked up an Immigration form. There WILL be a special booth for re-entry visa holders. But there WON’T be a card and we WILL have to be fingerprinted and photographed EVERY time we re-enter the country.”
naritanewbooths.jpg

COMMENT: You see, protest does have an effect.

But it still hasn’t resolved the problem of how this is going to impede businesspeople (especially APEC Business Travel Card holders…), not to mention the issues of treating every non-Japanese as a potential Typhoid Mary or Osama Junior… every time. Or the fact that the letter of the law is still not being followed nationwide. As Steve Koya poignantly commented today:

========================================
We have a loophole, or at least a stay of execution! All we need is a decent lawyer and we can stop this legislation.

It is a simple argument, following on from my note yesterday about the Automatic gates. A chat to Sapporo Immigration confirmed that there were no plans to have the gates at Chitose or at any other airport other than Narita, giving lack of time and money as a reason.

Well, despite the fact they may have no time or insufficient funds, unfortunately Immigration are required by the new law to make the Automated Gates available to non-Japanese residents, at all airports within 18 months from the promulgation of the legislation, 24th May 2006. There is no “Only Narita” clause, there is no post promulgation amendment.

If they are not able to apply the law, then it should be rescinded. You could also state that failure to apply the law in full would also make it non-binding, so refusing to give your prints would theoretically not be illegal.

All we need is a decent lawyer! Amnesty, show us your muscle!
========================================

I still say you should not be separated from your Japanese families. Stand together in the same line, everyone. Debito in Sapporo

NJ Fingerprinting Update: US Soldiers also exempt under SOFA

mytest

HI BLOG. FEEDBACK FROM CYBERSPACE. US SOLDIERS STATIONED IN JAPAN HAVE ALSO BEEN EXEMPT FROM BEING FINGERPRINTED. I GUESS THE GOJ IS COUNTING THEM AS DIPLOMATS. SWEETHEART DEAL. ARUDOU DEBITO

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The US Embassy just sent out this information:

============================================
UPDATE: Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) personnel are exempt under
SOFA Article 9 (2) from the new biometrics entry requirements.

============================================

I think this means that if a person with three decades of permanent
Japan residence under his/her belt flies into the airport with 18 year
old Seaman Doe, whatever his/her nationality or background, Doe goes
through the line without photo and fingerprint check.

That does not make any sense at all.

SOURCE:
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

From: American Embassy Tokyo
Date: Wed Oct 31, 2007 19:57:07 Asia/Tokyo
Subject: Welcome to the November newsletter! (EXCERPT)
http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-newsletter20071101.html#bio

Here are the topics for this month:

Upcoming Holidays and ACS Office Closures

Security Situation
Information for Americans employed by NOVA
Reminder – New Biometrics Requirements for Foreigners Entering Japan
Thanksgiving is here…
Primary Elections, General Elections – Both Are Important!
Are you ready to vote?
Some Missouri Voted Ballots can be Faxed or Emailed
Ohio Special Congressional Primary Election
Employment Resources
Ask the Consul: Warden Messages
Consequences of Mailing Illegal Drugs to Japan
Embassy Tokyo & ConGen Naha Offering New Foreign Service Officer Test
“Green Card Lottery”
Early Warning System
Handy Calendar Converter
Services Leaving Japan? Unsubscribing Contact Us

(SNIP)

———————————————————————–
——–
Reminder: New Biometrics Requirements for Foreigners Entering Japan
———————————————————————–
——–

The Government of Japan recently informed us that as of November 20,
2007, Immigration officials at the port of entry will digitally scan
the fingerprints of and photograph all foreign nationals entering
Japan, with the exemption of certain categories listed below. This
requirement does not replace any existing visa or passport
requirements. Foreign nationals that are exempt from this new
requirement include special permanent residents (Tokubetsu Eijuusha),
persons under 16 years of age, holders of diplomatic or official
visas, and persons invited by the head of a national administrative
organization. Please note that permanent residents will also be
expected to submit to this new requirement.

The Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice posted an
explanatory video on the new procedures on June 14, 1007. The short
video entitled “Landing Examination Procedures for Japan are
Changing!” can be viewed here.

UPDATE: Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) personnel are exempt under
SOFA Article 9 (2) from the new biometrics entry requirements.

———————————————————————–
ENDS

鳩山法相:「友人の友人にアルカイダ」、そうやって外国人指紋採取を正当化

mytest

鳩山法相:「友人の友人にアルカイダ」 後に「真偽不明」
http://mainichi.jp/select/seiji/news/20071030ddm012010061000c.html

 鳩山邦夫法相は29日、東京都内の外国特派員協会で講演し「私の友人の友人にアルカイダがいる。バリ島の爆破事件に絡んでいたが『バリ島の中心部は爆破するから近づかないように』とのアドバイスを受けていた」とのエピソードを披露した。法相自身が爆破事件を事前に知っていたと誤解されかねない発言で、講演後「(直接の)友人から爆破事件の3、4カ月後に聞いた話を申し上げた。真偽は確認してないし(アルカイダのメンバーとの)面識はない」などと釈明した。

 この日、法務行政について講演した鳩山法相は質疑の中で、入国管理局がテロ対策のため11月20日から実施する来日外国人から指紋や顔写真を採取する制度についての質問に答えた際、唐突に「アルカイダ」の話を持ち出した。法相の釈明によると、直接の友人は「私の趣味であるチョウ(の研究)の同好の士」だという。【坂本高志】

毎日新聞 2007年10月30日 東京朝刊

Deutsche Presse-Agentur: “Let’s be fair, let Japanese win our sports events”

mytest

Hi Blog.  Writing this to you on a timer at a hotel in Tokyo, so I’ll be brief.  An article on sports citing me, even though sports isn’t exactly my forte.  I hope I got the information below right.  Corrections from knowledgables appreciated.  Arudou Debito in Shinagawa

PS: Original Debito.org feature which inspired this article at
https://www.debito.org/?p=417

———————————————–

Let’s be fair, let Japanese win – Feature
Posted on : 2007-10-04 | Author : Deutsche Presse-Agentur
News Category : Sports  Courtesy of the Author

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/118542.html

Tokyo – You would think that fairness is the virtue of sports, but tell that to the Japanese authorities. In May, they approved a high school ban on foreign students running the first and the longest leg of a relay race in response to complaints from fans, a spokesman for the All Japan High School Athletic Federation said.

The decision came after the federation received mounting complaints from fans that “African runners lead the race so much that the Japanese athletes can’t narrow the difference or catch up throughout the race.”

Marathon races in Japan have seen many runners from Kenya, Ethiopia and other African nations taking part. At most one foreign student is allowed per team.

The relay marathon and 29 other sporting events that the federation manages limits the ratio of overseas athletes to about 20 per cent of all entries, but, according to a spokesman, complaints have flooded in only in relation to the high school marathon.

One of the reasons is that the race receives much coverage on television with a high viewer rate.

Fans wonder why they are not seeing Japanese students run when it is an all-Japan race, he said.

“We don’t consider this decision as discrimination,” the spokesman said. “We are not banning (foreign students) from participating in the race.”

Japanese fans and authorities don’t seem to realize that this is a form of discrimination, which makes the problem even more serious, because people approve of such discriminatory treatment in other social areas, Osamu Shiraishi of Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Centre said.

But criticism of the decision has come from many quarters.

“They are basically saying that sports are great as long as Japanese win,” Arudou Debito, the author of Japanese Only, which highlights discrimination against foreign residents in Japan, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Racial discrimination is usually based on superiority, but it is based on inferiority in Japan in this sense, Debito said.

“This is symbolic to Japan’s sly opportunist ideology,” Shiraishi, a former official from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said. “Making nationality an issue in sports goes against the genuine sportsmanship.”

There are sports that couldn’t generate solid competition without foreigners’ participation, the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees official said.

For such competitions, Japan makes talented athletes its own kind.

Brazilian soccer players Santos Alexandro and Ramos Ruy gave up their nationalities and played in the national team for the World Cup after they became Japanese citizens.

A new regulation to the Japanese national sport of sumo in 2002 to allow one stable to host one foreign national at a time, partly because the industry was suffering from declining Japanese enthusiasts but becoming a popular hub of muscle men from abroad.

The fear was that the national sport would be tainted with foreigners. But, ironically, it relies on them for its survival and the yokozuna or highest-ranking wrestlers are Mongolians.

The sumo association also came under attack in the past when Hawaiian wrestlers were climbing up to the top. Some Japanese fans demanded Japanese nationality from potential yokozuna.

Amidst the controversy, Hawaiian Akebono Taro became the first foreign-born yokozuna in 1992 and later gave up his US passport to prepare for opening his own stable.

Although one of the few retirement plans for most sumo wrestlers is to open up their own stables, the Japan Sumo Association requires stable masters to be Japanese citizens.

Others, however, remain mum about their nationalities.

Some Korean or Chinese residents of Japan who excelled with their athletic competence hide behind their Japanese-given names and remained outside of national competitions.

While the government requires and prefers foreigners to become Japanese nationals in certain areas such as sport, resident Koreans and Chinese who are born and raised in Japan for three or four generations, are not granted citizenship at birth.

Japan’s home-run king Sadaharu Oh, born and raised in Tokyo, has been stripped of his chances to compete in the nation’s largest amateur athletic meets because he holds Taiwanese nationality.

Oh was lucky to find a vacancy in the quotas for foreign nationals in Japanese baseball when he entered a professional league, according to Arudou.

But there must have been many more like Oh and could have been many more home runs or advanced skills imported from overseas to polish Japan’s athletes if not for the restrictions.

The US Major Leaguer Ichiro Suzuki needed somewhere more challenging than Japanese baseball fields to excel, and he found a niche in Seattle.

“It goes against being sporting,” Arudou said of limiting or eliminating participation by foreign athletes. “Restrictions make sporting boring. Everyone has a chance to be number one.”

Print Source :
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/118542.html

END

Mainichi: Pregnant NJ woman rejected by 5 hospitals 7 times, in 2006!

mytest

Hi Blog. Get a load of this. It’s happening, as anticipated. When the Otaru Onsens Case first came up, one of the arguments Olaf and I made was the slippery slope. If hot springs were going to refuse NJ with impunity, what’s next? Bars? Stores? Restaurants? Hospitals?

Now it seems even hospitals refusing NJ have come to pass.

This is also happening to J women as well, the news reports. But that’s what makes this case even more ludicrous and nasty. According to the article below, these refusals happened to the NJ woman a whole year ago! It only became a “peg” for news because a similar thing recently happened to a Japanese! Oh, so until it happens to one of “us Japanese” it’s not newsworthy??

Iron na imi de hidoi! Gongo doudan! Arudou Debito

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Foreign woman rejected 7 times by hospitals in western Japan after childbirth
Mainichi Shinbun, September 27, 2007

Courtesy http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070927p2a00m0na022000c.html
Courtesy of Erich Meatleg

A foreign woman seeking medical help in Japan after giving birth at home was rejected by five hospitals where officials said her Japanese wasn’t good enough and they didn’t have proper facilities, authorities said Thursday.

The woman, in her 20s, was finally admitted to one of the hospitals after begging to be treated over two hours, during which two of the hospitals rejected her twice, said Takaaki Uchida, an official in Tsu.

All of the hospitals were equipped with maternity wards, but only two had intensive care units for newborn babies.

The incident happened in August 2006, but was reported in Japan on Thursday in the wake of the case of a 38-year-old woman who suffered a miscarriage last month after ten hospitals refused to admit her and her ambulance collided with another car.

The cases have raised concerns about shortcomings in emergency care for pregnant women, an growing worry as Japan grapples with declining birthrates — among the lowest in the world — and a burgeoning elderly population.

Uchida said the hospitals claimed the woman, whose name and nationality was withheld by officials, couldn’t speak Japanese well enough for them to communicate with her, and that they didn’t have emergency facilities to care for her newborn boy.

The woman had never consulted a doctor at a maternity clinic during her pregnancy, a fact that also made it difficult for her to find a hospital, Tsu City fire official Yoshinobu Sakurai said.

Sakurai also said the woman could not speak Japanese at all and her female companion to the hospital also spoke only broken Japanese.

Both the mother and the baby boy were healthy, according to Sakurai.

Following the miscarriage case, on Aug. 29 incident, the government has ordered local governments to review past cases of transporting pregnant women.

Last year, a pregnant woman in western Japan died after being refused admission by about 20 hospitals that said they were full. (AP)

September 27, 2007
REFERENTIAL ARTICLE:
Woman has miscarriage after waiting 3 hours to be transferred for emergency birth (see comments section)
ENDS

出産直後の外国人拒否、「言葉通じない」と津市の病院

mytest

ブログの皆様、おはようございます。これを見て言語道断。温泉等じゃなくなりました。ましてや、昨年8月に起きた事件ですね。つまり外国人に遭った事件ならニュースにならないでしょうか。日本人妊婦に同様に遭ったからニュースになりますね。色んな意味でひとい!有道 出人

////////////////////////////

出産直後の外国人拒否  「言葉通じない」と津市の病院
産經新聞 2007/09/27
http://www.sankei.co.jp/shakai/wadai/070927/wdi070927004.htm

 津市内で昨年8月、出産直後の20代の外国人女性が救急搬送の際、7つの病院で受け入れを断られ、到着するまでに約2時間かかった事例があったことが27日までに分かった。母子ともに健康だという。

 三重県消防・保安室によると、この女性は自宅で出産。119番で消防が駆け付けたところ、赤ちゃんにへその緒がついたままだった。消防が新生児集中治療管理室が空いている病院を探したが、女性が日本語を話せず、一度も産婦人科を受診していなかったため「言葉が通じない」「処置困難」などの理由で断られ、医療機関の調整に時間がかかった。

 奈良県で救急搬送中の妊婦が死産した問題を受け、県が調査し判明した。

(2007/09/27 11:26)

京都「イスラーム世界フェスティバル」は外国人お断り

mytest

ブログの皆様こんにちは。有道 出人です。ご無沙汰しております。

さて、きょうの件は
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
京都「イスラーム世界フェスティバル」は外国人お断り
(つまり日本人客とイスラム教の外国人はOKだが、それ以外の外国人は却下)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 一昨日、友人からの連絡があり、「9月30日京都にてのイズラーム教祭に行こうとしたが、予約を受けた代表に『貴方はムズリム(イズラム教の信者)ですか。』と聞かれました。『違います』と言うと、『それなら、外国人客はお断りです』と言いました。外国人は外国人を断ると大変皮肉を感じております。」

 私はムズリムの友人に問い合わせ、「これはイズラム教違反です!コラン(イズラム教の聖書)によると、イズラム教について全ての興味を持つ人は断っていけないと書いてある!」と言い、彼(アリと者)も問い合わせてみると、同じ結果。代表の『セリム』氏は(名字を明かしてくれなかったという)は、「これはファミリーみたいな集いなので、これは日本人とイズラム教の人たちのみ」と弁解したが、アリさんは「違うでしょう。これは『コミュニティーとの連絡・イズラム教についての意識高揚』のためでは?また、いついきなり日本人のみが『ファミリー』となったのですか。なぜ外国人が外国人を断るのか。そうすると、私たち外国人はこれから日本人が外国人に対する『Japanese Only https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html 』の看板などを掲げると、苦情や抗議を言う立場が崩されていないでしょうか。」それでも、セリム氏は一切譲らなかった。

 アリさんの抗議文は英文として
https://www.debito.org/?p=587
にあります。連絡先は 080 5088 2637

この祭の詳細は
===============================
9月30日(日)京都「イスラーム世界フェスティバル」
http://www.islamjapan.net/html/festival.html

 イスラーム世界と日本との相互理解を深める恒例の「イスラーム世界フェスティバル」を今年も開催いたします。

 京都に住むイスラーム諸国の留学生たちが皆様のために腕をふるってイスラーム世界の料理を作りご紹介いたします。イスラーム圏の人々と直接交流できる機会です。多くの皆様のご参加をお待ちしております。

参加費:無料
ただし、事前のお申し込みが必要です。
お申し込みの方には当日受付で抽選券付き入場券をお渡しいたします。

日時:2007年9月30日(日)午後4時30分〜7時30分(4時より受付)

会場:京都市国際交流会館 特別会議室2階
アクセス:地下鉄東西線 蹴上駅から徒歩6分

第1部:講演会
第2部:夕食会(断食明けのイフタール)・お楽しみ抽選会

申し込み受付:9月18日(火)から
申込先: イスラーム文化センター
フリーダイヤルは、こちら: 0120-519-599
(受付時間) 火〜金 10:00〜18:00   土 12:00〜18:00
電子メールによる申込:getsurei@islamjapan.net
代表はギュレチ・セリム・ユジェル(トルコ出身)
===============================

 なお、今朝、私は開催場の行政している京都市国際交流協会 (075-752-3010, http://www.kcif.or.jp/jp/footer/06.html)の高木さままで連絡して、「お客様からお金をもらって、開催の仕方について分かりません。」私は「公共施設はこうやって外国人納税者を却下できませんよね」と言っても、「調べてみるが、借りているのイベントについて詳しく分かりません」と言った。私の連絡先を高木さまに伝えたが。

 要は、こうやってコミュニティーに下手に「リーチ・アウト」すると、逆効果もありえると思います。先週の英字新聞「メトロポリス」(9月14日版)で「日本国内のイズラム教コミュニティー」の特集を載せ、結論としてある代表はこう発言した(有道 出人和訳):

 「もっと多くの日本人と私たちと話に来てほしいです。お互いに私たちの考え方を伝いたい。しかも誰でも手伝ってあげたい、相手がムズリムであってもなくても無関係。こうやって多文化共生を促進します。」

 但し、「誰でも」と言うなら、なぜムズリム以外の外国人はそうなる?『セリム」さんに是非聞いてほしい。

 宜しくお願い致します。有道 出人
debito@debito.org www.debito.org
September 21, 2007
ENDS

Kyoto Islamic Festival refuses foreigners, accepts Japanese Only

mytest

Hello All. Turning the keyboard over to friend Ali Rustom, a British national of some Middle Eastern descent, with an essay of great irony. Comment from me at the bottom.

KYOTO ISLAMIC FESTIVAL IS “JAPANESE ONLY”

=======================

I am a Muslim. I make no apologies for my beliefs, and until today (September 20 2007), I was proud and happy to be a Muslim.

A Muslim festival is due to be held on September 30 2007 in Kyoto (http://www.islamjapan.net/html/festival.html), sponsored by the Islam Culture Center in Kyoto (free dial 0120-519-599, email getsurei@islamjapan.net). Recently, a non-Japanese said that he was interested in joining the festival, but when he called to ask if he could go, the sponsors’ first question was if he was a Muslim. He replied that he wasn’t. He was then told that the festival was open only to Muslims and Japanese. Non-Muslims, unless they were Japanese, were forbidden from attending.

As a fellow Muslim, I found this hard to believe. So today I called to see if this was true. First, I got a Japanese lady, who sure enough, asked me if I was a Muslim. I said “no”, but reiterated that I was interested in going anyway. She told me to call back in 10 minutes. I did.

This time she dispatched me to a man, coordinator of the event, who confirmed my friend’s allegations. The cultural event was indeed open to only Muslims and Japanese. Non-Muslim foreigners are to be excluded.

The reason he gave me is that the Muslim community was trying to reach out to the Japanese community and promote understanding of Islam in it.

I asked him, “Isn’t reaching out to foreigners in the community you live in also a part of reaching out to the community and promoting Islam? After all, non-Muslim foreigners are a part of our community, same as Muslims, and same as the Japanese you are reaching out to. Or don’t they count?”

The man answered with an analogy that since the Muslim community was providing food, it was their right to choose who to invite. He said that if he was inviting his family for a meal, someone not related to the family couldn’t complain about being not invited. He said that this case was the same. Non-Muslim foreigners are not family, slam the door.

I replied that it was not the same. Why now are suddenly all Japanese “family”? I told him that a public event is not a “family feast”, and that his comparison was ludicrous.

For the next 10 minutes, he continued to give me stupid excuses, and I continued to refute them, trying to show him the error of his ways. This went on until I realized that there was some grovelling going on here. The fact that he was as adamant to exclude foreigners who were non-Muslim sounded harrowingly like a man who wants to exclude all infidels, but has no choice but to branch out to the Japanese community for fear of being labeled a terrorist. This to me makes the image of Islam in the community even worse.

I finally asked his name. He then said I should go first. I gave him my full name, but then he refused to give anything more than Selim, his first name. He is apparently from Turkey, and he is the spokesman for this festival. That to me is cowardly.

And bigoted. It’s terrible that now, not only do we have to combat prejudice from Japanese people, but now also from fellow non-Japanese. In this case, foreign lickspittles are just trying to get into Japan’s good books. What a setback to community unity, something this festival was supposed to promote!

Think about the damage done: Now that foreigners are discriminating against each other, how can we ever complain about, much less campaign against, racism in Japan by Japanese if the foreign community is doing the same?

I find it, frankly, disgusting that this “Selim” attempts to identify himself as a Muslim. Believe it or not, this goes right against the tolerance that Islam teaches.

Let me give you an example from our teachings: There is a story in the Koran about Prophet Mohammed (Praise Be Upon Him) when he was visiting with non believers (Kooffar) and trying to reach out to them with peace and understanding. Then along came a old man who was lame and who obviously had spent lots of energy to get to the Prophet (PBUH). But when the old man sat down, the Prophet (PBUH) turned his back to him and continued with his conversation to the non-believers in which an Aya (passage) came down from the Koran. The basic gist of this story is that no-one should ever turn away from a person who purposefully comes by his own will asking to learn more about Islam.

Now, it is certainly not my wish to compare someone like this “Selim” to someone as wonderful as our beloved Prophet (PBUH). What I am suggesting is that we should not turn away people who are interested in Islam and learning more about us. Especially when we are inviting them. That means that this festival should be open to everyone, not only to people who are suddenly “family” members thanks to their “host’s” nationality.

Maybe “Selim” should learn how to become a better Muslim, instead of spending his time organizing “exclusionary festivals and parties about cultural understanding” (moronic and oxymoronic). Read the Koran and really understand what it means to a member and a representative of our faith.

===========================
Aly Rustom in Tokyo
Cellphone 080 5088 2637

The “Islam World Festival” (Islaamu Sekai Festival) will be held in Kyoto at the Kyoto City Kokusai Kouryuu Kaikan, Tokubetsu Kaigishitsu 2F on Sunday, September 30, between 4:30 and 7:30 PM (doors open 4PM).

The person in charge (gleaned from their website) is Quireshi Selim Yujel (spelling unclear, from Katakana), Director, Islam Bunka Center.

Access: Tozai Subway Line, 6 minutes walk from Ke-age Eki
Cost: Free, with events and food provided
Places for 100 people. Reservations are requested via free dial number 0120-519-599, or via email at getsurei@islamjapan.net
More information in Japanese Only (naturally) at
http://www.islamjapan.net/html/festival.html
Try to sign up if you can. Failing that, register a complaint with them if you are inclined.

==========================

COMMENT FROM ARUDOU DEBITO: I called the Islam Bunka Center this morning to inquire about my situation as a naturalized Japanese. They said they would let me in, but, alas, they’ve filled up their reservation slots. Thanks, I guess.

I also called the holders of the venue, the Kyoto City International Foundation, at 075-752-3010, and talked to a Mr Takagi. He said that all they do is take money and don’t supervise what these groups do. I asked if a public space refusing foreigners is permissible, as public spaces cannot refuse taxpayers. He said that he would look into it, but the KCIF can’t tell them not to refuse foreigners.

Irony in relief. Metropolis Magazine last week quoted the Muslim Community in Japan in a special article (“True Believers”, Sept. 14, 2007) as saying, “We want more Japanese people to come to talk to us. We want them to share what they are thinking. And we want to help anybody, whether or not she or he is Muslim, in order for us to exist on a cultural level.”
http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/703/feature.asp

I doubt what’s happening in Kyoto reflects the same spirit. Talking to Japanese at the expense of other members of their community? A lot more of the world than just Japanese also need their image of Muslims adjusted. This won’t help.

Amazing what ironies abound when even foreigners will resort to the same tactics as the worst elements of their “hosts”.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html
September 21, 2007
ENDS

Letter from “Grassroots Uyoku” which disrupted MOFA meeting on UN CERD

mytest

Hi Blog. I reported two weeks ago about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs meeting regarding the GOJ report to the UN Committee on Racial Discrimination last August 31, and how it was disrupted by jeering right-wingers.

Well, here’s a letter from one of the uyoku groups in attendance, from a blog called “Japan Family Value Society” (in English–in Japanese it’s “Kazoku no Kizuna o Mamoru Kai”, or “Group to Protect Family Ties”), with LDP member and Hino City Assemblymember Watanabe Tadashi as VP. Taken from their blog at

http://familyvalueofjapan.blog100.fc2.com/blog-entry-25.html#more

Of course, they put on their halos and say they were hard done by, even had their constitutional rights violated. Hey, that’s my line! Anyway, this is why we need the media and recording devices handy to avoid the good ol’ he-said, she-said situations…

Translated by Arudou Debito, blog entry as follows. Japanese original in the previous Debito.org blog entry.

////////////////////////////////////////////////

MESSAGE TO THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

As this blog mentioned a few days ago, we sent on September 4, 2007, a message with our opinions and demands regarding the MOFA’s August 31 “Meeting for an exchange of opinions with citizens and NGOs regarding the GOJ’s report for the UN CERD.” The text of the message was as follows:

=========================

To the Ministry of Justice, General Affairs Department, Office for Diplomatic Policy:

To Kimura Kachou, Section for Human Affairs and Human Rights

From the Japan Family Value Society

Several members of our society participated in your meeting on your periodical report to the UN CERD Committee.

We raise strong objections (taihen ikan na koto) to the fact that our group’s opportunity to express opinions was snatched away (ubawareta) by the statements of certain members of the audience, who ignored the demands from the chairman to cease and desist, and thus blocked the continuation of the meeting.

We also believe that this meeting is for the common Japanese (kokumin) to express his opinion, and must not be changed in future in violation of our country’s democratic processes.

In regards to this, we have found out through the Internet that the “NGO Network for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination” has in fact sent the MOFA a “Unified NGO Statement” of their standpoints vis-a-vis these meetings.

Within this statement, this NGO network has stated [reference link unknown]:

“As NGOs and minority groups working on behalf of minorities suffering discrimination, undertaking the job of eliminating racial discrimination, and putting the CERD into effect in Japan, holding a meeting where we are put side-by-side with general individuals (ippan no kojin)… we do not believe that there is any goal behind holding these types of meetings.”

“We think there should be a meeting including the MOFA and other related governmental agencies, between the actual minority groups and the NGOs actually undertaking the elimination of racial discrimination in Japan.”

“We think long-term meetings between the MOFA and the “NGO Network for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination” should be held with both sides on equal terms.”

Making demands like these is in denial of our country’s democracy, and shakes things to their very foundations. If we are going have a formal discussion about law against racial discrimination, or against discrimination in general, you cannot sluice off the claims of the average Japanese (ippan kokumin). This is an outrage (yurusarenai).

These are our questions, demands and advice. We look forward to your answers:

1) Regarding the above demands for the “NGO Network for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination”, what is the standpoint of the MOFA? How do you intend to respond?

2) Given that the last meeting was interrupted thusly, we hope that you will hold another one. Kindly tell us when that might be scheduled.

3) Kindly keep these meetings about the CERD, and about all treaties in general, open to the public for all Japanese.

4) Kindly summarize (ronten seiri) and put up on the MOFA homepage all the arguments made at the meeting about the CERD, and as a result, what sort of arguments these will be winnowed down to (shibarareru).

5) Make clear rules so that nobody obstructs these meetings again.

6) At the meeting, some woman who blocked the proceedings said she was there as “an observer”. What does “participating as an observer” mean?

We look forward to your answers.

Heisei 19 nen 9 gatsu 4 nichi (in kanji)

(Manuscript of the letter rendered in vertical script.)

ENDS

草の根右翼団体「家族の絆を守る会」から外務省へ「意見要望書」

mytest

ブロッグの読者の皆様、こちらは8月31日に私も出席した人種差別撤廃条約のついて外務省会議で人権擁護団体に対してヤジをとばした右翼団体からの要望書です。相手のブロックからいただきました。有道 出人

/////////////////////////////////////////////

外務省へ提出した意見要望書

先日、当ブログでお伝えしましたように、8月31日に開催された「人種差別撤廃条約に関する日本政府報告に関する市民・NGOとの意見交換会」について、その問題点と今後の対応についての意見、要望をまとめた「意見要望書」(9月4日付)を外務省に提出しました。
以下にその文書を掲載いたします。

http://familyvalueofjapan.blog100.fc2.com/blog-entry-25.html#more

[http://www.watanabetadashi.net/]

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

外務省 外務省総合外交政策局
人道人権課  木村 課長 殿

家族の絆を守る会 理事長 古賀 俊昭

先日の人種差別撤廃条約に関する日本政府定期報告作業に伴う意見交換会におきましては、「家族の絆を守る会」からも数名が参加しました。

この中で、参加者の一部の発言、および、議長の制止を無視して、議事進行を妨げる行為のあったこと、また私たち「家族の絆を守る会」の意見を述べる機会が奪われたことを、大変遺憾なことと考えております。

また私共は、今回のことで、国民に開かれた場での意見交換会開催の形式に、今後、民主主義国家に反するような変更があってはならないことと考えております。

私共は、人種差別撤廃条約の意見交換会について、「人種差別撤廃NGOネットワーク」が、「NGO共同申し入れ書」を外務省に提出していることを、インターネットの情報で承知しております。

この中で、人種差別撤廃NGOネットワークは、
「人種差別撤廃条約の効果的な国内実施について多大なる努力をしてきた被差別マイノリティ当事者団体・人種差別の撤廃に取り組むNGOと、一般の個人参加者を同列に置くという開催形態は、・・・意見交換会が本来持つべき開催目的がないがしろにするものであったと考えます。」として、
「『意見交換会』を、外務省を含む関係各省庁と、被差別マイノリティ当事者団体及び人種差別の撤廃に取り組むNGOとの意見交換の場と位置付けること。」
「『意見交換会』を外務省と『人種差別撤廃NGOネットワーク』との共催とし、共同議長形式にて両者が対等な関係で進行にあたるようにすること。」
という要求を出しておりますが、これは、我が国の民主主義を否定し、根幹から揺るがすものであります。人権擁護法、差別禁止法など、立法、国のあり方に関わることも話し合われる場から、一般国民を締め出そうという主張は、断じてあってはならない、許されないものであります。
人権諸条約は、「差別」を主張する「当事者」のものだけである筈がありません。国家、国民全体に関わる大きな問題です。私共「家族の絆を守る会」は、そうした観点から、人権諸条約に関する意見交換会に関わって行くつもりでおります。

そこで、以下のことについて、質問、要望、提案をさせて頂きますので、ご回答を頂きますよう、お願いいたします。
一.「人種差別撤廃NGOネットワーク」の上記の要望について、外務省は如何お考えでしょうか。また、同ネットワークの要望に対して、如何に対応されたのか、お聞かせ下さい。
二.今回中断された人種差別撤廃委員会への報告作業に伴う意見交換会を、再度行って頂きたいと思いますが、今後のスケジュール、日程等をお知らせ下さい。
三.人種差別撤廃条約のみならず、人権諸条約に関する意見交換会は、今後も、国民公開の場で続けて下さい。
四.人権諸条約に関して、寄せられた意見、意見交換会で話し合われたこと、また、その結果、どのような論点に絞られるのか、論点整理を行って、ホームページ等で公開してください。
五.議事が妨げられないよう、明確なルールを作ってください。
六.今回、議事進行を拒否された女性が、オブザーバーとしての立場での参加であると仰っていましたが、「オブザーバーとしての参加」とは、どのようなものでしょうか。

以上、ご回答を頂きますよう、よろしくお願い申し上げます。

平成十九年九月四日

(原物は縦書)

ENDS

“Issho Kikaku Rep” Tony Laszlo in Courrier Japon Oct 2007

mytest

lazgrin2007jpg.jpg

Hi Blog. Fascinating magazine “Courrier Japon” (Kodansha pubs) has in their October 2007 issue an interesting interview with three panelists: South Korean Kim Byon-Gi (Journalist for the Chuo Nippo Daily Paper), Russian tour guide and model Elena Vinogradova/Hino Erena, and…

American Citizen Tony Laszlo!

(Sorry, can’t recreate the accents over the last name as per the romaji below. American text usually eschews them anyway)


lazcourrier1007003.jpg

(click on the image to expand in your browser) 

Yep, the person who’s been portrayed as kinda European (his nationality has been ambiguously expressed both by the first Daarin wa Gaikokujin book, and reviews in Rakuten Books et al, as “Hungarian father and and Italian mother, raised in the US”), finally comes out as a garden-variety American! Howdy, pardner! Not that there’s anything wrong with being American, of course. It’s just good to see your stripes at last.

And you just gotta love Laszlo’s Bio above:

“Writer, Specialist in Languages, American origin. First came to Japan in 1985 [Daarin wa Gaikokujin pg 41 mentions his unicycle]. Representative of ‘Issho Kikaku’, which thinks about cultural co-existence. Character in the bestselling “Daarin Wa Gaikokujin” books (Oguri Saori, author).”

Note the missing “journalist” tag nowadays. And whatever happened to this “Issho Kikaku” organization that keeps finding its way to attach itself to Laszlo’s name? The Issho Kikaku website (http://www.issho.org) has been offline for “website renewal” since December 2005, and years of Issho mailing list and website archives, the work of hundreds of former members, have long since disappeared. Doesn’t seem as if the group even exists anymore.

No matter. And never mind Laszlo’s threat of lawsuit towards another writer on Japan’s internationalization, either. Sauce for the goose. Laz even mentions his adventures with sauce in an okonomiyakiya in his very first comment in the interview. Clearly, it’s important to keep one’s comic-book-created persona lightweight for public consumption nowadays…

Here is the interview in full (click on images to expand in browser). Love the illustrations. And Courrier Japon magazine in general is excellent.

courrieroct07001.jpgcourrieroct07002.jpgcourrieroct07003.jpgcourrieroct07004.jpgcourrieroct07005.jpgcourrieroct07006.jpg

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

TPR editorial on SNAFU at MOFA: Uyoku disrupt human rights meeting

mytest

Hi Blog. An editorial I wrote quickly for Trans Pacific Radio was put up two days ago. Have a read. Excerpt follows. Debito in Sapporo

///////////////////////////////////////////////////

TRANS PACIFIC RADIO SHASETSU

Arudou Debito: Rumble at the Ministry of [Foreign Affairs]

Filed under: Shasetsu – Op/Ed

Posted by Debito Arudou at 3:44 pm on Monday, September 10, 2007

Courtesy http://www.transpacificradio.com/2007/09/10/debito-rumble-at-moj/

(Editor’s note: Debito wrote this piece, and even recorded it, quite some time ago. Unfortunately, for reasons we can’t quite fathom, the audio file has. . . well. . . apparently disappeared. This is the text of his Shasetsu, a bit late. We apologize for the tardiness of the publication, for the missing audio, and for dropping the ball on this one in general. Nevertheless, it’s a well-done piece, well worth reading and discussing and we hope you enjoy it.

The second part of Arudou Debito’s appearance on TPR Spotlight (part one is here) will be up before you can say “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.”)

===========================

RUMBLE AT THE MINISTRY OF [FOREIGN AFFAIRS]

A hearing on human rights is disrupted by right-wingers

In 1995, Japan signed the United Nations Convention against all forms of Racial Discrimination. By doing so, it promised “without delay” to take all measures, including legislation, to eliminate racial discrimination within its borders. However, more than a decade later, Japan still has not passed any laws against discrimination by race. And as the spread of “Japanese Only” signs and rules nationwide attests, laws are sorely needed.

So is the urge to come clean. Under this treaty, the Japanese government must submit a report every two years on what it is doing to eliminate racial discrimination. It is mighty late, filing its first report, due in 1998, in 2001. And it has filed no reports since then.

In preparation for the next report, and to avoid charges that the bureaucrats were not listening to the public, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has held open hearings, attended over the years by NGOs and “concerned citizens”. The latest meeting took place yesterday afternoon, August 31, and I attended. It was, in a word, a disaster…

===========================

Rest at http://www.transpacificradio.com/2007/09/10/debito-rumble-at-moj/

ENDS

Tangent: Greg Clark JT column defends Miyazawa’s corruption

mytest

Hi Blog. I sent a letter to the editor to the Japan Times, which after two months is probably not going to be printed. So I might as well put it up here, what the heck.

Last July, Gregory Clark wrote an epitaph-style Japan Times column/ode about his old friend, former Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi, who was facing mixed reviews in the J press at the time of his death for not dealing with the Bubble Economy properly. Greg defends his old friend with aplomb. So much so that he excuseth too much, in my opinion–even Kiichi’s corruption. First his column, then my unpublished letter to the editor in response.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////

NOT TO BLAME FOR ‘BUBBLE’
Miyazawa knew economics
The Japan Times: Monday, July 16, 2007
By GREGORY CLARK

Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20070716gc.html

Obituaries for former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who died recently at age 87, agreed that he was a statesman and a genuine internationalist. But some — those from Nikkei, Japan’s leading economic media group, especially — also criticized him as a Keynesian economist responsible for Japan’s economic troubles in recent years. It is time to set the record straight.

Miyazawa was finance minister in the crucial pre-“bubble” years of 1986-88. At the time the yen was appreciating wildly in the wake of the 1985 Plaza Accords (it was to more than double in value against the dollar). Endaka fukyo — recession induced by the high yen — was a favorite media topic. Meanwhile, Washington was pressuring Japan to boost its economy as a way of reducing its trade surplus.

The obvious answer was for Japan to boost domestic demand by expanding government spending — the Keynesian approach. In so doing it would not only reflate its weakened economy; it would also ease the pressure to export and curb the yen’s rise in the process — three birds with one stone. That is what the Keynesian, demand-oriented Miyazawa wanted to do. (As a young bureaucrat in the early 1940s, Miyazawa had studied the works of my father, economist Colin Clark, who had worked with Keynes at Cambridge).

But by this time the anti-Keynesians were beginning to dominate economic policymaking worldwide. Using public funds to boost economies was being criticized. The monetarist approach — the easing of the money supply and low interest rates — was favored. It was this monetarism, not Miyazawa Keynesianism, that triggered the excessive rise in asset prices of the late ’80s now known as the “bubble economy.” To make things worse, Miyazawa’s successors foolishly delayed the monetary tightening needed to kill the bubble. Japan has been living with the consequences ever since.

In 1991 Miyazawa was made prime minister. He realized better than most the snowballing, demand-crippling effects of bubble collapse. But his proposal of an emergency injection of several trillion yen to save the banking system was killed by the free market, anti-interventionist fundamentalists, especially Keidanren, Japan’s most influential business federation. When, a decade later, the government had to inject many trillions of yen to save the banks, Keidanren did not object.

Despite this setback, Miyazawa’s prime ministership saw a return to the fiscal demand-stimulating policies needed to revive the economy. By the mid-’90s the economy was well on the way to recovery. But the advent of the Hashimoto administration in 1996 saw the anti-Keynesians back in the saddle. The grinding recession that followed, then continued well into the years of the even more anti-Keynesian regime of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, was the direct result. The only uptick in the economy came during the brief Obuchi and Mori administrations in between, while Miyazawa was again finance minister.

Miyazawa’s misfortune was to be caught up in two mistaken attacks on the Keynesian demand-oriented principles that had guided Japan’s successful economic management for decades. One criticism said that they had caused the stop-start stagflation of the postwar Anglo-Saxon economies. That was true to a point, but that particular abuse of the Keynesian approach was due to the special problems with those economies — excessive consumption and inadequate supply. Japan’s problems were the exact opposite — excessive supply and inadequate demand. For much of the time, anything that boosted demand, including greater government spending, was welcome.

The second attack focused on the increase in Japan’s official debt as a result of past government spending. But that in turn was due to Japan’s excessively high level of personal savings forcing high levels of government spending to fill the demand gap. It could have and should have been solved by a more efficient tax system. Besides, sensible public spending to reflate a broken economy can actually reduce official debt by rapidly increasing tax revenues. Anti-Keynesian policies to reduce official debt by cutting government spending can actually increase the debt, as we saw only too painfully during the Koizumi years.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis saw Miyazawa’s economic wisdom frustrated once again. He proposed an Asian monetary fund backed by Japan to rescue the weaker Asian economies. The United States, ever sensitive to any threat to its Asian hegemony, insisted that the International Monetary Fund with its economic fundamentalist approach should do the job, which it did, to the benefit of many U.S. investors and few Asian economies.

Miyazawa’s achievements went beyond the economy. Like many of his generation, he was a firm admirer of postwar America for helping Japan recover and discover democracy. But he also wanted closer links with Asia, including China. While approving the use of Japanese troops abroad for peacekeeping purposes, he remained a firm pacifist to the end. He was a man of balance for his times.

He was criticized for involvement in the so-called Recruit scandal. In fact, that nonscandal was simply an attempt by the Recruit company to make sure its issues of new shares went into the hands of responsible people it liked rather than the usual collection of gangsters, speculators and corrupt securities companies that dominated new share issues at the time. The fact that many of its share recipients made profits was largely because almost-new shares issues were profitable in Japan’s go-go stock markets at the time.(emphasis added)

Miyazawa was pushed out of the prime ministership in 1993 by an ever power-hungry Ichiro Ozawa wielding the so-called electoral reform issue. In fact, by opposing the single-seat constituency “reform,” Miyazawa was trying to preserve the valuable role of independents and the smaller political parties. The result of those so-called reforms is what we see today — the domination of Japanese politics by two Tweedledee-Tweedledum political parties and a semi-religious party able to mobilize supporters easily. Japan’s uncritical love affair with the word “reform” has continued ever since.

Gregory Clark is vice president of Akita International University. A translation of this article is at http://www.gregoryclark.net. E-mail: clarkinjapan@gmail.com.

The Japan Times: Monday, July 16, 2007

//////////////////////////////////////////////////

MY RESPONSE

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Greg Clark shows his true colors in his most recent editorial (“Miyazawa knew economics”, July 16). Not as some kind of economist, but as an embedded elite.

Whatever intellectual sleight of hand he wishes to employ (to pedestal one of the few prime ministers ever booted out by a “no confidence” vote) still doesn’t excuse the fact that Greg is using puffery to defend a friend. Even going so far as to justify Miyazawa’s corruption in the Recruit Scandal.

Thankfully, Greg acknowledges that Miyazawa and he were buddies, thanks to the latter’s connections to father Sir Colin Clark. But unmentioned is that Greg’s coming over here immediately landed him in Japan’s elite society. All foreigners should be so lucky.

For all Greg’s bully pulpiting about the excesses of Japan’s power brokers, for him to try to explain away this much about a man like Miyazawa proves the axiom that power corrupts.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////

Arudou Debito in Sapporo
ENDS

Japan Times on Asashoryu and the National NJ Blame Game (UPDATED)

mytest

Hi Blog. I’ve just webbed two recent Japan Times Community Page articles, summarized as follows:

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The scapegoating of Asashoryu
Champion’s antics are least of sumo’s worries

The Japan Times: Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2007
THE ZEIT GIST
By JAMES ERIKSSON and ARUDOU DEBITO
Special to The Japan Times, Column 39 for the Japan Times Community Page
Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070904zg.html
Based upon an Internet essay at https://www.debito.org/?p=542

EXCERPT:
============================
…Some might say Asa has long had it coming. He’s known as the bad boy of sumo, reputedly showing violent tendencies toward junior wrestlers and, according to the weeklies and wide shows, even his wife.

Therefore his record, in a sport where winning is everything, was the only thing keeping the hounds at bay.

But it’s not as if he stopped winning. What’s changed is that as of May we finally have another yokozuna, Hakuho. It seems Asashoryu is now expendable.

The point is, the whole soccer-sumo scandal is a smoke-screen. Sumo is in a panic and needs a scapegoat…
============================
Whole article at https://www.debito.org/japantimes090407.html

SEE UPDATE ON THIS ISSUE AT BOTTOM

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The blame game
Convenience, creativity seen in efforts
to scapegoat Japan’s foreign community

The Japan Times: Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2007
THE ZEIT GIST
By ARUDOU DEBITO
Special to The Japan Times, Column 38 for the Japan Times Community Page
Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/fl20070828zg.html

“Director’s Cut”, with information included that did not appear in print or online at the Japan Times, available at https://www.debito.org/japantimes082807.html

EXCERPT:
============================
We live in interesting times, where Japan’s economy and society have been at a crossroads–for nearly two decades.

With the shortage and high cost of domestic labor, the Japanese government has imported record numbers of cheap foreign workers. Even though whole industrial sectors now depend on foreign labor, few publicly accept the symbiosis as permanent. Instead, foreigners are being blamed for Japan’s problems.

Scapegoating the alien happens worldwide, but Japan’s version is particularly amusing. It’s not just the garden-variety focus on crime anymore: Non-Japanese are being blamed for problems in miltary security, sports, education — even shipping. Less amusing is how authorities are tackling these “problems” — by thwarting any chances of assimilation…
============================
Rest of the article at https://www.debito.org/japantimes082807.html

Enjoy. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

//////////////////////////////////////////////

UPDATE: Doreen Simmons, Grand Dame of Sumo, comments in the Kansai Time Out (September 2007) on the Asa controversy. Courtesy of Steve. In PDF format, download from Debito.org here:

https://www.debito.org/asasimmonskto.pdf

COMMENT: I don’t claim to know anywhere even near what Doreen knows, but my reaction is one of general disappointment with her essay. It’s not all that well written (it goes kerplunk at the end, with no conclusion), indicating to me that like movie director Kurosawa Akira, she’s gotten too senior in society to take an edit.

James thought there was no new ground covered, just rehash plus history. I would agree–there’s nothing covered in depth, such as examining the possible motives re WHY Asa is being carpeted this much now. The media has jumped on Asa in the past, but this time all things seem to be in confluence–so well that one could make an argument that the JSA is trying to force Asa out by making things too uncomfortable for him to stay. He could thus quit without tarnishing Sumo’s Mongolian connection. Bit of a stretch, yes. But let’s allude to it even if only to eliminate it.

Even though historically, as Doreen noted in her article, Asa is getting plenty more rope compared to other defrocked wrestlers, James and I see the JSA even going so far as fanning the flames around Asa themselves, in order to take the heat off their own excesses. It’s not as if Asa has all the same tools at his disposal (such as they are in the Sumo world) as a regular J rikishi to defend himself. He’s not even a native speaker.

In sum, Doreen is not at all questioning the very fabric of Sumo, which helps create these uncontrollable sumo “frankensteins” that the JSA have to reel in from time to time. My feeling after reading is that Doreen was just informing us how much she knows about the sport, and indirectly chiding anyone for commenting on Sumo at all without her level of knowledge (which she’ll impart at her convenience, thank you very much).

That was certainly the feeling I got when I asked Doreen for comment before I submitted the above essay to the Japan Times (she had very kindly corrected a point raised in the COUNTERPOINT essay we wrote last week, thanks).

Her response (excerpt):
=============================
“There is so much to take issue with, and it would take a couple of hours at least. Although I was extremely busy before, I found time to point out just one glaring error, in the Onaruto story — but why should I clean up somebody else’s article free of charge? If invited, I will be happy to write a rebuttal — for a fee.”
=============================

Sorry to have bothered her. Also glad she was paid for her opinions (such as they are) by the KTO, not me. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Transcript of disrupted MOFA Aug 31 07 hearing blogged

mytest

Hello Blogosphere. Arudou Debito here.

TRANSCRIPT OF MOFA MEETING PROCEEDINGS BLOGGED
AND FURTHER EVIDENCE THE GOJ HAS NO INTEREST IN LIMITING HATE SPEECH
BY ALLOWING A CONVICTED AGENT PROVOCATEUR INTO THE MEETING

Regarding a post I put out recently
https://www.debito.org/?p=544
on the August 31 Ministry of Foreign Affairs meeting, regarding Japan’s next report to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (https://www.debito.org/cerd.html), I have some new information.

I have received a transcript of the meeting, which was disrupted by Right-Wingers, and blogged it in Japanese at
https://www.debito.org/?p=545

I received a call moments ago from someone else who attended the meeting, about one of the participants:

A Mr Nishimura Shuuhei, who sat in the back of the room that day, was taken to court for his behavior of disrupting public meetings on the Comfort Women issue. According to my source, he was sentenced for “illegal obstruction of official duties” (iryou gyoumu bougai–a charge I don’t completely understand myself) on October 4, 2001, at the Yokohama District Court, to 1 year and 6 months of prison, suspended for five years.

Despite his criminal record of disrupting public meetings and acting as agent provocateur, the MOFA allowed Nishimura to attend this meeting, and help disrupt it.

This issue was taken before the Bureau of Human Rights this morning, but my source indicates that they do not intend to do much about it (agreed, see my experience with the BOHR at https://www.debito.org/policeapology.html –they even have a history of advising the Otaru City Government in the Otaru Onsens Case that “there will be no penalty” if they neglect to pass any laws against racial discrimination: https://www.debito.org/jinkenyougobu112999.jpg)

The GOJ shows little willpower indeed to deal with issues of hate speech, or even show resolve to keep their meetings calm and debate reasoned.

================================

On a different note, please read the Japan Times Community Page tomorrow (Wednesday in the provinces). Another article coming out, this time as co-author. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

ENDS

外務省:人種差別撤廃条約政府報告に関する意見交換会07年8月31日:議会記録(抜粋)

mytest

Sorry, I had to remove the MOFA Aug 31 Meeting transcript for the time being at the author’s request. I’m afraid there won’t be an authorized version later either, because the writer meant for it to be a reference document for my use only. If you want to know more, contact me at debito@debito.org. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

REPORT: Right-wingers disrupt Aug 31, 2007 MOFA meeting on CERD

mytest

REPORT
RUMBLE AT THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
A hearing on human rights in Japan is disrupted by right-wingers
An eyewitness report from the front lines

By Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan (debito@debito.org, www.debito.org)
September 1, 2007, freely forwardable

SUMMARY: On August 31, 2007, a public meeting (iken koukan kai, reference site at http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/press/event/jinshu.html
[link is now dead, download webarchive file of site at https://www.debito.org/MOFAaug31meetinginfosite.webarchive]) on the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in Tokyo, was disrupted and sabotaged by right-wing troublemakers. Shouting epithets and arguments designed to wind up the human-rights NGOs, the unidentified right-wingers managed to bring the meeting to a standstill, while the six ministries attending the meeting showed a complete inability to keep the meeting under control. Proceedings ended a half hour early without hearing the opinions of all the attendees, and my opinion is mixed on whether or not the impasse could have been avoided by not taking the bait. In any case, it is a sign to this author that the ultraconservative elements within Japan are not only taking notice of the gain in traction for human rights in Japan, they are doing their best to throw sand in the deliberation process. We will have to develop a thicker skin towards these elements in future, as this is probably only the beginning.

This post is structured thusly:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) THE WARMUP
2) THE MEETING
3) THE DISRUPTION
4) THE AFTERMATH
5) CONCLUSIONS

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1) THE WARMUP

The CERD is the UN Convention against all forms of Racial Discrimination–which Japan signed in 1995 and still defies by not passing any laws against racial discrimination. The GOJ has to fill out a report every two years on what they are doing vis-a-vis racial discrimination, and is dreadfully late (filing its first report due 1998 in 2001, and none sense then). This hearing was for the government to get feedback from the NGOs regarding the GOJ’s stance taken so far (such as it is) before filing the next report (whenever that may be). That meeting took place at 3PM at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo.

Fifteen human-rights NGOs and legal groups (such as the JCLU, http://www.jclu.org), plus four individuals (your correspondent included), attended a pre-MOFA coordinating meeting, chaired by the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR http://www.imadr.org), to stress the following (excerpt):

1) The NGO-GOJ interface left a lot to be desired organizationally. The previous meetings (February and July 2006) with the MOFA (first labeled a “hearing” (hiaringu), later adjusted to an “exchange of views” (iken koukan kai) at our request) essentially heard our views, but offered no feedback from the relevant ministries that attended the meeting. Essentially junior bureaucrats would sit, listen, and act like the Sphinx as whether our opinions or questions mattered. We had never heard any feedback from them regarding questions and issues we raised in previous meetings (in fact, the information we would be offering feedback on that day had only arrived from the MOFA yesterday). We would lobby for that to be remedied.

2) The MOFA’s convening this meeting in August (with the announcement merely posted on the MOFA website at the beginning of the month, without notification of previous attendees) was a surefire way to decrease attendance due to the summer and short notice: We had 30 NGOs attending last time, this time half that (see my report on the July 28, 2006 meeting and proceedings at https://www.debito.org/?p=543). It seemed more a way for the bureaucrats to say, “Hey, we listened to the public, now we can do as we see fit”. We would lobby for more meetings where we had something to respond to–a rolling series of written and oral Q&A over months, if necessary. After all, what Japan puts out before the world could be potentially embarrassing if half-baked. We would offer as much feedback as possible so their reports would better reflect the world beyond Kasumigaseki.

3) We also anticipated there would be some resistance from attendees, since this was an open public meeting, meaning people who did not wish either us or this proceeding well might attend just to use time and disrupt things. We would lobby for people to keep to their time allotments and not offer sentiments that were entirely antithetical to the issue at hand–alleviating and eliminating discrimination.

However, we never anticipated just how antithetical things would get.

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2) THE MEETING

started on time at 3PM on the tenth floor of the MOFA building. The MOFA chaired the meeting because racial discrimination falls under their directive (discrimination against women, for example, falls under other another ministry–Health, Labor and Welfare–if it is a matter of Domestic Violence or labor. This makes it difficult to combine all forms of potential discrimination under a single movement in Japan, and why we believe it necessary to create a special government apparatus to deal with it (a move, as you shall see below, is seen as contentious).

Attending were one member of the National Personnel Agency (Jinjin), four from Education, three from Foreign Affairs, five from Justice, one from HL&W, and two from the National Police Agency. No nametags or attendance sheets were made public to us (although the bureaucrats knew who we all were), and all bureaucrats were, same as last July, junior members in their twenties and thirties who could speak authoritatively on nothing. Chairing the meeting was a forty-something Mr Kimura, the head of the MOFA’s Human Rights Section (Gaimushou Sougou Gaikou Seisakukyoku Jinken Jindou Ka, Jinshu Sabetsu Teppai Jouyaku Iken Koukankai Tantou), who clearly looked nervous about how things were going to proceed. Forty people were in attendance (down from 60 last time), and a great number were refraining from making eye contact with each other.

Trouble started immediately. The first person to raise his hand was an older man in his sixties who talked about discrimination of a different kind–how the Zainichis were being granted special privileges just because they had been born here and lived in Japan for several generations. They should abolish their “Special Permanent Residency” (tokubetsu eijuuken) status. Make them all regular Permanent Residents like any other, since they originally came here to to take advantage of Japan’s economics only. Snickers from some, loud applause from others, and Kimura cautioned the meeting to refrain from applause.

Our turn next. Our next few points were about the format of this meeting, as mentioned above. We also asked for the chair to please put a lid on discriminatory statements.

When it was my turn (I was sixth), I raised the point that the most recent survey conducted by the Diet Cabinet vis-a-vis awareness of domestic discrimination (details released in August, excellent translation and report at http://whatjapanthinks.com/2007/08/27/human-rights-in-japan-part-1-of-3/) only surveyed citizens (kokumin), not residents (juumin). So no wonder there were fewer responses regarding racial discrimination. Similar with the National Census (kokusei chousa), which does not survey by ethnicity (minzokusei). I for one have no way to indicate that I am a Japanese citizen with American roots. Same with the probably hundreds of thousands of Japanese children of international marriages in Japan. We just don’t know. Without adequate data on just how international Japan actually is, the GOJ will of course be at a loss on to make appropriate policy regarding discrimination and protection of human rights.

In one of the few answers we got from the bureaucrats today, Kimura noted that although the governing Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soumushou) was absent, but in absentia: the Census not measuring for ethnicity is a matter of privacy–we wouldn’t want to make people uncomfortable with overintrusive questions. This is the standard but bogus excuse–plenty of questions already made people uncomfortable last Census (2005, see https://www.debito.org/meijigakuin071705.html), and there is also the option not to answer at all; the GOJ just doesn’t want any information which would definitively confound the notion that Japan is a monoethnic society).

But for the rest of the day, we would get jeers from the bully boys in the back whenever we spoke, and have to tolerate epithets whenever they spoke:

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3) THE DISRUPTION

It turns out about 10 of the 40 people there either knew each other, or later banded together after the meeting for congratulatory back-slaps for a meeting well disrupted. Some of the points their camp raised were:

1) Discrimination, if it really does occur, is between individuals, and thus does not fall under the CERD. Likewise DV (an issue raised by a Filipina attendee from our group, who also talked about unequal care given culture in international marriage; she was heckled for not speaking Japanese) is something between a married couple, and rights for children should not be extended. We told Chairman Kimura to bring the focus back onto the CERD, but he did not clear the hall of people who would even deny the primacy of the UN in a hearing about the UN.

2) Koreans work against Japan and have odd ideologies–just imagine what trouble they would make if you gave them a post in the proposed human-rights Ombudsman proposed under the Jinken Yougo Houan? They compared any attempt to control or punishment of discrimination to Stalinism and thought police. (More of this genre of arguments available in Japanese and English at https://www.debito.org/abunaijinkenyougohouan.html). We asked Kimura to stop this discriminatory language towards Koreans, but even with some warnings he allowed the speech to continue.

3) The United Nations is not a body we should be listening to–we Japanese with our own unique culture and family structure–why should we be letting treaties and other countries with their unfitting standards be foisted upon our country, with its racial purity? Discrimination, if you can call it that, is justified when these foreigners shouldn’t be in our country anyway.

When one of the attendees then referred to a daughter of the Comfort Women (who successfully sued someone who attacked her at a speech for damages and a restraining order–I’m not all that familiar with the case) as a “bastard child” (shiseiji), we demanded the chairing representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs do something about this clear tangent, moreover violation of individual dignity and expressed epithet. It was his ministry’s mandate. He remained silent. Our side (particularly from the Zainichis in the room) then said that unless there was a retraction and an apology, this meeting should not continue. Their side said they would offer no such thing, and continued in this vein.

It almost came to blows. Even then, no security was called, and the people who would not be silent were not cleared from the room. Kimura then declared the meeting unable to continue and called it to a close at 4:30 PM.

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4) THE AFTERMATH

I was about to leave when one of the older men (almost all the people in this camp were older men, probably retired with time and money on their hands; we call them “grassroots right-wingers” (kusa no ne uyoku) actually came up to me with a smile and a friendly tone of voice. He began reading off some points he had written down and wanted me to hear (he clearly needed no feedback–so I listened):

White people in Japan have it good here because of Japan’s inferiority complex towards them. So discrimination cannot happen towards them. It only happens towards the lesser peoples of the world, and they’re only here taking advantage of the Japan we Japanese built up. They shouldn’t be here asking for anything. In any case, I as a superior Caucasian should have nothing to complain about. Those “Japanese Only” signs I referred to earlier during my spiel were merely efforts made by Japanese who have a complex towards foreigners and their foreign languages This was merely a shorthand for smoother business for them. Etc. etc.

I asked if he considered me a Japanese. He said yes, my Japanese was excellent, and I have citizenship. Good, thank you. So I mentioned the Otaru Onsens Case, and explained that despite my language level and citizenship, I had been refused entry just because I am White. He had never heard of it. I recommended my book. He repeated that he had never heard of it.

That’s the shortcoming of these types of people: Anything that has never entered their existence or view simply doesn’t exist. I let it go since there was no way to reach him. He shook my hand and gave me his card. Watanabe Tadashi, Vice President of the “Japan Family Value Society” (the J translation on the obverse is markedly different: He’s a member of the Hino City Assembly near Tokyo, Kikaku Soumu Iinchou, from the LDP. Opposes local ordinances guaranteeing the rights of the child, supports textbooks with the “proper” historical bent, and is vice-chair of the “kazoku no kizuna o mamoru kai), website http://www.watanabetadashi.net). Nice enough guy, but he should get out more.

I was the last one in the room, except for Chair Kimura and one of his staffers. I mentioned that proper procedure would have been to clear the room of those who wouldn’t obey the rules for a calm, peaceful gathering. He indicated that he thought it unthinkable to call security, soukaiya disruptions or not. I let it go again. No wonder people can’t deal effectively with bullies in this society.

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5) CONCLUSIONS

Our postmortem was an exercise in making the best of things. The person who demanded the apology said she was sorry for disrupting the meeting, but we would have none of it. There was no need to continue, the room held, because even the ministries were not doing their job of stopping epithets and hate speech–even when attendees deny the very need to follow UN treaty and the very need to hold this meeting. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to express hatred and disrupt calm and reasoned debate. If the conveners of the meeting cannot keep order, it’s no longer a viable meeting.

I am of two minds about what happened. The opinions above notwithstanding, I have the feeling we were played like a fiddle. Those people knew what would wind us up, and kept on poking us until we poked back. Yes, a proper chairman would have cleared the meeting of those people. But barring that, if I was everyone in our camp, I would have ignored the heckling, made my points calmly, stomached the epithets (only calling for time limits on speeches to be obeyed), and shown via the force of argument that our side was the stronger.

Then again, it’s entirely possible that this is what the MOFA wanted. These meetings are a nuisance for them. Now they can say there’s no need to have them again since they will only degenerate into shouting matches and potential fistfights. In the bad old days, in order for there to have been a hearing of this sort (and this was before the GOJ even bothered to listen to NGOs), there would have to be a Dietmember present. No Dietmember, no meeting. Now after liberalization, this event can now be used as an excuse for the bureaucrats to argue for a return to those ways. Whether that will happen is unclear, but in any case, the bully boys managed to sluice things off.

What’s next? Dunno. But it’s clear that we are getting closer to winning the debate–enough so that the Rightists feel threatened and need to appear and shout us down. If we don’t develop a thicker skin, and the coordinators of the meeting don’t take a more aggressive stand at keeping meetings calm and reasonable, there’s only going to be more of this in future.

Arudou Debito
Tokyo, Japan
September 1, 2007
MOFA JULY 31, 2007 CERD MEETING REPORT ENDS