Archives: Report Aug 1, 2006 on Diene, MOFA mtg, and Kouno Taro

Posted on September 1, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Somehow this never got archived last year, but it’s an important report. And since I’ve got a follow-up article to blog here after this, let me add this to the blog out of turn and refer to it in my current report. Arudou Debito in Tokyo.

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

From: Arudou Debito
Subject: [debito.org] Taro Kono and MOFA Tokyo mtgs update, Aug 1, 2006

Hello All. Arudou Debito here emailing you from near Todai in Tokyo. Two more mailings to send you before summer break. The first is an update on some things that happened during my current Tokyo trip. As follows:

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1) DIETMEMBER KOUNO TARO PRESS CONFERENCE JULY 31
2) FOREIGN MINISTRY FORUM ON UN CERD AND DIENE REPORT JULY 28
////////////////////////////////////////////
Preliminary report dated August 1, 2006. Freely forwardable.

DIETMEMBER KOUNO TARO PRESS CONFERENCE
AT THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, YURAKUCHO, TOKYO
Monday, July 31, 2006, 12PM-1:30PM

Attending as a guest of a FCCJ member, I listened to Lower House Dietmember, Senior Vice Justice Minister, and Prime Ministerial hopeful KOUNO Tarou give his thoughts at a luncheon on the future of Japan.

Kouno, 43, comes from a family of politicians. His father, current Dietmember Kouno Youhei, is a former cabinetmember and long-respected political powerhouse himself. A graduate of Georgetown University in the US and former employee of Fuji Xerox, Tarou is bilingual in English and gave his speech in that language. Now in his fourth term, Tarou was the first to announce his candidacy for the Prime Minister’s job back in May because, he said in the press conference, he was disturbed by the next-likely Prime Minister, Abe Shinzou, stating that the latter had stated the current pension system was financially sound despite the clear demographics of a shrinking Japanese population. His website can be found at http://www.taro.org.

His ideas have made some media waves (particularly his proposed 3% cap on the foreign population), and I have critiqued his proposed immigration policy plan in one of my Japan Times columns (July 11, 2006, see https://www.debito.org/japantimes071106.html).

He opened with his platform on energy, education, taxation, and pension policies, which I will skip for the purposes of this newsletter. When he opened the floor for questions, his answers were fortunately very indicative.

When asked about where he had gotten the “3% foreign population cap” (when if the population is projected to drop to 100 million by 2050, this means that the foreign population can only increase by another million–from the current population of 2 million–by then). He said that the 3% “is a cap but is not a cap”, stressing the need for the population to increase gradually. “When it reaches 3%, then we can talk about it again. The foreign population will increase, just not to the levels of 5% or 7% like we see in Europe in one step. It’s too early for Japan.”

He was especially critical of the “lying” he sees behind Japan’s immigration policy. “The front door is closed, yet the back door is open–for Nikkei workers and foreign trainees.” He called the early-1990’s policy to import Nikkei workers, ostensibly because they are “Japanese” by blood but in reality because they were simply cheap labor, “the biggest mistake”.

He favors a work environment where women and senior citizens can work to a more elderly age, but since even that will not make up the shortfall, there must be a national policy regarding immigration. The local governments should not have to suffer financially for hosting an unassimilated community of minorities which have grown big enough to become a self-sufficient language subculture. Rather, the national government should take it upon itself to take steps to assimilate these people in ways he outlined in my Japan Times article linked above.

However, if the national government is to try harder to assimilate immigrants, then the potential immigrant has to do the same. He stressed that there must be quantifiable language ability before arrival and improvement afterwards. “Give them three to five years to learn the language”, with tutelage and evaluation in ways not elaborated upon. As the situation for foreign residents stands right now, he called it “very sad”, as Nikkeis came over and found things different than they expected.

When asked whether or not he would favor the establishment of a racial discrimination law (no, it wasn’t me asking–I’m not a working journalist and thus not allowed to raise any questions), Kouno Tarou said that he was not: “Even if there is a law, the attitudes of society will not change.” He cited an example which is not even covered by international treaty (as it is an interaction between individuals): “If a foreigner asks for a date and is refused, is that racial discrimination?” He concluded with the importance of culture and nature before codifying change.

There were other points raised and questions asked, but for our readership these are the bullet points. I went up to him after the luncheon ended, gave him a copy of my book JAPANESE ONLY in Japanese (https://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html), and said this might help him understand why we need a racial discrimination law.

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

2) FOREIGN MINISTRY FORUM ON UN CERD AND DIENE REPORT JULY 28

Last Friday, I attended an 2-hour “iken koukan kai” (the second in what will hopefully be a series) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. Around eighty people and dozens of human-rights groups (we don’t know precisely who-the MOFA wouldn’t release the guest list) attended, to discuss how the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD, https://www.debito.org/cerd.html) should be implemented.

More specifically, our meeting would discuss Japan’s follow-up to the UN Reports of 2001 (see https://www.debito.org/japanvsun.html), now many years overdue, and to the Diene Reports of 2005 and 2006 where racism in Japan was reported as “deep and profound” and “practiced undisturbed” (see https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html). Several ministries, namely the Ministry of Justice, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, the Transportation Ministry [due to public works interfering with Ainu lands], and the Education Ministry, were in attendance. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted.

We had a pre-meeting at 1PM with our network of 30 NGOs and 5 concerned individuals (including volunteers, lawyers, businesspeople, students, and group representatives). Convocating and organizing was the group International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR, see http://www.imadr.org ), fronted by the very capable and young Mr Morihara (a person I see as a probable historical figure), who was largely behind UN Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene’s visits to Japan these past two years. Although the contents of this meeting are not something I can release to the public at this time, be it known that there was some trepidation expressed at the possibility of opponents attending to deliberately throw sand in the negotiations…

At 3PM the meeting started. The bureaucrats attending were almost all juniors in their twenties and thirties, except the chair of the meeting who was of kachou class (as usual, so nobody could speak on behalf of their ministries). After some preliminary remarks on the good works each ministry is doing in the name of human rights, we went person by person, row by row, with attendees making their stump speeches of being done wrong and how the government is in fact not helping out. We were told to limit our comments to one minute, though nobody did (it was impossible anyway), then the bureaucrats would respond after each row was finished. Six rows and three and a half hours later, we were done. Highlights:

I made a speech on how each ministry has ignored or overlooked human rights: Justice Ministry not even mentioning the possibility of an anti-racial discrimination law, Police targeting foreigners through campaigns and even DNA racial profiling (https://www.debito.org/NPAracialprofiling.html), Education Ministry talking about educating people about foreigners and foreign cultures instead of telling people how foreigners are residents too, and how the judiciary is not protecting us (Steve McGowan, losing plaintiff in the Osaka Eyeglass Exclusion Case, https://www.debito.org/mcgowanhanketsu.html, was in attendance, and sat next to me as I made the speech).

Others talked about problems with housing, health insurance, juuminhyou residency certificates, and the fact that the Diene Reports are were generally going ignored or justified out of existence. (Foreign Minister Aso Tarou spoke of the Diene report, in Gaikou Bouei Iinkai Meeting of May 18, 2006, to say essentially “that Diene’s visit was done as an individual, therefore the report is not binding as a UN report” (kankoku wa kojin no shikaku ni yoru no de, kokuren no kouteki kenkkai de wa naku houteki kousoku ryoku wa nai), and how Japan’s government would simply argue against it (nihon seifu to shite hanron bunsho o teishutsu suru). In the same month, leaders within the Foreign Ministry dismissed historical claims made by the Ainu, Zainichi Koreans, etc. as no longer modern (gendai teki keitai) enough to matter anymore to the discussion.

The right wing did indeed attend, with three old fogies (who mumbled their last names and refused to disclose their affiliations) waffling on about how it was all very well to talk about minority rights, but what of the majority of Japanese being “exploited” (sakushu) and Japan’s mythology (jinwa) no longer being taught in schools? After all, they said, what good is learning about foreigners if Japanese don’t learn about themselves properly? That was quickly shot down by one of our party who said, “Mythology and the CERD are unrelated, so can we move on?” We did.

At the end we did our standard practice of going up to shake hands with the bureaucrats, thank them for coming, and exit for a postmortem at a follow-up meeting. That meeting’s particulars are not something I can make public again, except to say that we established a specific network to deal with this situation. Not entitled “Coexistence with Foreigners” or some other such othering guff. It was a group (official title TBD) to fight against *racial discrimination*–because race, not nationality, is the issue here, and enough people now recognize it as such. This, above all, is the big victory of this trip.

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

Enough for now. More good news to follow in a few days. Thanks for reading.

Arudou Debito
Nezu, Tokyo
debito@debito.org
www.debito.org
August 1, 2006
EMAIL ENDS

Japan Times Aug 14 on Valentine Case, plus new JT column Aug 28

Posted on August 24, 2007August 24, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. About to jump on my bicycle again for a few days and catch the tail-end of the Hokkaido summer, but here’s a link to a Japan Times article on the Valentine Case, which came out shortly before my last cycle trip.

Japan Times column: “ABUSE, RACISM, LOST EVIDENCE DENY JUSTICE IN VALENTINE CASE: Nigerian’s ordeal shows that different standards apply for foreigners in court” (August 14, 2007).

Column 37 for the Japan Times Community Page
Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070814zg.html
More information and documentation on this case at https://www.debito.org/valentinelawsuit.html

Excerpt:
===============================
In 1999, a Brazilian resident of Japan named Milton Higaki was involved in an accident that killed a schoolgirl. Rather than face justice in Japan, he fled to Brazil fearing “discrimination as a foreigner in Japanese courts.”

Although the domestic media quickly saw this as a case of crooked-foreigner-as-flight-risk, human rights attorney Yasuko Morioka took a more nuanced view, criticizing Japan’s “lack of legal hearings that consider the rights of foreign(ers).”

While fleeing from justice is not to be condoned, cases like Higaki’s are more understandable considering the increasing awareness of the scarier aspects of Japan’s judicial system.

Not only is the United Nations aware of the potential for torture in Japan’s prisons (more below), but courts here also tend to use different judicial standards when coming to decisions in cases involving non-Japanese.

Consider the Valentine case…
===============================

Webbed with links to original sources on Debito.org at https://www.debito.org/japantimes081407.html Original blog report on this case at https://www.debito.org/?p=497

Meanwhile, next Tuesday, August 28 (Wednesday in the provinces) will see my next column coming out in the Japan Times Community Page, on how NJ are being blamed for just about anything these days, and how that adversely affects any possible assimilation.

Enjoy. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

レポート：イドゥボ逮捕と物的証拠なき半年拘留事件

Posted on August 22, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

　皆様こんにちは。Debito.orgの有道　出人です。たいへんご無沙汰しております。

　猛暑日のなか、この事件を申し上げることは恐縮ですが、報告を送信します。これは物的証拠がなくても拘留して迅速な裁判にしてもらう権利を問う事件です。

イドゥボ・オサユワメン，準強姦被告事件

　２００７年１月２２日、本日からちょうど７ヶ月前、横浜市で飲食店を経営しているナイジリア国籍のイドゥボ氏は加賀町警察に逮捕されました。容疑は、２００６年１１月1日に当飲食店にて酩酊している日本人女性が彼にレイプされたという訴えでした。イドゥボの弁護士津留崎基行（つるさきもとゆき）によると、「平成19年1月22日に準強姦罪で逮捕され，平成19年2月9日に準強姦罪で起訴されました。上記逮捕とそれに引き続く拘留により平成19年5月11日まで加賀町警察署に留置されていましたが，同日，横浜拘置支所に移監になり，現在も同所において留置されています。当職は，平成19年5月21日付けで保釈の請求をいたしましたが，却下されました。」物的証拠がないというものの、イドゥボ氏は未だに拘留されている。筋によると、一つの理由は外国人容疑者の場合、「海外に逃亡する可能性がある」と刑事裁判官が思われているかもしれません。

　アムネスティ・インタナショナルからの紹介で、私はイドゥボ氏の妻（ポランド国籍）から連絡をいただき、彼女は彼の健康状態について大変心配しております。半年以上拘留された結果、彼の頭皮に蕁麻疹が発生し脱毛となり、耳からも血が出ています。にもかかわらず、適切な看病や病院へのアクセスが拒否されているようです。

　（実は、これはバレンタイン裁判と同様です。０３年、ナイジリア出身のバレンタイン氏は警察に足が折られたと主張したものの、警察署は１０日間の留置で適切な医療行為を拒否して、保釈した本人は現在に至り有害者となりました。損害賠償を要請したバレンタイン氏は東京地裁に今年３月に却下され、現在控訴中。高裁判決全文、警察署の陳述と私が書いたジャパンタイムズの記事はhttps://www.debito.org/valentinelawsuit.html。ちなみに、国連の反拷問委員会が本年５月に発行した日本に対する留置中の「拷問に等しい待遇」についての批判はhttps://www.debito.org/?p=415)

　イドゥボ氏の弁護士からのメモを全文転送させていただきます。問い合わせ、ご取材などをどうぞ津留崎弁護士に直接ご連絡下さい。次回の裁判期日は9月3日（月）14:30〜午後5時です。宜しくお願い致します。有道　出人

／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／／

〒231-0011
神奈川県横浜市中区太田町1-20三和ビル4A
つるさき法律事務所　　　弁護士　津留_　基行
TEL:045-663-6874 / FAX:045-663-6895
email: tsurusaki AT tsuruhou DOT com

被告人イドゥボ・オサユワメン，準強姦被告事件の不合理な点

1　裁判で争われている公訴事実
　平成18年11月1日午前6時30分ころから同日午前9時30分ころまでの間に，飲食店店長であった被告人が，酩酊して抵抗不能な状態になっている客の女性を姦淫したというもの（準強姦）。

2　証拠の概況
　かかる強姦の事実があったことを示す物的な証拠は全くないと言っても過言ではなく，被害者の女性の供述がほぼ唯一の証拠となっている。

　もちろん，被告人は強姦の事実は否定しており，姦淫の事実すらないと述べている。

　ところが，被害者の女性の供述は以下の通り極めて不合理な点が多い。

3　被害者女性による供述の不合理な点
　被害者女性は複数の供述調書を残し，かつ公判廷でも証人として証言したが，供述する度に供述内容が変遷しており一貫していない。

　例えば，被害者女性は店の中でテキーラの一気飲みを3回したと供述しているが，最初の1杯を飲んだときに酔いが回って店の中で寝てしまったと供述したこともあれば，3回目に飲むまでは酔っていなかったと供述していることもある。また，レイプされている最中，自分の顔の上に被告人の顔があったと供述したこともあれば，被告人の顔は見えなかったと供述していることもある。

　また，被害者女性の供述は，客観的証拠とも合致していない点がある。

　例えば，被害者女性は被害に遭った後，パンティーに血がにじんでいたと供述しているが，証拠として提出されているパンティーの写真には血は付着していない。また，被害者女性は被告人に店舗の床の上で引きずられたと供述しているが，証拠として提出されている着衣の写真は全く汚れていない。

　その他，被害者の供述は，その供述内容自体が不自然である点が多い。

　例えば，被害者は，強姦の際に抵抗できないほど酔っていたと供述しながら，その直後に床上を這って店舗の入り口付近まで進んだと述べ，また，這って動くくらいかできないはずであるのに，その場所で足も届かないような高い椅子に自ら腰掛けたと述べ，そのようにする力があるにもかかわらず施錠もされていない店舗の外に逃げようともしていない。

　また，強姦の被害に遭った後，強姦した犯人であるはずの被告人の運転する車で友人宅まで送ってもらったと被害者は供述しているが，この点も通常は信じがたいところである。

　また，強姦の様子についても，その所要時間は1,2分程度で，犯人は射精もせずに自発的に姦淫行為を中断したと被害者が供述している点についても，通常は信じがたいところである。

　強姦被害に遭った当日の行動についても，被害者は当日の朝に抵抗できないほど酔った状態で強姦の被害に遭ったと供述しているにもかかわらず，同日の昼には友人の彼氏と2人でレストランに行って食事をとったと供述しており，強姦被害者の行動としては不自然といわざるを得ない。

　以上指摘した他にも，被害者の供述の中には，多数の不合理な点が含まれている。

4　弁護人の考え
　本件に関する証拠を吟味し，被告人との面会を重ねてきた弁護人は，被告人が本件について完全に無罪であることを確信している。

　そこで，是非とも無罪判決を勝ち取りたいと切望している。

5　要請事項
　時折，ニュースにおいて，真実は無実であるにもかかわらず有罪判決を受け，それが後に無罪であることが判明したという事件が報じられることがあるが，このようなケースは氷山の一角である。

　日本の刑事裁判の実態としては，起訴されれば99.9%有罪判決が出されるのが現状であり，どんなに弁護人が無罪を確信し，弁護活動をしたとしてもなかなか無罪判決が出されることはない。

　刑事裁判官の側に立てば，別の見方もありうるが，上のような現状認識が刑事弁護に携わっている多くの弁護士の共通認識であろうと思われる。

　とはいえ，このような現状を打破し，刑事裁判の結果を左右させるために，直接的に担当裁判所に対して政治的な圧力をかけるような行為は，裁判の公正を害する行為であるから慎まなければならない。

　有効なことは，公正な裁判が実現されるのかどうかを多くの人々が見守っているという事実を裁判所に何らかの形で知ってもらうことである。そのような監視の目があることを裁判所が認識すれば，公正な裁判を実現するために裁判所としては拙速を避けて慎重な審理を心がける可能性がある。

　例えば，裁判の傍聴は広く認められた権利であることから，多くの人達が裁判を傍聴することになれば，それによって裁判所も監視の目があることを意識するものと考えられる。

　もしも，次回の裁判期日（平成19年9月3日（月）14:30〜午後5時）に多くの傍聴希望者がいるとすれば，できる限り多くの傍聴人が裁判を傍聴できるように，広い法廷に変更してもらったり，傍聴人用の補助椅子を用意してもらうなどの要求を当職から裁判所に伝えたいと考えている。

平成19年7月6日
以上

Ijuuren publishes “Living Together with Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Japan, NGO Policy Proposals”

Posted on August 11, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hello Blog. Solidarity with Migrants Japan (SMJ, Ijuuren) has just published a book you might be interested in ordering. Debito in Sapporo

————————————————————–
Living Together with Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Japan
NGO Policy Proposals
————————————————————–

Table of Contents
Preface
Terms

Part I: At the Crossroads of Migrants Policies
Chapter 1: Toward the Future of Harmonious Multiethnic and
Multicultural Coexistence
Chapter 2: Enactment of Legislation for Human Rights and Harmonious
Coexistence

Part II: Over Individual Issues
Chapter 3: Right to Work and Rights of Working People
Chapter 4: Rights of Migrant Women
Chapter 5: Human Rights for Families and Children
Chapter 6: Education of Children
Chapter 7: Healthcare and Social Security Services
Chapter 8: Local Autonomy and Foreign Residents
Chapter 9: Opening the Gates to Refugees
Chapter 10: Detention and Deportation
Chapter 11: The Right to Trial
Chapter 12: Eliminating Racism and Discrimination against Foreigners

Publisher: Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan (Ijuuren, SMJ)
Date of publication: July 31, 2007, 1st English edition
Price: JPY 1500 (excluding mailing cost)
ISBN 4-87798-346-8 C0036

This book is translated from the Japanese version published in 2006.

More information on both books at http://www.jca.apc.org/migrant-net/Japanese/Japanese.html
ENDS

移住連０６年版『外国籍住民との共生にむけて−−ＮＧＯからの政策提言』は英訳版出版

Posted on August 11, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

頂いたメールを転送します。有道　出人

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
From: fmwj@jca.apc.org
Subject: [s-watch] 政策提言の英訳版を出版しました！
Date: August 9, 2007 6:41:41 PM JST
To: fmwj@jca.apc.org

　移住連の高谷です。
　０６年に出版した『外国籍住民との共生にむけて−−ＮＧＯからの政策提言』の英訳版を出版しました！
http://www.jca.apc.org/migrant-net/Japanese/Japanese.html

ご注文・お問い合わせは、移住連事務局までご連絡ください。
またお知り合いの方にもご案内いただけると幸いです。
なお日本語版も好評発売中です。こちらも併せてご利用ください。

***********************************************
移住労働者と連帯する全国ネットワーク
東京都文京区小石川2-17-41富坂キリスト教センター
２号館203号室
TEL：03-5802-6033　FAX：03-5802-6034
e-mail fmwj @jca.apc.org
URL

TPR on why the passage of HR 121, “Comfort Women” Resolution, is not a bad thing

Posted on August 10, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I listened last night to yet another excellent Trans Pacific Radio essay from Garrett DeOrio on HR 121 (the “Comfort Women” Resolution), and why its passage by the US House of Representatives on July 30, 2007, is not a bad thing.

What I didn’t know was all the “nicely, nicely” that went into it, and even then the Japan Lobby in Washington came down on it hard. But in his view this “meddling” just made matters worse for them in terms of PR. Excerpt follows:

======================
The negative view, that the US is meddling in the affairs of a sovereign Japan, is even more porous than the positive view.

For starters, as I mentioned above, the US House, through this Resolution, is not advocating, much less taking any action against Japan. There is nothing in H.R. 121 that suggests that even the House thinks Japan should take it seriously. Constituents of a member of the US House of Representatives, Mike Honda of California, made a complaint and Representative Honda took that complaint to the appropriate Congressional committee, in this case the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by Representative Tom Lantos, also of California.

The propriety of the Committee’s actions in this case should not be in doubt. Since when have governments or governmental agencies been concerned only with their own actions or incidents that occur on their own soil? Should the House Committee on Foreign Affairs be taken to task for condemning what is now going on in Darfur? Few outside of the Sudanese government would say so.

But when it comes to now peaceful Japan, such actions, even in the form of flaccid nudges, become “meddling.”

There is no meddling. No agent of any part of the US government is trying to change any internal policy in Japan. The closest thing to this would be the resolution that states that Japan “should educate current and future generations about this horrible crime while following the recommendations of the international community with respect to the ‘comfort women’.” This, though, is not telling Japan how to educate its children or plan its school curricula.

Meddling requires at least some hint of action.

The first two times H.R. 121 was set to face a vote in the Foreign Affairs Committee, it was taken off the agenda due to pressure from the six-figure-a-month Japan lobby in Washington. Pressure was put on members of Congress and diplomatic strings were pulled to silence the issue.

Members of the Government of Japan took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post demanding that the Resolution not be passed and Ryozo Kato, Japan’s Ambassador to the United States, threatened strained or damaged relations should the Resolution pass.

That, dear readers, is meddling.
======================

This is what the blogosphere can do best–present an alternative viewpoint from a dedicated researcher, and amplify it with good writing (unscathed from the again “nicely, nicely” tendencies of corporate journalism beholden to advertisers).

Have a read (or better yet, a listen; Garrett is a good reader) at http://www.transpacificradio.com/2007/08/02/the-comfort-women-resolution-hr-121-passed-why-thats-not-bad/

Well done again, Garrett. Debito in Sapporo

Japan Times’ series on divorce and child abduction in Japan, in part inspired by Debito.org

Posted on August 9, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. On Tuesday, August 7, 2007, the Japan Times ran three articles from Michael Hassett, Colin Jones, and Mark Smith, on divorce and child abduction in Japan. Wonderful!

But first, a word from one of the authors, Michael Hassett. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

=================================
August 6, 2007
Dear Debito,

I just wanted to let you know that an e-mail exchange that we had about two months ago has surprisingly developed into an article that will be published in “The Japan Times” tomorrow. I have attached the full version. A few small changes might be made.

For the print version of the newspaper, the article had to be shortened to a thousand words–so we just included the part about Japan, along with the conclusion–but a reference will be made to the full version, which will be posted online.

It is my understanding that this is going to be one in a collection of three articles–all on the themes of divorce, child custody, and child abduction–that will be published across the community and lifestyle sections tomorrow.

A lot of the credit for this article belongs to you. Your e-mail containing the story about your trip back to upstate New York and the emotional visits that you had with your daughter stimulated me to contemplate the likelihood of such events occurring, as I expressed in the e-mail that I then sent to you, the details of which I researched afterward to confirm the estimates I initially made.

I know that I and possibly many others do not provide feedback that often, but rest assured that we often find your reports stimulating and appreciate the time you take to keep us all informed. Michael Hassett, Tokyo

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

THE ZEIT GIST
Losing custody: the odds
By MICHAEL HASSETT
Special to The Japan Times, August 6, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070807z3.html

The turmoil of an acquaintance’s divorce recently caused me to contemplate the predictability of falling into such a mess.

This particular individual has not seen one of his children since July 2004, two years before his divorce was even finalized. A separate friend informed me that that ¥2 million and a good lawyer were able to convince his ex-wife to allow him access to his daughter three times a year — yet for only 30 minutes each time and with the provision that he was not allowed to tell his daughter that he was her biological father.

Many of us have heard of high-profile cases of divorce in Japan — such as former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi going two decades without seeing his youngest son, and the two children of Murray Wood being taken from their home in Canada by their Japanese mother — and we sympathize with the parents and particularly the children involved in these complex, highly emotional clashes.

But, increasingly in Japan, parents are divorcing, and one parent — usually the father — is losing custody of any children created during the marriage.

For those contemplating marriage in Japan or those currently in seemingly happy marriages here — particularly men — thoughts must be, “Could this happen to me? What is the risk?”

Specifically, can we determine the probability that a man who marries in Japan will have at least one child with his spouse, then divorce, and subsequently lose custody of any children? This likelihood is not that difficult to calculate, and sadly, it is rather high — over 21 percent…

Rest of the article at:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070807z3.html

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

THE ZEIT GIST
COMMUNITY: PARENTAL ABDUCTION
How will Japan respond?
By COLIN P.A. JONES
Special to The Japan Times, August 7, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070807z2.html

Japan has gotten a reputation as a haven for international parental child abduction. Cases making the news tend to be like that of Murray Wood, whose two children were spirited to Japan by their Japanese mother, even though Wood was granted custody by a Canadian court. A Saitama judge ignored the Canadian judgment by ratifying the children’s Japanese living arrangements. This story is hardly unique, as is evidenced by a list on the Children’s Rights Network of Japan Web site (www.crnjapan.com), which was set up by aggrieved non-Japanese parent.

The term “Japanese family law” may seem like an oxymoron to anyone who has experienced the well-intentioned but often ineffectual efforts of Japan’s family courts in child-custody cases, particularly when a foreign parent is involved. Some foreign consular officers are privately scathing when discussing such cases. Diplomats from one G-8 country who discussed the problem with family-court representatives were even told that in such disputes, custody would always be awarded to the Japanese parent — because only they, not the foreign parent, have a family register.

The U.S. State Department’s Web site describes compliance with Japanese family-court orders as “essentially voluntary, which renders any ruling unenforceable unless both parents agree.” Since the courts cannot enforce the return of an abducted child or visitation, they often seem to take the easy way out by finding the status quo to be in the best interests of the children involved. How else can they avoid appearing powerless and irrelevant?

Rest of the article at:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070807z2.html
================================

THE ZEIT GIST
U.S. takes tougher line on abductions to Japan
By MARK SMITH
Special to The Japan Times, August 7, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070807z1.html

Despite Ronald MacKinnon’s fears that his child would be abducted, the New Jersey Supreme Court in the U.S. recently gave permission for his divorced Japanese wife, Erika, to relocate with their daughter to Okinawa. On July 30, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay, so Erika is free to leave.

One might think that these precedents would have custodial parents racing to resubmit requests for international relocation. But instead, we may be about to witness a tsunami of cases similar to MacKinnon’s, albeit with a different outcome.

The gist of the NJSC ruling was that special factors are not required to distinguish international from domestic relocations. They reaffirmed that neither “fear (of abduction) alone” nor a country not being a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction should unnecessarily penalize a law-abiding parent. But two important aspects may have been overlooked.

First, the NJSC repeatedly pointed out that Erika had returned with Justine from trips to Japan in the past. Why, they queried, would she now choose to abduct?

The answer is that without a court’s permission to relocate, removing a child to Japan is a clear criminal violation. In such cases, the court typically awards sole custody to the left-behind parent within weeks or even days of the abduction and both local and federal arrest warrants for the Japanese parent are forthcoming. An Interpol notice follows, which makes the abducting parent subject to detention in countries worldwide — a prisoner within Japan. But when a court has given permission to relocate, the hurdles to proving a crime grow tremendously, complicated by thousands of miles and a legal system not very responsive on matters of international comity.

Rest of the article at
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070807z1.html

ENDS

Recent articles on lack of compulsory education for NJ children

Posted on August 5, 2007June 4, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Some articles substantiating the emerging issue of what happens when you don’t make compulsory education a requirement for non-Japanese children. How nice of Japan to bring NJ laborers all the way over here but not take care of their children’s educational needs. Thanks for forgetting to include that in your educational reforms last December, PM Abe. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

EDUCATION
Over 22,000 foreign kids need Japanese-language guidance at school
Japan Today/Kyodo Wednesday, August 1, 2007 at 07:06 EDT
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/413853
Courtesy of Matt Dioguardi

TOKYO — The number of foreign children attending public elementary and secondary schools in Japan who are in need of Japanese-language guidance as of last September increased 8% from a year earlier to a record high of 22,413, the education ministry said Tuesday.

The figure, which has risen for four consecutive years, covers foreign children who go to public elementary, junior high and senior high schools, according to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Among the students, 39% of them speak Portuguese as their first language, 20% Chinese, 15% Spanish and 11% Tagalog. (Kyodo News)

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

1% of foreign children not in school
Yomiuri Shinbun Aug 3, 2007
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070803TDY02001.htm>

Japanese original at
https://www.debito.org/?p=524
Courtesy of Matt Dioguardi

At least one percent of registered foreign school-age children living in the country do not attend either primary or middle school, according to an Education, Science and Technology Ministry survey. In addition, the whereabouts of 17.5 percent of children registered as foreign nationals is unknown, making it impossible to confirm whether they are going to school. The number of foreign children who do not attend school is believed to be much higher than 1 percent, according to ministry officials.

The ministry suspects that such a situation probably encourages juvenile delinquency and the illegal employment of such children. It will shortly establish a panel of experts to discuss measures to deal with the problem.

Between fiscal 2005 and fiscal 2006, the ministry asked the Shiga prefectural and 11 municipal governments, including Ota, Gunma Prefecture, and Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, where many foreign nationals live, to survey the ratio of out-of-school foreign children for the first time.

According to the survey released Tuesday, of the 9,889 registered foreign children aged between 6 and 15 subject to compulsory education, 112, or 1.1 percent, did not take steps to enter primary or middle school or transfer to such schools after moving from other locations.

Furthermore, 1,732, or 17.5 percent, did not live at their registered addresses, making it impossible to contact them.

The ministry believes some have already left the country without notifying municipal governments, while others might have moved to other municipalities in the country.

It suspects that some children do not go to school after their families moved to new areas.

Asked why they did not send their children to school, 15.6 percent of parents, the largest group, cited a “lack of money,” 12.6 percent cited the “language barrier,” and 10.4 percent said they had “immediate plans to return to their home countries.”

Some parents also said their children had to work or take care of their younger siblings.

The parents were allowed to give more than one answer.

===

‘22,413 need extra schooling’

On Tuesday, the ministry released data which said that as of Sept. 1 last year, of the foreign children and students attending public schools in the country, 22,413 at 5,475 schools needed extra teaching for Japanese language–an increase of 194 schools and 1,721 children from the previous year.

By mother-tongue, 8,633 spoke Portuguese, 4,471 spoke Chinese and 3,279 spoke Spanish.

ARTICLES END
///////////////////////////////////////

MOE’s original report cited in the article (Japanese):
文部科学省「日本語指導が必要な外国人児童生徒の受入れ状況等に関する調査（平成18年度）」の結果
http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/19/08/07062955/001.htm

ENDS

「日本語知らぬ」２２０００人　公立小中高校の外国人　過去最多　九州・山口は４２３人

Posted on August 5, 2007June 5, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

「日本語知らぬ」２２０００人　公立小中高校の外国人　
過去最多　九州・山口は４２３人
8月1日10時7分配信西日本新聞
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070801-00000009-nnp-soci
Courtesy of Matt Dioguardi

　九州・山口の公立小中高校に在籍し、日本語の指
導が必要な外国人児童生徒が昨年９月現在で計４２
３人に上り、４分の１の１０５人は指導自体を受け
ていないことが３１日、文部科学省の調査で分かっ
た。全国では同児童生徒が２万２４１３人と過去最
高に達し、１４％が指導を受けていないことも判明
した。同省は対策を検討する有識者会議を設置、９
月に初会合を開く予定。

　日系人労働者の増加などが要因。日本語の理解が
乏しい児童生徒は愛知が最多で４０８９人。次いで
神奈川２４０４人、静岡２３４３人、東京１７６２
人の順だった。全体で前年同期より８％増え、４年
連続の増加となった。

　九州・山口では、福岡が２１１人と最多。次いで
熊本５５人▽山口４１人▽大分３６人▽鹿児島２６
人▽宮崎２２人▽長崎２１人▽佐賀１１人‐だった。

　母国語別では、全体でポルトガルが３８、５％と
トップ。中国、スペインを含む３つの言語で全体の
７割以上を占めた。九州・山口では、同児童生徒の
数が横ばい傾向にあるものの、中国が全体の４割を
占め、日中関係の緊密化がうかがえた。

　各自治体は、日本語指導員の派遣や特別講義など
に取り組んでいるが、「財政難で教員増は難しい。
児童生徒の在籍期間が短い場合もあり、中長期的対
応は取りにくい」（熊本県教委）との声も上がって
いる。
＝2007/08/01付西日本新聞朝刊＝
ENDS

Yomiuri: Nikkei defecting from DPRK are stateless, have trouble becoming J citizens

Posted on July 26, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s another interesting angle to Japan’s funny nationality laws. First we get a person like Alberto Fujimori, who parachutes into Japan on the lam from international law, essentially claims asylum (leaping over the thousands of candidates waiting in line for years to naturalize or become refugees), does a runner to another country on another passport, and gets brought back to run in absentia in this current Japanese election as a candidate. All because of his Japanese blood.

Yet here we have a situation where people also have the same legitimate claim (Japanese blood) and are being denied citizenship anywhere, let alone Japan. All due to the politics of the region. Anyone find any consistency in Japan’s citizenship law application, please try to explain it to me.

Looking forward to this weekend’s election results. If Fujimori actually gets elected, I will, er, well, I don’t know what I will do. Perhaps be speechless for once. Debito in Sapporo

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

24 defectors from DPRK still stateless / Prejudice rife in catch-22 situation
The Yomiuri Shimbun Jun. 13, 2007
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20070613TDY01003.htm
Courtesy Jeff Korpa

At least 24 defectors from North Korea living in Japan remain stateless, largely due to the lack of clear government guidelines on how to determine the nationalities of such defectors, it has been learned.

The statelessness of the 24 people also is a result of each local government having been left to its own devices regarding how to deal with the registration of the foreign defectors.

Observers have pointed out that the North Koreans face discrimination in finding employment and encounter difficulties earning a regular income as long as they remain stateless, hampering their efforts to become naturalized Japanese.

While the number of North Korean defectors living in Japan is rapidly increasing, the government has virtually no support system in place for them, they said. North Koreans have been defecting to Japan since the late 1990s. Many of them fled to China overland, before seeking shelter in the Japanese Consulate General in Shengyang, China.

The government permits Japanese wives of former pro-Pyongyang Korean residents of Japan and their descendants to live in Japan, as they are seen to have relatives here. Many pro-Pyongyang residents emigrated to North Korea in the resident repatriation project from 1959 to 1984. Under the scheme about 93,340 pro-Pyongyang residents in Japan, their Japanese wives and children left for North Korea.

By the end of last year, about 130 defectors were living in Japan, with nine people having entered the country this year, government sources said.

A support group for the defectors interviewed 82 defectors residing in Japan in February and confirmed 24 children and grandchildren of the Japanese wives remain stateless, the group’s official said.

Among the remaining 58 defectors, some Japanese wives reobtained Japanese nationality after they became naturalized citizens. Others gained Korean nationality and later changed to South Korean nationality in most cases.

In 1966, the Justice Ministry issued a notice to municipal governments to describe the nationality of North and South Koreans as Korean when they made their initial application for a foreign registration card. In a 1971 precedent, the nationality of those who were born on the Korean Peninsula stated on foreign registration cards was Korean.

The immigration authorities insist that every municipal government is supposed to follow this precedent. But some municipal government officials said such defectors are recognized as stateless as they do not have passports or any identification documents.

Under the current Nationality Law, Japanese wives of former pro-Pyongyang Korean residents can reobtain Japanese nationality easily, but their children and grandchildren face difficulties in naturalization unless they have sufficient income to support themselves.

(Jun. 13, 2007) ENDS

UN.ORG on pushes to make sure HRC holds all countries accountable

Posted on July 25, 2007June 6, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. The UN News has been issuing press releases to make sure the Human Rights Council doesn’t become as emasculated as the former Human Rights Commission–by holding all countries accountable with periodic reviews of their human rights records.

Good. Japan in particular is particularly remiss, given its quest for a seat on the UNSC without upholding its treaty obligations, particularly regarding Japan’s refusal to pass a law against racial discrimination, and file reports in a timely manner (last report was due the HRC all the way in 2002!). The UN is quite well aware of this, and has been highly critical of Japan’s unfettered racism in recent years. UN Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene has been well recorded on the Debito.org Blog as well. Debito in Sapporo

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

From: UNNews@un.org
Subject: SECRETARY-GENERAL WELCOMES AGREEMENT ON DETAILS OF UN HUMAN RIGHTS REVIEW
Date: June 21, 2007 7:00:24 AM JST
To: news5@secint00.un.org
Reply-To: UNNews@un.org

SECRETARY-GENERAL WELCOMES AGREEMENT ON DETAILS OF UN HUMAN RIGHTS REVIEW
New York, Jun 20 2007 6:00PM

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the Human Rights Council’s agreement setting out how its universal periodic review mechanism will work, saying it “sends a clear message” that the rights record of every country faces serious and meaningful examination.

“No country – big or small – will be immune from scrutiny,” Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement, adding that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society groups need to play an active role in the review to ensure the process works.

“The periodic review holds great promise for opening a new chapter in human rights promotion and underscores the universality of human rights.”

Council members agreed yesterday on the modalities for universal periodic review after several days of marathon discussions. Each year 48 nations, comprising a mixture of Council members and observer States, will be reviewed to assess whether they have fulfilled their human rights obligations.

The modalities were decided as part of a package of new measures and decisions that includes the continuation of the work of Special Rapporteurs and other independent human rights experts.

But in today’s statement, Mr. Ban voiced disappointment at the Council decision to single out Israel as the only specific regional item on its agenda, “given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.”

The 47-member Council also agreed to end the mandate of the Special Rapporteurs on the situations in Belarus and Cuba, while retaining the other 39 mandates under the so-called “special procedures” system.

Mr. Ban noted “that not having a Special Rapporteur assigned to a particular country does not absolve that country from its obligations under the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and every other human rights treaty.”

The statement from his spokesperson added that the Secretary-General “trusts that members of the Council will take seriously their responsibilities and continue to seek out ways to improve the Council’s work in the months and years ahead.” He also noted that Council members “worked hard to reach consensus on a number of issues.”

Meeting today in Geneva, the Council also adopted resolutions on the situation in Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territory and Darfur.
2007-06-20 00:00:00.000

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

From: UNNews@un.org
Subject: UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL URGED TO KEEP SYSTEM OF INDEPENDENT EXPERTS
Date: June 12, 2007 6:00:23 AM JST
To: news5@secint00.un.org
Reply-To: UNNews@un.org

UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL URGED TO KEEP SYSTEM OF INDEPENDENT EXPERTS
New York, Jun 11 2007 5:00PM

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights today urged the Human Rights Council to maintain its system of independent experts and others who shine a spotlight on troubling situations around the world.

Louise Arbour told the Council, meeting in Geneva for the start of its fifth session, that the special procedures system – or the mechanisms, from rapporteurs and experts to working groups, which the Council can use to explore either specific country situations or thematic issues – “represents a critical component in the protection and promotion of human rights.”

She also underscored the importance of the system known as “universal periodic review,” which allows the Council to scrutinize the human rights records of all countries in a regular, rotating manner, predicting it “will develop into a leading instrument” for upholding human rights.

“Reaching an agreement on its framework was not an easy task, but the Council is set to achieve that goal,” she said, urging members to “bring your institution-building efforts to completion.”

The General Assembly resolution that set up the Council last year to replace the discredited Commission on Human Rights agreed that the universal periodic review mechanism must be created by June this year and the special procedures system – kept on from the Commission – must undergo a review during the same period.

Over the course of its current session, Council members will hear from a number of its special rapporteurs and independent experts on country-specific situations and thematic issues, including Belarus, Cambodia, Somalia, adequate housing, judicial independence and the right to food. In addition, the Council’s Expert Group on Darfur is expected to present its report.
2007-06-11 00:00:00.000

J Times: Ogata Sadako on J refugee policy

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Revealing interview of a person trained to be diplomatic at all times… Debito in Sapporo

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

Sadako Ogata was the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991-2001, and has been President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since 2003. Here, she talks frankly to The Japan Times about Japan’s attitudes to those who flee their homelands and seek sanctuary on these shores.

REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Diplomat rues Tokyo’s ‘lack of humanity’ to asylum-seekers
By JEFF KINGSTON
The Japan Times: Sunday, July 8, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070708x1.html
Courtesy of Matt Dioguardi

Are there signs of progress in the grim situation facing asylum-seekers in Japan?

From 1979-89, when the Indochina refugee issue was hot [after the Vietnam War], there was a lot of energy and effort focused on refugees and resettling them in Japan. In 1979, I was asked to lead a mission to the Thai-Cambodian border. It was the first time I saw a massive refugee outflow and presence. At that time Japan pledged to provide half the funding for the UNHCR Indochina refugee program. That was the first big step Japan took toward helping the Indochina refugees. In addition, Japan agreed to accept an initial 500 refugees for resettlement, and in the next year the number went up to 10,000.

In the early 1980s, Japan’s economy was rising and it faced rising expectations for shouldering some of the burdens — and it lived up to those expectations. It would be interesting to examine the outcomes for the Indochina refugees. I think there are some good stories there that would reassure the public about the consequences of accepting refugees.

In 1981, Japan also became a signatory to the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees, but then the numbers of refugees accepted went way down. Japan’s approach to refugees under the Convention has been very reserved. This may come back to haunt Japan if there is a crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Will other countries help with resettling large numbers of North Korean refugees — or only provide financial assistance?

Critics argue that Japan is guilty of checkbook diplomacy — contributing significant funding but accepting so few refugees. Is this a fair assessment?

Yes, that is accurate to a degree, but at the same time there were not that many asylum-seekers landing in Japan after the Indochina crisis. Since Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention in 1989 by the military regime in Myanmar, there has been an increase in Burmese asylum-seekers — and more recently from Afghanistan — but it has not been a massive outflow. Individual cases are considered and there the Japanese tendency for a meticulous judicial approach, asking for complete documentation that most refugees don’t have, came to dominate refugee reception policies. It has been a very legalistic approach showing no humanitarian sense to those who had to flee.

Is that changing?

Every year I would come and lobby Justice Ministry officials about their policy toward refugees, but I don’t think there was that much progress. Maybe I should have worked harder on Japan, but I was so busy with millions of people globally, whereas in Japan they were only trickling in. Maybe I should have been more firm. I don’t think it was just checkbook diplomacy — there were also lots of Japanese volunteers who came to help with the refugees, and efforts by NGOs, maybe not on a large scale, but still significant.

In terms of asylum, Japan has not been the best humanitarian country. Japan is not a refugee power in global terms — refugees go where they know they will be received and can find support. From Japanese officials’ perspective, the fewer that came the better. The government thinks of this as taigan no kaji (fire on the opposite riverbank), in the sense that it is not an immediate crisis situation facing Japan.

What are the diplomatic costs of Japan’s restrictive policy toward refugees?

The costs, unfortunately, are not so high. Everywhere the door is closing against refugees. Look at the United States and Europe — the commitment to helping refugees is fading, and that means that Japan will not suffer much criticism for its policy. So I don’t think that Japan’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council will be harmed by its poor record on refugees.

Are government policies and attitudes improving?

Groups of lawyers have been very devoted to helping asylum-seekers and have exposed weaknesses in the legal system regarding asylum-seekers. At least they made some changes and expanded the appeal process and brought in some outsiders including some NGO people to hear the appeals. So in that sense there has been a slight improvement. And now they have added a category of humanitarian consideration (asylum-seekers who are not recognized as Convention refugees but are still allowed to stay in the country). There are more cases of asylum-seekers being awarded humanitarian status than refugee status.

Within JICA [the Japan International Cooperation Agency] a group was organized to help Ali Jane, an ethnic Hazara from Afghanistan, and (it) published a book — “Mother I Am Still Alive” — and my colleagues actually found his mother. There are good stories of real humanitarian consideration. Not everybody is cruel, but the legal process is less than what I would like to see.

The Justice Ministry says it doesn’t want to get ahead of public attitudes, and the Japanese people are not ready for an influx of refugees.

They are very strict. In my discussions with them there is rarely any reference to humanitarian considerations.

What is the logic of Japan’s exclusionary policy?

This is a very bureaucratic country. Bureaucrats think they know what is best and act in the name of the people. NPOs have a much freer way of thinking and promote closer contact with people of other countries. Things are opening up a bit. However, there is still the myth of one race and homogeneity, even though it is slowly fading. Globalization is slowly undermining these wrong assumptions.

Isn’t there a disconnect between the demographic time bomb and attitudes toward refugees?

Japan’s need for foreign labor is changing the context of the debate over migrants. And civil society is also playing a role. If we leave it to the natural flow of asylum-seekers, they won’t come to Japan unless there is a huge crisis on the Korean Peninsula — but we need foreign labor and a more open society.

Should the UNHCR think of more resettlement efforts like those with the Indochinese refugees?

Yes. Japan had a good experience with the Indochinese refugees and accepted more than 10,000 in the end. Perhaps it would help if Japan worked with UNHCR and set up a quota and opened up the country to bring some people out for resettlement. The U.S. had a quota of over 100,000, which came down to 80,000 during my tenure, and under the Bush administration it has become much smaller. But there are currently negotiations about giving asylum to Bhutanese in Nepal and/or Karens out of Myanmar who are in border camps in Thailand. There is screening going on. The question is whether Japan might also participate in this resettlement project and respond to this humanitarian crisis in Asian countries. Some kind of resettlement program seems likely, and discussion between the UNHCR and the Japanese government is ongoing. I expect this will start on a small scale.

What are the prospects for Japan accepting more refugees?

Prolonged recession has undermined the context for reception of foreigners, and Japan has a poor record on integrating foreign workers properly. It is hard for the public, media and government to differentiate between the mixture of refugees, economic migrants and criminals seeking entry. And very often there are those who blame crime on illegal foreign people. There are plenty of Japanese committing crimes but foreigners are easy targets. And we have more than 300,000 Brazilians of Japanese origin and their situation has not been very good. The problem is that Japan has had an open approach to receiving many foreigners, for example “entertainers,” rather than refugees . . . but keeping people out doesn’t always assure your security.

The Japanese government has been reluctant to criticize Myanmar, but in the last 10 years the largest number of asylum-seekers gaining refugee status have been from Myanmar. By recognizing them as refugees, is the government acknowledging that the military junta is repressive and that these people are being persecuted?

It is a very repressive regime and a political signal is being sent. There are historical reasons for Japan’s sympathy for the Burmese dating back to World War II — and especially since the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi.

How could the UNHCR be more effective resettling refugees in Japan?

Of all international agencies here, the UNHCR is the only one that has to deal primarily with the Justice Ministry, and it should maintain good and close working relations with that ministry. The UNHCR advocates for non-nationals, while the Justice Ministry sees its role as protecting Japanese nationals, and this collides with humanitarian considerations. It’s not just Japan, the UNHCR has had similar problems in Europe. Germany was the country I visited most frequently because they received a lot of refugees, and there were many problems. This is the job of the UNHCR, but it doesn’t have to be confrontational. Emphasizing and improving legal procedures, while bringing humanitarian considerations into the discussion, is most effective. This is the role of the UNHCR.

How do you regard the Refugee Film Festival?

It is one of the better efforts of the UNHCR in awareness raising. It certainly touches a lot of people and reaches out to those who did not have much knowledge of, or interest in, refugee issues. I was especially touched by the film “Live and Become.”

Any final thoughts?

The Justice Ministry’s strict policies are not the whole story. There are other government officials who are concerned and trying to improve things, and lawyers and NGOs are also working toward creating better conditions. The time is coming when the Justice Ministry becomes fully involved to solve refugee problems in proper and humane ways.

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

Two weeks after our interview, Dr. Ogata’s staff informed me that she was infuriated and deeply disappointed by the June 11 decision of Justice Minister Jinen Nagase to ignore a Tokyo High Court ruling recognizing the refugee status of the Afghan asylum-seeker Ali Jane. She and her staff at JICA had taken a personal interest in the plight of this ethnic Hazara who narrowly avoided deportation from the Ushiku Detention Center in Ibaraki Prefecture. Freshmen JICA staff, hearing about this story from a lawyer who participated in their orientation program, researched Ali Jane’s history and published a book that went into three printings, selling some 21,000 copies. Five years ago, he applied for refugee status, but was turned down by the Justice Ministry. He then pursued his case in the courts and seemingly prevailed in the appeal process. However, Justice Minister Nagase decided against granting him refugee status and instead awarded him a special status visa, apparently because he is married to a Japanese woman.

The Japan Times: Sunday, July 8, 2007

ENDSA

J Times column on Hair Police and NJ educational underclass

Posted on July 18, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Yesterday (July 17, 2007) the Japan Times Community Page published my 36th column, on the “Hair Police” in Japan’s schools, and how they are part of the forces in Japan interfering with NJ education.

I’ve just put up a “Director’s Cut” version on my regular website, with links to sources. That can be found at:

https://www.debito.org/japantimes071707.html
—————————–

UPDATE: It’s available at the Japan Times site at
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070717zg.html

Have a read! Debito

EXCERPT:
=============================

THE ZEIT GIST
Schools single out foreign roots
International kids suffering under archaic rules

By DEBITO ARUDOU
The Japan Times: Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Column 36 for the Japan Times Community Page
“Director’s Cut” with links to sources
Courtesy http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070717zg.html
PDF scan of the article courtesy Ben Goodyear at https://www.debito.org/JTHairPolice071707.pdf

Since 1990, when Japan started allowing factories to easily import foreign labor, the number of registered non-Japanese (NJ) residents has nearly doubled to more than 2 million. [SOURCE]

Many migrant workers have become immigrants: staying on, marrying, and having children.

Some have faced illegal work conditions, according to the domestic press: incarceration, physical and emotional duress, even child labor and virtual slavery. [SOURCE 1, SOURCE 2, SOURCE 3, SOURCE 4] Policymakers at the highest levels are currently debating solutions. [SOURCE]

Good. But less attention has gone to the children of these immigrants, particularly their schooling. This is a crisis in the making for Japan.

The bellwether of any country’s internationalization is the altered composition of the school population. Many of Japan’s immigrant children are becoming an underclass, deprived of an education for being born different than the putative “Japanese standard.”

GAKKOU NO IRO NI SOMARU…

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

SIDEBAR

Dealing with the ‘follicle enforcers’
Following is some advice on what to do if your child gets nabbed by the school “hair police.”

1. Support your child. Reassure him/her that he/she is as “normal” as anyone else.

2. Seek an understanding with teachers and the principal. Point out that variation is normal. There are plenty of Japanese with naturally lighter, curly hair.

3. Get written proof from your previous school that your child’s hair color or texture is natural.

4. Raise this issue with the Classroom Committee of Representatives (“gakkyuu iinkai”) and/or the local Board of Education (“kyoiku iinkai”). With all the attention on “ijime,” or bullying, these days, the board may be sensitive to your concerns.

5. Be firm. Dyeing hair is neither good for your child’s mental or physical health.

6. If compromise is impossible, consider changing schools (“tenkou”). Your child deserves a nurturing educational environment, not alienated by perceived “differences” on a daily basis. (D.A.)

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

Full article at:
https://www.debito.org/japantimes071707.html
ENDS

Valentine Lawsuit: NPA denies medical treatment to suspect, Tokyo Dist. Court rules testimony invalid due to witness being African

Posted on July 15, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

“WE CAN’T TRUST THE TESTIMONY OF BLACK PEOPLE”
ANOTHER CASE OF JUDICIAL MISCARRIAGE
A NIGERIAN INJURED AND DETAINED IN J POLICE CUSTODY
LOSES HIS LAWSUIT AGAINST THE NATIONAL POLICE AGENCY

Report by ARUDOU Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org
Freely forwardable
Released July 15, 2007

Japan Times Community Page article, August 14, 2007, on this case, entitled “Abuse, racism, lost evidence deny justice in Valentine Case”, available here.

This post is organized thusly:
SUMMARY
WHY THIS CASE MATTERS TO DEBITO.ORG
FACTS AND ASSERTIONS OF THE CASE
CONCLUSIONS

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
SUMMARY: According to court records, on December 9, 2003, UC Valentine, a Nigerian citizen working in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo, was questioned by plain-clothes police on suspicion of violating laws forbidding the distribution of hand-held billets to passersby. Eventually a scuffle ensued in a narrow alley, where a melee of police and touts wound up with an injured Valentine being pinned to the ground by several police. Plaintiff Valentine claims that he was assaulted while being restrained, by a cop who repeatedly kicked Valentine’s leg so hard that it broke below the knee. The police claim that Valentine injured himself, running away and crashing knee-first into an elevated bar sign attached to the alley wall. In any case, Valentine was apprehended and interrogated for ten days, denied hospitalization or adequate medical treatment for the interim. Consequently, his leg injury became so medically traumatized that it required complex hospital operations. To this day Valentine remains physically impaired and in constant pain. In 2005, Valentine sued the NPA for damages and hospital bills totaling 42,937,800 yen in Tokyo District Court, but lost his case on March 29, 2007. Inter alia, the court ruled that not only was a doctor’s expert testimony about Plaintiff’s crippling injuries merely “a sense, not based upon rational grounds”, but also that a witness’s testimony was inadmissible because he is African. Clearly there is an emerging pattern of differing standards for non-Japanese claimants in Japanese courts.

The case is currently on appeal in the Tokyo High Court. First hearing on Tuesday, July 17, 2007, Tokyo Koutou Saibansho 8F, Rm 808, 1:30PM. Attend if you want.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Heisei 17 (wa) Dai 17658, Tokyo District Court, Civil Court Dai 44-Bu
Plaintiff: UC VALENTINE
Defendant: Tokyo Municipal Government (Tokyo-to), Governor ISHIHARA Shintaro et al.

Tokyo District Court decision full text in Japanese at
https://www.debito.org/valentinelawsuit.html
NPA’s fishy photo testimony of what happened at
https://www.debito.org/valentinelawsuit.html#NPAtestimony
Plaintiff Valentine’s testimony in English
https://www.debito.org/valentinelawsuit.html#etestimony

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

WHY THIS CASE MATTERS: Setting aside any “he-said, she-said” doubts about different recall of the facts of the case, both parties agree that Valentine was detained in police custody for ten days without hospitalization. This caused his medical condition to worsen to the point of debilitation. This was not, however, seen by the judiciary as something the police should take any responsibility for.

As far as Debito.org goes, from a judicial standpoint this case is also of great concern due to differing standards for evidence based upon nationality. The judge, when dismissing the case, actually goes so far as to say (page 19) that testimony of a witness for Valentine (who vouches for his version on the police breaking his leg) cannot be trusted because it is “from the Black Community”. To quote:

===============================
“In light of the fact that the witness has been acquainted with the Plaintiff , visiting him in hospital after his leg was broken, and is a friend of quite some closeness, and the fact that they associated with each other within the Black Community in Kabukichou, witness Francis’s testimony as an eyewitness account is not something we can see as having objectivity, and as such cannot possibly believe.”

“shounin wa, juuzen kara genkoku to menshiki ga ari, honken kossetsu go mo genkoku o byouin wo mimatteiru nado kanari shitashii koto ga ukagatteiru yuujin de ari, kabukichou no kokujin no komyunitei no nakama de atta koto tou o terasu to, shounin Furanshisu no kyoujutsu wa, mokugeki shougen to shite kyakkansei o yuusuru mono to wa iezu, kono mama shinyou suru toutei dekinai”
https://www.debito.org/valentinelawsuit.html#19
===============================

Hm, try disqualifying a person’s testimony because he’s a member of a Black Community (not to mention because he is a friend who visits the Plaintiff in hospital), and see how that gets you in the judiciary of most of the world’s other developed countries. Moreover, the accounts of other police officers are not similarly called into doubt for having too much closeness in their own “community”.

I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Check out the cracked judge in the McGowan Case of 2006, where the Plaintiff (an African-American) was refused entry by an eyeglass shop expressly because the shopkeep “hates black people”. There, Osaka District Court Judge Saga Yoshifumi ruled against the gaijin there too. Inter alia, McGowan and his Japanese wife’s eyewitness accounts were deemed insufficient due to an alleged language barrier. Full details on that case (starting with a Japan Times article) at
https://www.debito.org/mcgowanhanketsu.html#japantimesfeb7

In this case, presiding Judge Sugiyama et al go one better, and say that because they are black they are thick as thieves…

It’s one of the reasons we are seeing cases of suspects escaping overseas because they believe they’re going to get a raw deal in a Japanese court due to their foreignness.
https://www.debito.org/?p=361

I have no sympathy for wanted criminals, of course, but neither the McGowan nor the Valentine Cases are criminal cases. And still they got raw deals–court defeats. Due to a different set of judicial standards applied to foreigners than to Japanese. Adding these cases to the collection.

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

FACTS AND ASSERTIONS OF THE CASE
(based upon the court decision and with Valentine’s claims)

On December 9, 2003, UC Valentine (born 1972 and married to a Japanese from 2002) was working his shift as a show club distributing pamphlets to potential clients. In the early evening, he was approached by two plain-clothes officers who appeared to Valentine to be customers (Valentine asserts that they did not identify themselves as police until a melee ensued).

Minutes later, in a narrow alleyway close to the show club, other members of the Black Community shouted repeatedly to Valentine, “Leave them!”, apparently aware that they were either police or yakuza. What happens next depends on the side of the courtroom you’re sitting, but in any case, due either to panic (Valentine) or guilt (police), Valentine fled, then found himself being restrained by three cops on the ground in the alleyway. He was arrested on suspicion of violating the Entertainment and Amusement Trades Control Act (Fuueihou) Art. 22 Sec. 1 for distributing nightlife pamphlets on the street.

Somewhere in this scuffle Valentine’s right leg was broken below the knee. Valentine’s version (as was his eyewitness’s, unfortunately Black) is that a police officer named Tanabu kicked him several times in the knee, even while the former was being restrained by two other cops. The cops say (in photo-reenacted evidence shown to me in person by Valentine and his wife on April 26, 2007, and scanned at Debito.org at https://www.debito.org/valentinelawsuit.html#kneebash) that when Valentine fled, he crashed into a metal sign (jutting out in a triangle from the wall) knee first, breaking his leg.

What’s fishy about this story is when you look at the photograph, the sign is actually on a wall 23 cms high, with a sidewalk below it showing a raised curb and two steps. Valentine was nimble enough to avoid tripping over three steps, but somehow not nimble enough to avoid the sign. When you consider that this happened on a December 9 around 8PM, when the sign is likely to be lit and the steps in shadow, it is odd that the more visible object is the thing Valentine allegedly crashed into.

Also odd is that if he crashed into the sign knee-first, it should have broken his knee, not the bone below his knee. However, the police apparently confiscated Valentine’s pants for analysis, and after some time finally returned them with no report on whether or not there were traces of footprint.

Valentine was held in police custody between December 9 and 19, 2003, and, despite being put into a cast, given no access to a hospital. According to his testimony (https://www.debito.org/valentinelawsuit.html#etestimony), he claims that police interrogation involved quid pro quos–access to painkillers and his wife in exchange for signing documents, one a statement stating inter alia that the police did not injure him. On Day 10 of his interrogation, once the clause about injury was eliminated, Valentine signed and was turned over to Immigration, who called an ambulance and hospitalized him at Ebara Byouin, Tokyo, immediately. His leg was apparently busted up so badly (a case the doctor who treated him, whose testimony was entered into the court record (page 17 (i)), said he had never seen the likes of before) that it required rib bone transferal to the area at great time and expense.

Situations like these in Japanese custody have come under fire in 2007 by the United Nations Committee Against Torture. See
https://www.debito.org/?p=494

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

WHY THE COURT REJECTED VALENTINE’S SUIT

In addition to dismissing the eyewitness testimony due to being members of the wrong ethnic community, the decision makes two singularly interesting points, also indicative of this court’s odd standards of evidence:

1) In order for a foreigner to sue the State of Japan, the foreigner’s home country laws must also cover a Japanese in the same situation in that country (page 13 3.1 (1)). I’m not a lawyer, but I would have thought that Japan’s laws apply to everyone equally, including foreign residents, regardless of their country of origin. Fortunately, the judges rule that Valentine’s Nigerian citizenship does not void his ability to sue the State.

2) Despite acknowledging the expertise of Valentine’s examining doctor at Ebara Byouin, the judges dismiss their medical testimony as merely “a sense” (kankaku teki), not “rational grounds” (gouriteki na konkyou–page 17 (i)). The judges even decide (in their somehow professional medical opinion, on page 15 u (a)) that Valentine’s leg didn’t get that much worse while in custody. Then they even judge on their own recognizance (page 16 item e) that Valentine’s bones are strong–so he must have run into that sign pretty hard to hurt himself. After all, shoes, they say, inflict “pinpoint injuries”, and Tanabu’s “rubber shoes” wouldn’t cause the injuries that Valentine suffered (page 16 a (a)). Shoes are apparently incapable of stomping from the heel, I guess.

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

CONCLUSIONS

There are other fine points, such as who did what to whom with what, and whether people were running slow or fast, but never mind. The point still remains that Valentine was crippled due to a sustained lack of medical attention, and what kept him from that were the Kabukichou Police.

The responsibility for this is not discussed adequately in the decision (judges assert that an X-ray, a cast, disinfection, and draining blood from the joints performed on the first day of incarceration were somehow medically sufficient (page 22 3 (1) i (a) onwards)–even were the best that could be done in a non-life-threatening situation given the fact that he was in custody. Therefore nothing illegal happened. Regardless of the fact that Valentine still wound up crippled, for reasons his doctor says was due to prolonged medical inattention.

Even if Valentine had not been crippled by the police (instead, say, stabbed in the leg by a criminal), would these dangerously temporary measures still be legal? Quite probably. Which means the NPA’s clear negligence for the welfare of the incarcerated, plus the judiciary’s unwillingness to force them to take responsibility when something goes wrong, is damning evidence of the unaccountability within Japan’s criminal justice system.

Couple that with a court willing to use any pretext possible to discount the victim’s standpoint, including overruling doctors and dismissing testimony by nationality, and you have a police force which, increasingly clearly, can deal with foreigners any way they like with impunity.

Arudou Debito
Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
July 15, 2007
REPORT ON VALENTINE LAWSUIT ENDS

US State Dept and YouTube on Japan’s Int’l Child Abduction

Posted on July 14, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Two things I’ll combine into one blog post, since it’s right on the heels of the Colin Jones law journal article.

First, excellent video by Eric Kalmus on the irony of Japan’s child abductions (in the face of all the international rules against this, not to mention the political capital gained by the GOJ over the DPRK abductions of Japanese) after the breakdown of international marriages. Courtesy of YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzwzGxJfN8s

But more importantly, the US State Department has included on its site a warning re Japan’s negligence regarding divorce, child custody, and abduction.

We’re getting through, on an international level. A series of referential links follows the State Department entry (so skip the minutiae and page down to the bottom if you want more beef). Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

US DEPARTMENT OF STATE
TRAVEL.STATE.GOV BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS

Original at:
http://travel.state.gov/family/abduction/country/country_501.html#
(NB: Live links within original article are not included below)

Travel Warnings | Travel Public Announcements | Travel Information by Country
Saturday July 14, 2007

International Parental Child Abduction: Japan

DISCLAIMER: The information in this flyer relating to the legal requirements of specific foreign countries is provided for general information only. Questions involving interpretation of specific foreign laws should be addressed to foreign legal counsel.

Japan is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Japanese civil law stresses that in cases where custody cannot be reached by agreement between the parents, the Japanese Family Court will resolve the issue based on the best interests of the child. However, compliance with Family Court rulings is essentially voluntary, which renders any ruling unenforceable unless both parents agree.

The Civil Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Justice states that, in general, redress in child custody cases is sought through habeas corpus proceedings in the court. There is no preferential treatment based on nationality or gender. Although visitation rights for non-custodial parents are not expressly stipulated in the Japanese Civil Code, court judgments often provide visitation rights for non-custodial parents.

In practical terms, however, in cases of international parental child abduction, foreign parents are greatly disadvantaged in Japanese courts, both in terms of obtaining the return of children to the United States, and in achieving any kind of enforceable visitation rights in Japan. The Department of State is not aware of any case in which a child taken from the United States by one parent has been ordered returned to the United States by Japanese courts, even when the left-behind parent has a United States custody decree. In the past, Japanese police have been reluctant to get involved in custody disputes or to enforce custody decrees issued by Japanese courts.

In order to bring a custody issue before the Family Court, the left-behind parent will require the assistance of a Japanese attorney. A parent holding a custody decree issued in U.S. courts must retain local Japanese counsel to apply to the Japanese courts for recognition and enforcement of the U.S. decree.

Lists of Japanese attorneys and other information are available on the web at http://www.tokyoacs.com or from the Office of Children”s Issues at the address shown below. Links to the web sites of our other consulates in Japan can also be found at this web site.

U.S. consular officers are prohibited by law from providing legal advice, taking custody of a child, forcing a child to be returned to the United States, providing assistance or refuge to parents attempting to violate local law, or initiating or attempting to influence child custody proceedings in foreign courts. They generally cannot obtain civil documents (such as marriage registrations and family registers) on behalf of a parent, although an attorney can.

The American Embassy in Tokyo and the Consulates in Naha, Osaka-Kobe, Sapporo, Fukuoka and Nagoya are able to provide other valuable assistance to left-behind parents, however, including visits to determine the welfare of children. If a child is in danger or if there is evident abuse, consular officers will request assistance from the local authorities in safeguarding the child”s welfare.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In view of the difficulties involved in seeking the return of children from Japan to the United States, it is of the greatest importance that all appropriate preventive legal measures be taken in the United States if there is a possibility that a child may be abducted to Japan.

CRIMINAL REMEDIES

For information on possible criminal remedies, please contact your local law enforcement authorities or the nearest office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Information is also available on the Internet at the web site of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention , at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org. Contact the country officer in the Office of Children”s Issues for specific information.

New Law on Passport Applications for Minors:

On July 2, 2001, the Department of State began implementation of the new law regarding the passport applications for minor U.S. citizens under age 14. Under this new law, a person applying for a U.S. passport for a child under 14 must demonstrate that both parents consent to the issuance of a passport to the child or that the applying parent has sole custody of the child. The law covers passport applications made at domestic U.S. passport agencies in the U.S. and at U.S. consular offices abroad. The purpose of the new requirement that both parents’ consent be demonstrated is to lessen the possibility that a U.S. passport might be used in the course of an international child abduction.

Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program (CPIAP):

Separate from the two-parent signature requirement for U.S. passport issuance, parents may also request that their children’s names be entered in the U.S. passport name-check system, also known as CPIAP. A parent or legal guardian can be notified by the Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues before a passport is issued to his/her minor child. The parent, legal guardian or the court of competent jurisdiction must submit a written request for entry of a child’s name into the Passport Issuance Alert Program to the Office of Children’s Issues. The CPIAP also provides denial of passport issuance if appropriate court orders are on file with the Office of Children’s Issues. Although this system can be used to alert a parent or court when an application for a U.S. passport has been executed on behalf of a minor, it cannot be used to track the use of a passport. If there is a possibility that your child has another nationality you may want to contact the appropriate embassy or consulate directly to inquire about the possibility of denial of that country’s passport. There is no requirement that foreign embassies adhere to U.S. regulations regarding issuance and denial of passports. For more information contact the office of Children’s Issues at 202-736-9090. General passport information is also available on the Office of Children’s Issues home page on the Internet at children’s_issues.html.

The State Department has general information about welfare/whereabouts visits, hiring a foreign attorney, service of process, enforcement of child support orders, and the international enforcement of judgments, which may supplement the country-specific information provided in this flier. In addition, the State Department publishes Consular Information Sheets (CIS’s) for every country in the world, providing information such as location of the U.S. Embassy, health conditions, political situations, and crime reports. If a situation in a country poses a specific threat to the safety and security of American citizens that is not addressed in the CIS for that country, the Department of State may issue a Public Announcement alerting U.S. citizens to local security situations. If conditions in a country are sufficiently serious, the State Department may issue a Travel Warning that recommends U.S. citizens avoid traveling to that country. These documents are available on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov or by calling the State Department’s Office of Overseas Citizen Services at (202) 647-5225. Many of these documents can also be obtained by automatic fax back by calling (202) 647-3000 from your fax machine.

Address Information – Correspondence and documents can be submitted to:

By FEDEX, DHL, Express Mail, etc.

Office of Children”s Issues
SA-29
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520-2818
Phone: (202) 736-9090
Fax: (202) 312-9743

By Regular Mail*

Office of Children”s Issues
SA-29
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520-2818
Phone: (202) 736-9090
Fax: (202) 312-9743

(*–As of February 2002, the State Department is experiencing considerable delays of at least three to four weeks in the delivery of regular mail due to mandated irradiation against harmful substances. We strongly recommend that important correspondence be sent by courier such as FEDEX, DHL, Express Mail, etc. to ensure prompt delivery.)

Tel: 1-888-407-4747 (Recorded Information, access to officers) or (202) 736-9090
Fax: (202) 312-9743
Internet: children”s_issues.html

Toll Free Hotline: Overseas Citizens Services in the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA/OCS) has established a toll free hotline for the general public at 1-888-407-4747. This number is available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays). Callers who are unable to use toll-free numbers, such as those calling from overseas, may obtain information and assistance during these hours by calling 1-202-501-4444. Persons seeking information or assistance, in case of emergency, outside of these hours, including on weekends or holidays should call 1-202-647-5225.

The OCS hotline can answer general inquiries regarding international parental child abduction and will forward calls to the appropriate Country Officer. For specific information and other services available to the searching parent, please call the Office of Children’s Issues public phone number at 1-202-736-9090 during normal working hours.

Complete original at:
http://travel.state.gov/family/abduction/country/country_501.html#
STATE DEPT. ENTRY ENDS

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

REFERENTIAL LINKS

CHILDREN’S RIGHTS NETWORK JAPAN
http://www.crnjapan.com/en/

SF CHRONICLE Aug 27 06: “CHILD CUSTODY IN JAPAN ISN’T BASED ON RULES”
https://www.debito.org/?p=23

Crnjapan’s Mark Smith:”Protest Against Japanese Postdivorce Child Abductions” in Portland, Oregon
https://www.debito.org/?p=196

Metropolis Magazine on J int’l child abductions
https://www.debito.org/?p=180

CRNJapan’s Mark Smith with linked articles on J divorce int’l child abductions
https://www.debito.org/?p=131

DIVORCE IN JAPAN–WHAT A MESS
https://www.debito.org/?p=9

https://www.debito.org/thedivorce.html
=======================================
ENDS

Asian Pacific Law Journal on Japan as haven for parental child abduction.

Posted on July 14, 2007September 14, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I included this as part of my previous newsletter on Japan’s judiciary, but it warrants a blog entry all its own. Don’t want it to get buried.

From Mark at Children’s Rights Network Japan. Debito

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

I would like to tell everyone about a new law journal article about Japanese family law that is now available. It’s written by a law professor in Japan who himself has been through the family court system all the way up to the Supreme Court.

First sentence: “Japan is a haven for parental child abduction.”

Need I say more? If you are married to a Japanese partner and have children, its a must read, even at 100 pages. Look for it here:

http://www.hawaii.edu/aplpj/

IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE COURT: WHAT AMERICAN LAWYERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
CHILD CUSTODY AND VISITATION IN JAPAN
Colin P.A. Jones
Asian Pacific Law and Policy Journal
University of Hawaii
Volume 8, Issue 2, Spring 2007.

Happy Reading.
Mark
==================================
ENDS

J Times on labor abuses at Gregory Clark’s Akita International University

Posted on July 11, 2007June 4, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. More labor abuses coming out at Gregory Clark‘s Akita International University (he’s vice president, after all; see his nice welcoming message to the world here). As catalogued yesterday in the Japan Times Community Page. Article also includes some lessons about what you can do about employers of this ilk.

Suggest you stay away from this place if you are looking for a job. More about AIU’s shenanigans at the BLACKLIST OF JAPANESE UNIVERSITIES, with the following entry:

==========================================
NAME OF UNIVERSITY: Akita International University (Private)
LOCATION: 193-2 Okutsubakidai, Yuwa, Tsubakigawa, Akita-City, Akita

EMPLOYMENT ABUSE: Despite wanting PhDs (or the equivalent) for faculty, AIU offers 3-year contracted positions with no mention of any possibility of tenure, plus a heavy workload (10 to 15 hours per week, which means the latter amounts to 10 koma class periods), a four-month probationary period, no retirement pay, and job evaluations of allegedly questionable aims. In other words, conditions that are in no visible way different from any other gaijin-contracting “non-international university” in Japan. Except for the lack of retirement pay.

SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Job advertisement in the Chronicle of Higher Education, dated September 2, 2006. http://chronicle.com/jobs/id.php?id=0000469416-01 (click here to read text if previous link is obsolete). Other unofficial sources of dissent available on the Chronicle’s forums (links may obsolesce, and their contents are completely independent of the Blacklist) at http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?topic=28632.0
==========================================

Now for the expose in the Japan Times. Debito in Sapporo

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

THE ZEIT GIST
Wronged employees seek redress through mediation
Prefectural labor boards offer cheap alternative to suing in work disputes
By MICHAEL KITAMURA
Special to The Japan Times, Tuesday, July 10, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070710zg.html

Imagine you feel wronged by your employer and find simply sharing your work woes with friends and chat groups inadequate. You want compensation and acknowledgment that your employer acted unjustly.

Suing is not your only option. Prefectural labor boards may hear your case and bring your employer in for reconciliation.

A few years ago I was given a pay cut at my last university for political reasons. I had asked the university president, in a one-page private letter, to consider replacing the Hinomaru Japanese flag flying in front of the university with an Earth flag, partly because the university was always squawking about how international they are, and partly because faculty were invited to share any ideas and concerns with our “open-minded” president. So when he told me the reasons for a 10-percent pay cut included my opposition to the Iraq war, and the “flag letter,” and ended my evaluation meeting wagging his finger saying, “You should love the Japanese flag,” I was shocked, but didn’t know where to turn. Suing seemed a long shot.

Two years later this same president made a dramatic declaration to the faculty, informing us that none of our renewable contracts would be renewed. Instead, we would have to reapply and fight for our jobs via open recruitment.

However, what we didn’t know then was that the directors and several favored faculty members had been “blown kisses” — promised jobs and told to keep the fact secret. When the dust settled, 12 faculty members had just reason to seek compensation for breach of contract, out of whom 10 banded together — all nonunion foreigners — to speak with a local union rep.

Foreigners tend to scatter after losing their jobs, and we were no exception. Of the 10, only three planned to remain in Japan, making legal action even more impractical. And, while unemployed, who would have the resources for legal fees? Thus, I looked at speaking with the union rep more as a counseling session, to have someone knowledgeable listen and give a viewpoint, and perhaps sympathize. Some of the “winners” at my university, for example, implied there had been no breach of contract. Were we exaggerating the injustice?

After listening carefully, however, the union representative flatly stated, “That’s illegal.” Then, even more encouragingly, he told us about a course of action that didn’t involve any lawyers or fees at all: Meetings with a prefectural labor board that could lead to “assen,” meaning mediation or reconciliation.

The first step, which could not be skipped despite the futility of it, was to hold direct talks with the university. It was decided, with the help of the union and labor board, to submit a “yokyu isharyo” (demand or request for compensation) for 5 million yen per person for financial damages endured due to breach of contract.

Then, three dismissed faculty members and two union representatives met with four university staff. When they denied there was any connection between evaluation and renewal — a key point of our dispute — we learned what an uphill struggle we faced.

At the same time, we had concurrently been meeting with the prefectural labor board, because they realized time was limited until we’d have to move from the area. After the university refused to pay at our second meeting — which was predictable — the labor board heard more details. For example, when one faculty member with a doctorate in a Japan-specific field and glowing evaluations asked for the reason for her dismissal/nonrenewal, she was told by the president, “You’ve been in Japan too long.”

The board, in addition to hearing such testimony, also read documents, from contracts to memos, that belied the university’s claims, and led them to decide there was just cause to pursue “assen.”

Four respected members of the community — a corporation president, a university professor, a labor representative, and the head, a lawyer — served as judges to hear both sides of our dispute and suggest a compromise.

A key point to note about the process is that it’s not binding. At any point either party can simply withdraw. That being said, the labor board informed us that the mediators succeeded in solving 80 percent of the labor disputes they heard. Furthermore, the labor rep noted that a university is under tremendous pressure to comply with the decision of an independent third party — especially since the authority behind the mediation process was, in our case, the prefecture, which had bankrolled the university when it opened.

The mediation process is designed to avoid huge winners and losers, so we knew from the start that receiving 5 million yen per person was highly unlikely. At the same time, the mediation process saved us time and money: while court cases may cost millions of yen in lawyer’s fees, and drag on for years, our mediation would last just a couple of months, and cost nothing save transportation to hearings. Furthermore, while all 10 members were encouraged to attend hearings, attendance was not required.

Thus, we dropped any demand for lost salary, which the courts might grant, and aimed for “just” 5 million yen per person. More importantly, we wanted a decision which indicated our university had acted inappropriately, in an effort to curb dictator-like management styles, give some power to dismissed faculty, and yes, receive financial compensation.

By the third hearing, it was clear that we would be awarded a settlement figure, which we, and the university, could accept or refuse. We were also told negotiations would end there, and both sides had a take-it-or-leave-it option.

The 10 of us felt vindicated by the decision, that the university acted improperly and should indeed pay compensation that ranged from 1 million yen to 1.7 million yen per person, depending on whether the person had secured employment yet.

Yes, some felt the figure was low, because it didn’t even fully cover their moving expenses. Still, 1 million yen or more per person — 13 million yen in total — clearly indicated the university’s culpability. And we had understood the limitations of the process from the start. With such a small amount, we felt confident the university would pay. After all, the total of over 13 million yen equaled just about half of the university president’s remuneration for one year.

For the three faculty who had received pay cuts due to the corrupted evaluation process, the mediators did not have the power to ask that we be compensated. However, the decided settlement amount would at least recover salary I lost for my flag letter and opposition to the Iraq war — or so it seemed.

Unfortunately, our result was destined to fall in the 20 percent of unresolved cases, because the university refused to pay even that amount. As the labor rep had explained on more than one occasion, the process doesn’t have any means to force employers to fulfill obligations. Still, even in the absence of compensation, vindication of our position made “assen” worthwhile.

The labor rep also explained another option in addition to “assen” or legal action. In 2006, Japan created a labor disputes system (“rodo shinpan seido”) so disgruntled workers could get a hearing with minimal cost and minimal delay. A judge decides the case after meeting no more than three times with one labor rep and a company rep.

Thus, the worker avoids not only lawyer fees, but a protracted court case that may otherwise drag on for years. And, as opposed to “assen,” unscrupulous employers don’t have a right to refuse or withdraw. Both parties can, however, appeal, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Our group didn’t have the option to use this new labor court because it only hears cases for individuals, not groups. Most who utilize this new system are labor union members — but some, like ourselves, join a union only after having a workplace dispute.

Thus, in this era of short term contracts, temporary jobs, and political shifts to the right, workers, foreign or otherwise, should remember they have rights and their employer has responsibilities. Unions, which only exist due to the support of their members, can point workers the way to “assen” mediation, a special labor disputes court, and, if those time and money saving options fail, can provide a union lawyer and sue the most unscrupulous of employers.
—————————

The writer of this article was obliged to use a pseudonym. Send comments and story ideas to:community@japantimes.co.jp
ENDS

Asahi Editorial: Tanaka Hiroshi on treatment of NJ workers

Posted on July 5, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hello Blog. Here’s one of the most important writers regarding NJ issues (particularly the Zainichi), Tanaka Hiroshi, getting an article in the most prominent public Op-Ed column in the Japanese press (although I can’t find the Japanese version of it anywhere–little help?).

Good. Again, it’s what we’ve been saying all along. More voices the merrier. Debito in Sapporo

======================================
POINT OF VIEW/ Hiroshi Tanaka: Japan must open its arms to foreign workers
07/03/2007 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707030068.html
Courtesy of Hans ter Horst

Japan, with its aging workforce, is facing a serious labor shortage that can only be solved by bringing in foreign workers. Even so, the country’s laws do not safeguard the human rights of these guest trainees and interns.

The government is attempting to change this situation, but in my view, its efforts lack focus.

Three arms of the government are making separate moves in this area.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare wants to treat foreign trainees as interns, so Japanese labor laws will cover them.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry proposes strengthening the screening process and penalties for maltreatment of foreign trainees and interns to improve working conditions and prevent human rights violations.

And Justice Minister Jinen Nagase seeks to establish a system whereby foreign workers can work only a maximum of three years.

To begin with, it is ridiculous to have three branches of government working separately to solve the same problem. This will only result in a tug of war over control.

What needs to be done is to establish a central policy office within the Prime Minister’s Office or the Cabinet Office, with its leader reporting directly to the prime minister.

In reality, there is a wide gap between how Japan deals with its foreign workers and the principles stated in official policy.

With the Japanese labor force in decline, the economy cannot be maintained without an influx of foreign labor. Despite this fact, the government is sticking with an outdated policy that limits the entry of unskilled foreign workers on grounds the practice could lead harm job security for Japanese workers.

At the same time, however, the government opened a back door into the job market, offering a fast track to visas for foreigners of Japanese descent and trainee and technical internship programs for foreigners.

These two loopholes enable unskilled foreigners to work in Japan. To date, about 350,000 foreigners of Japanese descent have come to Japan from Brazil, Peru and elsewhere to work in the automotive industry. Many are employed by subcontractors to the major automakers and other parts makers.

Instead of dealing squarely with them, the government has stuck with its “deceptive” policies. As a result, there are no protections in place to guarantee their human rights and labor rights. Since foreign workers are usually hired by brokers and dispatched indirectly, many employers fail to provide them with proper social insurance coverage.

Some workers even are illegally forced to hand over their passports to their employers, and others have been cheated of due wages. Such mistreatment has been reported in case after case, but nothing is done to prevent it.

I am working to resolve the educational problems faced by the children of foreign workers in Japan. Despite the rise in numbers of children attending Brazilian schools in Japan, these schools remain unaccredited. As such, they receive no government subsidies.

When revisions to the Fundamental Law of Education were discussed last year, not a word was heard about the right of immigrant children to an education or the government’s obligation to guarantee that education.

The government must squarely face these problems and create sincere policies to make the lives of our guest workers better.

Since the Japanese population is declining, the government needs to come out and make clear that we do need and value foreign workers. Once that is recognized, the government should examine which areas are lacking and estimate how many workers we need. It also should pass legislation to enable immigrants who complete Japanese-language training programs and vocational training courses to enter the workforce as full-fledged workers.

Some people worry that too many foreign workers would lead to lower wages for Japanese workers or steal jobs away.

If a foreign worker is more competent or better trained than a Japanese, then naturally they will get hired first.

But to assume that a foreigner should work for less than a Japanese is outright discrimination. And as long as the principle of “equal pay for equal work” is observed, the situation will not adversely affect the labor market.

The government’s passive attitude toward foreign workers shows how it remains unable to shake off its insular, Cold-War era mindset, one that pits people of one nation against another merely because they hold a certain citizenship.

This thinking leads us to set Japanese apart from foreigners.

We must accept people from other countries as “residents” and create a system to encourage them to participate in our society. Giving foreign residents the right to vote in local elections would be a step in the right direction.

For that, we need a system that encourages foreigners to settle in Japan, instead of one that treats them as temporary labor.

Japan needs to abandon its selfish attitudes and open up its closed society with firmly rooted policies.

* * *

Hiroshi Tanaka is professor specializing in the history of Japan-Asia relations at Kyoto’s Ryukoku University and a representative of a citizens’ group that works to support schools for foreign residents in Japan.(IHT/Asahi: July 3,2007)

JTs on rackets for immigrant workers, runaway Trainees

Posted on July 3, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. More information on how Japan exploits NJ labor for its own purposes. First Japan Today on how trainees are trying to get the hell out of a bad situation, then the Japan Times with more on these government-sponsored rackets.

Some important stats below. Probably still not enough for the academics to accept somehow “empirically” there’s a real problem out there, but heads tend to remain in the sand as long as possible on these things (especially to those for whom “problems” are not a matter of existence, but of degree; everything counts in large amounts, you see).

More on what I’ve said about this issue in the past here and here. Debito in Sapporo

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

Nearly 10,000 foreigners disappear from job training sites in Japan 2002-2006
JAPAN TODAY.COM/KYODO NEWS
Monday, July 2, 2007 at 05:00 EDT
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/411066
Courtesy Mark Mino-Thompson of The Community

TOKYO — A total of 9,607 foreigners, mostly Asians, ran away from job training sites in Japan between 2002 and 2006 in an apparent attempt to look for better working conditions elsewhere, according to the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau.

The situation shows that the Japanese system of accepting foreigners to train as skilled workers has become mostly a ceremonial affair and, in reality, is just a mechanism for foreigners to work on lower wages.

The figures compiled by the bureau based on reports from those which accepted trainees showed that Chinese workers topped all other nationalities with 4,521 disappearing from training sites. The number accounted for 47.06% of the total.

Vietnamese were second with 2,674 or 27.83% and Indonesians third with 1,610 or 16.76%.

Runaway trainees totaled 1,376 in 2002, soared to 2,304 in 2003 and amounted to 2,201 in 2006. Former trainees illegally remaining in Japan totaled 3,333 as of Jan 1 this year. All others who disappeared earlier were said to have left Japan.

Some said that the situation that has resulted from foreigners escaping from their training places demonstrates that the flow of non-Japanese workers wishing to earn money in Japan has reached the level beyond the control of the trainee system which originally had called for Japan to offer foreigners three-years job training assistance.

They also said Japan is being pressed to make a clear-cut decision on whether it is ready to formally accept unskilled workers from foreign countries.

It has become a daily scene for foreign trainees working at town factories or on fishing boats across Japan, a fact that they have become a workforce that serves the need of Japan and that the domestic industry cannot operate without them.

However, there are no well-defined stipulations concerning trainees’ wages and rights because they are not considered workers for the first year after entering Japan. Their stay in Japan is limited to three years, including the period they spend undergoing hands-on experience.

About 26,000 trainees have gone to Japan as trainees since 1993 under Indonesian government supervision and 1,775 of them ran away from their training sites while 1,577 others returned home without completing training. The largest number of runaway trainees was seen when 53 of 76 trainees who left Indonesia on July 8, 2002 disappeared.

Indonesian government officials said trouble with Japanese hosts who accepted them for training may have been the biggest reason for their disappearance.

A sense of alienation between the reality confronting trainees and the system that allowed them to be in Japan has led to a number of incidents recently.

Police unmasked a case in Okayama Prefecture involving a group of Indonesians who allegedly smuggled themselves into Japan using fictitious names and seeking a long-term stay as trainees. Some other trainees filed suits with courts in Aomori and Aichi prefectures seeking unpaid wages.

Such cases do not remain mere individual problems since the flow of workers is connected to economic globalization aimed at eliminating barriers between nations that shun human movement.

As a trading nation, Japan is trying to press ahead with the conclusion of free trade agreements with Asian countries and member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and to earn profits by exporting tariff free goods, including high performance industrial products.

On the other hand, it is natural for a country like the Philippines, which cannot manufacture industrial products strong enough to compete with made-in-Japan goods, to send something that it does have an edge in over Japan.

In fact, the two countries are planning to open the path for Philippine nurses to work in Japan based on an economic partnership agreement. (Kyodo News)

======================================
MEDIA MIX
Immigrant workers in Japan caught in a real racket
By PHILIP BRASOR
The Japan Times Sunday, July 1, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20070701pb.html
Courtesy Ron Beaubien of The Community

The debate over whether Japan should allow foreign workers in to make up for current and future labor shortages is dominated by the so-called foreign trainee program, which is overseen by the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization (JITCO). The program is itself the subject of a debate, which boils down to the age-old Japanese dynamic of honne vs. tatemae.

The tatemae (given reason) of the program is to bring workers from developing countries to Japan to learn Japanese techniques that they can later put to use back home. The honne (real reason) of the program is to legally let small and medium Japanese companies import cheap labor. According to a recent series of articles in the Asahi Shimbun, the Japanese public for the most part still buys the tatemae explanation, even though the media has been reporting for years that many foreign trainees come to Japan for the express purpose of making money.

As with most controversies that don’t touch directly on the lives of average people, the only related news that makes an impression is the sensational kind. In August of last year, a 27-year-old Chinese worker killed an official of a Chiba training center. The details of the case, which is now being heard at Chiba District Court, point to a much more complex situation than that which the media originally reported.

The defendant was a plumber in China who made the equivalent of 7,500 yen a month, and his purpose in coming to Japan was to earn a lot of money in a short time. However, because of trainee program rules, he wasn’t able to work and earn as much as he hoped, and he went on strike, demanding that he be allowed to work overtime at the pig farm where he’d been placed. The official in charge of the training center that brought him to Japan responded by trying to have him deported. In a fit of anger, the worker killed the official and injured two others.

According to his lawyers, in order to come to Japan to “receive training,” the defendant had borrowed more than 1 million yen in order to pay the security deposit, transportation costs, and various non-refundable fees associated with the assignment. He thought he could pay back the debt quickly by working overtime, but according to JITCO regulations a trainee is not classified as a worker for the first year. Since normal labor laws do not apply to foreign trainees until the second year (when they become “interns”), they can be paid less than the minimum wage.

Most people believe that potential trainees pay their fees to brokers in China, and they do. But according to the Asahi, the worker on trial paid his fees to the Chiba training center, which has set up its own dispatch company in China to recruit trainees. Though such a system turns the training center into a broker at best and a trafficker at worst, there is no specific JITCO rule that says dispatch companies cannot profit from trainees.

For tatemae purposes, businesses cannot directly request foreign workers from JITCO. They must go through local organizations, which are usually trade or industry associations. Each of these groups pay JITCO 100,000 yen a year, while each member company pays 50,000 yen a year. In a June 1 article, the Mainichi Shimbun reported that 925 such organizations comprising 9,857 companies paid these fees to JITCO in 2001. By 2005 the numbers had increased to 1,493 groups and more than 17,000 companies. JITCO’s revenues for 2006 topped 1.2 billion yen, which is why its budget from the government has been steadily decreasing.

The Mainichi contends that as JITCO has become more self-sufficient, it has taken on the culture of a private company. Some industry officials told the newspaper that as more associations join, JITCO feels it has to treat them as “customers,” which means JITCO is more likely to look the other way with regard to common illegal practices such as confiscating trainee passports and 14-hour work days. One employer said appreciatively that JITCO calls him beforehand to tell him when they are coming for a surprise inspection.

JITCO has even set up an insurance system with 11 major companies that brings in about 100 million yen annually. Workers pay premiums of 27-37,000 yen a year. The average “allowance” for first-year trainees is 66,000 yen a month.

A racket by any other name wouldn’t smell as sweet. JITCO was originally the brainchild of five different government ministries that have filled its staff with retired bureaucrats ever since. Three of these ministries seem to have realized that the program’s real raison d’e^tre has become too obvious. The justice ministry wants to get rid of the trainee system and allow foreign workers into Japan for limited periods, while the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the health ministry want to keep the system and merely give it a tweak.

Missing from the debate are the workers themselves. The irony is that there are foreign trainees who join the program because they really want to acquire skills, but most of them end up performing manual labor on farms or in factories. Regardless of their intentions, the workers always lose. If they want to earn a lot of money, the system denies them the opportunity to do so; and if they want to come to learn a skill, the system is not equipped to do that, either.

For balance, the Asahi interviewed the director of a sewing industry association in Hiroshima that receives trainees. He says his program genuinely transfers skills to developing countries, but he also insists that the foreign trainee system is “indispensable” to small Japanese companies. Without it, these companies would be forced to move overseas. It sounds like a threat, but what’s the difference between using cheap foreign workers in Japan and using them in a foreign country? The difference is that in Japan you can make more money off of them.

The Japan Times: Sunday, July 1, 2007
ENDS

“Beware of foreigners” leaflets in Ikuno-ku, Osaka

Posted on July 1, 2007February 9, 2009 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This has come up on The Community Mailing List:

Jon writes:
============================
A friend of mine found this on a car in Ikunoku and said there were plenty of them around. Anyone in Osaka want to help me do something about this?
http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img2007jun26ih4.jpg

(NB: For those who find the flyer hard to read:
HELP US STOP ILLEGAL LABOR AND FOREIGN OVERSTAYERS!
(Images of Illegal overstayers, long-nosed fraudulent grooms, passport forgers, and illegal workers: All including blondies, of course.)
THESE DAYS WHERE FOREIGN CRIME IS RISING FAST [Even though, according to the Mainichi Feb 07, it’s dropping. So is, according to Immigration, foreign overstaying.]
CHECK THE STATUS OF RESIDENCE AND PERIOD OF STAY ON THEIR PASSPORTS, TO ENSURE YOU EMPLOY A FOREIGNER PROPERLY!!
THERE WILL BE PENALITIES FOR EMPLOYERS WHO EMPLOY FOREIGNERS NOT PERMITTED TO WORK, AS WELL AS THOSE WHO ACT AS INTERMEDIARIES.
WE ASK YOU TO COOPERATE IN ORDER TO GIVE US A SAFE AND LIVABLE TOWN ENVIRONMENT WITHIN IKUNO-KU.
IKUNO SANGYOU ROUDOUSHA KOKUSAIKA TAISAKU RENRAKU KYOUGIKAI
OSAKA FU IKUNO POLICE STATION, CONTACT 06-6712-1234)

I found at http://www.ikuno.or.jp/1_1.htm that this flyer is being distributed by the Ikuno Sangyoukai.
名称社団法人生野産業会
会長三宅一嘉
所在地〒544-0004 大阪市生野区巽北1丁目21番23号
電話番号 06-6757-2551
FAX番号 06-6754-2186
============================

Declan adds:
============================
For what it is worth, practically every chamber of commerce in the
country had meetings this month with regards to foreign employees.

My chamber held a meeting June 8th
http://www.okazakicci.or.jp/goma/68foreigner.pdf

I didn’t attend because I was overseas at the time, but as far as I know
there were no harebrained schemes for leafletting cars on the streets.

I don’t see any point in counter leaflets. Perhaps a better approach
might just be to write a letter to the sangyoukai asking for them to
refrain from littering, and to suggest that instead of distributing
leaflets, that they ensure that all of the companies in their membership
are in fact checking the bona fides of any foreigners in their employment,
and that the hotels/accommodation sector of their membership
aren’t demanding passport copies from Japan residents etc. Something
conciliatory and practical is usually the best way to start a dialogue.
============================

Dave suggests:
============================
The clear first step in doing anything about this is to call the number
on the leaflet and get some information.

The main information to get is to find out who exactly within the
chamber of commerce is the project leader for this, who is their public
representative, and that sort of thing.

Then, if possible, initiate a meeting or a phone call where the matter
can be formally discussed. Find out why they are doing this now, what
their concerns are, how this all came about.

During that meeting or phone call, see if you can point out where
they’ve given into fears and departed from facts, and see how much they
can be swayed.

At all steps, record the conversations.

Whether or not anything further can or should be done will be very clear
once all those kinds of facts are in.

You’d be surprised at how far some dialogue can go. A lot of the people
behind these things aren’t deliberately rejecting facts about foreign
crime, they’re just blissfully ignorant. A polite discussion with a
foreigner who has his facts straight can make a big impression.

The ideal candidate for this task is someone who can communicate well in
Japanese and can be in Osaka to really talk to these people.
============================

Readers of Debito.org who would like to try their hand at a little activism are encouraged to investigate this further. Tell us how things go in the Comments section of this Blog? Debito in Sapporo

ANDREW SMALLACOMBE AT THE COMMUNITY ADDS:

============================
I know this will probably sound obvious, butsome of my concerns
regarding the leaflets are:

– They are directed at employers. Passport forgery and bogus
marriages, while illegal, are not something a potential employer can
or should police. Any revised posters should not mention the other
two offenses at all. They should merely remind employers that hiring
foreign workers with inappropriate visa status is illegal and to
check this status.

– The caricatures are racist and would be more appropriate in World
War II propeganda. It also implies that all foreign nationals are
physically distinguishable from the Japanese poplulation, and
furthermore hints that those with illegal status are readily
identifiable. Lose them in any reprints.

-Again, as the leaflets are aimed at employers, statements
of “rapidly rising foreigner crime” are irrelevant, not to mention
highly questionable. Lose them.

Essentially, if it is necessary to alert businesses to the fact that
hiring foreign workers without the correct visa status is a criminal
act, fine. Just don’t try to use perceptions of crime by foreign
nationals as justification.
============================
ENDS

UPDATE JULY 6: THERE HAS BEEN MOVEMENT ON THIS ISSUE, SEE COMMENTS SECTION FOR UPDATES…

JULY 8: FOOD FOR THOUGHT, SENT TO ME BY M.D.:

DEBITO.ORG IN NO WAY SUPPORTS THE IMAGES BEING DISPLAYED ABOVE, BUT FEELS IT IS A USEFUL EXERCISE TO PUT THE SHOE ON THE OTHER FOOT. DO YOU THINK THE GOJ WOULD SIT IDLY BY IF THESE IMAGES WERE BEING PUT OUT BY POLICE FORCES IN OTHER COUNTRIES?

Asahi: Shizuoka Pref residents block Brazilian from buying land

Posted on July 1, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Another one of these “get a load of this” situations…

A local residents’ association, citing fears of crime and foreigners fleeing the country after committing them, worked together to block a realtor from doing his job as intermediary for a house purchase by a 3rd-generation Nikkei Brazilian man in the (appropriately named) Nagamizo area of Iwata City, Shizuoka.

The MOJ’s Bureau of Human Rights as usual showed its ineffectuality by saying the NJ purchaser was in the right, even had his human rights violated, but had no way to set things right with any enforcement mechanisms. (See another example of this BOHR ineffectuality on Debito.org)

So the residents kick him out, and continue to man the barricades against any more foreigners. Nice work. Wonder what would happen if this happened to Japanese in other countries? The Japanese press would have a field day vilifying the town and making the excluded Japanese into victims, the GOJ MOFA would lodge formal complaints, tourism from Japan there would decrease… is not too much a stretch of the imagination. The shoe’s never on the other foot here, it seems. Debito in Sapporo

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Racism surfaces over bid by foreigner to buy land, settle
06/29/2007 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200706290148.html

FUKUROI, Shizuoka Prefecture– Fearful that they would be inviting crime to their neighborhood, residents blocked an attempt by a Japanese-Brazilian man to buy land on which to build a house.

The local regional legal affairs bureau said their actions constituted a “violation of human rights” and told the parties involved that if a similar situation occurred in the future they should handle it better.

In the end, the man was forced to purchase property elsewhere.

The 30-year-old factory worker had his heart set on purchasing a 200-square-meter plot through a realtor in the nearby city of Iwata in April last year, said sources familiar with the matter.

The third-generation Japanese-Brazilian had planned to build a detached house on the plot in the Nagamizo district of Fukuroi.

But before he could sign the contract, a group of local residents who are members of the Nagamizo community association raised objections to the purchase after they learned from the realtor that the buyer was of Brazilian ancestry.

The group, which at the time comprised 12 households, notified the real estate company of its intention to stop the man from moving in, the sources said.

One resident, citing a perception that Brazilians are prone to committing crimes, said, “I feared that something might happen.” The woman alluded to a number of reports about Brazilians fleeing Japan to avoid prosecution for crimes committed in Japan.

An official with the civil liberties division of the Shizuoka Legal Affairs Bureau, a regional branch of the Justice Ministry, refused to discuss the case, citing the need for confidentiality.

But the official noted that in general the approval of neighborhood residents is not necessary for a real estate transaction.

“As long as the seller and the buyer agree on the terms, the deal goes through, regardless of opposition from local residents,” he said.

In the end, the Japanese-Brazilian was unable to buy the land because the realtor failed to fulfill its obligation to act as an intermediary. The man took his case to the Fukuroi branch of the Shizuoka Legal Affairs Bureau in May last year, contending that a “violation of human rights” had occurred.

The bureau agreed with the man after studying the case and talked to the community association group and the president of the real estate company about ending local opposition to the man’s quest to build a home. The meeting took place some time before June 6 this year, the sources said.

The Shizuoka Legal Affairs Bureau official said that even if the residents and the realtor had committed what the bureau deemed to be a violation of human rights, there were no provisions to punish the parties.

“The bureau’s function is to educate the public about human rights issues by pointing out what constitute violations of human rights,” the official said.

The head of the Nagamizo community association stated bluntly that non-Japanese are not welcome in the neighborhood. “Honestly speaking, we don’t want (Brazilians) to move into the neighborhood if possible,” the person said. “We need to think about how we should deal with similar situations if a Brazilian wants to buy a plot of land here in the future.”

The Japanese-Brazilian acknowledges that the overall image of Brazilians is not good, but he urged people to look at them individually.

“I hold down a job and I am able to speak Japanese,” he said. “Although I had planned to meet those residents in person, I was told ‘not to bother.'”

The man bought a 160-square meter land in a different section of the city and built a house on it.(IHT/Asahi: June 29,2007)
ARTICLE ENDS

毎日等：静岡県袋井の自治会がブラジル人転居反対・土地購入を断念

Posted on July 1, 2007June 4, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

ボログの愛読者、おはようございます。今回の記事に出た人はかわいそうで、政府レベルの救済制度は相変わらず足りないのは過言ではありません。
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

人権侵害：ブラジル人引っ越し「拒否は不適切」　法務局、自治会班長に説示／静岡
毎日新聞（静岡版）2007年6月29日
http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/chihou/shizuoka/news/20070629ddlk22040111000c.html
s-watchメーリングリストへ感謝

　日系３世のブラジル人男性が袋井市内に引っ越そうとした際に自治会の住民が
拒否したのは人権侵害にあたるなどとして、静岡地方法務局が、自治会班長らに
対して自戒を求めて説示していたことが２８日までに分かった。自治会関係者は
「外国人のいない昔からの集落で、トラブルが心配だった」と話している。

　関係者によると、０６年４月、男性が袋井市長溝に家族で暮らす一戸建て住宅
用の土地約２００平方メートルを購入しようとした際、不動産会社が近隣住民に
「ブラジル人が土地を買う」と通知。自治会の班長が１２集落の意見を聞いて３
分の２の賛成で受け入れない方針を決めた。その後、土地購入が破談になった男
性が法務局へ訴えたという。

　法務局は、班長に対して「外国人であることを理由に土地購入を歓迎しない意
向を示したのは不適切。今後繰り返さないように」、不動産会社には「外国人が
買うことを住民に通知してはいけない」と説示した。説示には法的効力はない。

　ある自治会の男性は「ブラジル人がすべて悪い人だとは思っていないが、最近
はブラジル人の犯罪をよく聞くので、入った後に問題が生じるのは避けたかった」
とする。不動産会社は「知らせないとトラブルがあった後に住民から会社のせい
だと言われる。今後通知はしないが何かあったときの責任は法務局が負うという
ので任せたい」と話している。【竹地広憲】
毎日新聞　2007年6月29日
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

クイックコメント：これから前向きに家に投資するぐらいの溶け込もうとする外国人はどーしても隣人から「犯罪者扱い」になりますか。このイメージの蔓延には責任は警察署などにはありませんか。

（０７年６月、車の窓グラスに置いておいたチラシより）
念のために、もう一つの記事を。有道　出人
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

袋井の自治会がブラジル人転居反対　土地購入を断念
中日新聞（静岡版）2007年6月29日
http://www.chunichi.co.jp/article/shizuoka/20070629/CK2007062802028191.html

　袋井市在住で永住許可を持つ日系ブラジル人の３０代男性が、市内に新居用の
土地を買おうとしたところ、地域住民が反対し、土地購入を断念していたことが
分かった。男性の知人によると、男性は「まじめに生活しているのにがっかりし
た。外国人を差別しないでほしい」と訴えている。

　知人によると男性は、妻と子ども１人の３人家族。数年前から同市内の市営団
地で暮らし、２００２年に永住許可を取得した。同市内に一戸建ての家を建てよ
うと０６年４月、磐田市内の不動産会社の仲介で市内の土地（約２００平方メー
トル）を紹介された。契約前に不動産会社が「土地の購入者はブラジル人」と地
元自治会に伝えたところ、住民が反発。住民は会合を開いて、男性家族の転居反
対を決めたという。

　男性は、知人と一緒に静岡地方法務局袋井支局に相談。同支局は事実を確認し、
今月６日までに同自治会と不動産会社に「人権侵犯の事実にあたる」と説示した。

　法務局人権擁護課の大橋光典課長は「プライバシーにかかわる問題なので、詳
細はコメントできない」としながらも「差別があったとしたら、地域住民への啓
発など必要な措置を検討したい」と話している。
ENDS

UPDATE June 27: My week speaking in Tokyo and facing the madding crowds

Posted on June 27, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

UPDATE JUNE 27, 2007
TOKYO TRIP, SIX SPEECHES IN AS MANY DAYS

Hello Blog. I’ve left you fallow for a week now, my apologies. I’ve just come through what is probably my busiest speaking schedule yet. I gave what amounted to six speeches in as many days, all of them brand new, with Powerpoint presentations in two languages. Phew.

Backing up a bit on the timeline, I have had an incredible June, in the sense that there was no letup. From my mind-blowing trip to the USA and my Cornell 20th Reunion, where I discovered that bullying can become trans-generational (https://www.debito.org/homecoming2007.html), to coming home with jetlag only to be smacked by a car while riding my bicycle to work (https://www.debito.org/?p=453 –finding myself still able to cycle and walk but not climb stairs unassisted for awhile), I’ve had to deal not only with hospitals and insurance companies, but also deadlines that were constantly nipping at my heels. Finish one speech, start preparing another. Every day for about a week.

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

Early on Tuesday morning June 19, I finally started the paper I would be delivering on Friday and Saturday at Waseda University and the 2007 Asian Studies Conference Japan. Topic? Immigration’s effects on Japan, and how lack of governmental oversight has created Frankenstein’s Monster in the labor market. By Tuesday evening, I had pounded out seventeen pages with footnotes and references, and by Wednesday night I was on my third draft and 19th concluding page. I was still writing it on the plane down to Tokyo the next day, and by Thursday evening the fourth and final draft was finished (see it at https://www.debito.org/ASCJPaper2007.doc). I forwent catching up on any Internet or blogging, getting started on my concomitant Powerpoint presentation right away before any sleep (speeches I do nowadays are never only just reading from a printed document anymore; I find using Powerpoint to create visuals from the computer, instead of the Mind’s Eye or the OHP, to be very effective. Sadly, this means my workload is doubled.) Staying with friends Leisa and Stephen Nagy, I found myself striking a decent (but slightly worried) balance between being social, and wondering if I hadn’t taken outdone myself by saying “yes” to everyone who asked me to speak on this trip.

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

So Friday morning June 20, I went to Waseda early and used the graduate student facilities to pound out my Powerpoint in four hours (see it here at https://www.debito.org/japansmulticulturalfuture.ppt). I gave my speech to several grad students (even the American Embassy showed, thanks), and found that the presentation (with questions from the audience during) stretched what had to be a 20-minute talk into well over an hour (which earned tuts from timekeeper Stephen). A couple of grad students said I lacked data (naturally, the Powerpoint is a capsule summary; I suggested they download and read my whole paper), and one asked what percentage of Non-Japanese workers have working conditions as bad as I was citing from the newspapers.

I answered that it’s not a matter of degree–what percentage of exploitation and slavery by nationality would be the proper threshold for saying the system needs improvement? 1%? 5%? 20%? And anyway, we’ll never get reliable stats on this topic when many workers, legal or illegal, won’t come forward to bad-mouth their bosses or get deported. It’s like trying to guestimmate the amount of rape or DV in a society. To me it’s a red herring anyway, since horrible work conditions, even child labor and slavery, being inflicted upon even one laborer in Japan is too many. It’s illegal, too, but poorly enforced–both created then left to forge its own cruel realities by our government.

Anyway, yes, I didn’t have that data, and I could sense the glee in the grad students’ eyes. Gosh, they got me, the big bad speaker who for some reason needed to be shown he’s not all that smart or impregnable, without discussing the problems brought up. Such is one weak spot of academia. Not only does the “dispassionate view” that the academic must take suck the humanity out of issues of human rights, but also the trauma inflicted upon the researcher, suffering constant supervisor and peer vetting of theses in the name of “rigor”, creates a pecking order of nitpicking questions and data for data’s sake. After all, in an arena like this, it’s always seen as better to have data than not, right?, even when it’s irrelevant. “I don’t know” (rather than the consideration of “it doesn’t matter”) in a forum like this becomes an unforgivable weakness.

Then, ironies upon ironies, right afterwards I went to a series of lectures at Waseda on “Cool Japan”. There we had people discussing the intricacies of candles on the heads of certain manga characters, and musings on how Pokemon creates a self-actualizing world for children. Culture vulture stuff, nonrigorous hooey, but received with heavy-lidded adulation out of politeness. Lousy Powerpoint too. Left early.

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

Saturday June 23 was the Asian Studies Conference Japan at Meiji Gakuin University, and quite frankly, I found few papers all that interesting (and even fewer papers available for reading–made me wonder why I tried so hard to get my paper done on time). Some stuff on disaffected youth made me think, but nothing made me blink. And I used some of the time in droning presentations to whittle down my upcoming Powerpoint presentation to its bare essentials. Our roundtable (which had been gratefully preserved by people despite having one of our panelists drop out) had the torture of doing five papers in a two-hour period; each person got 24 minutes including Q&A. Stephen clocked in at 21 minutes with his interesting presentation on the official openness of local governments in different Tokyo Wards towards NJ residents (Adachi-ku sounded pretty progressive, whereas Shinjuku-ku ironically didn’t care–in fact was disinclined to see foreign residents as much more than a potential source of crime). Then I stampeded through my 35 slides and clocked in at 23 minutes just. We had a full house, no questions about data or lack thereof. Probably no time, alas.

Evening was spent catching up with old friends Ken, Garrett, and Alby from Transpacific Radio (http://www.transpacificradio.com –I’ve asked them if they’ll let me read the news sometime), plus newfound friend Aly who surfaced from the Internet to tell me about his woes getting stopped by the police all the time in Saitama (it’s getting worse; the cops apparently target foreigners more than the increasing number of shops with “JAPANESE ONLY” signs…). Stayed out too late and had one beer too many.

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

Sunday June 24 was even busier, if you can believe it. First thing in the morning (as in 9AM, running all the way to deserted downtown Tokyo), I met an Italian journalist (a lovely former fashionista named Stefania with a lovelier accent) who interviewed me for more than three hours for a 5000-word article on activism in Japan. Then taxied back to the ASCJ Conference, since I had been specially invited to attend a post-lunch talk by Nikkei Americans and Canadians about their feelings returning “home” to Japan.

Humph. With even less “rigor” (but good media), we had talks of what I call the genre of feel-good “baachan essays” (or conversely whiney ponderings about defeated expectations–i.e a “Japan don’t treat me right, despite” sort of thing). A love-in for those genetically-admitted, we received a talk about the narratives of older Japanese Americans and Canadians in the Kansai (which, since there were no narrative samples taken from younger women, or from any men at all “because they would disrupt the flow of information”, essentially became a survey of nattering older housewives shooting fish in a barrel). When I asked about if there were any plans to include the no doubt fascinating narratives of Nikkei Brazilians etc. (their factory schedules and language barriers notwithstanding), the answer was no, since, it was claimed, the study of Nikkei North Americans is far more underresearched. This surprising claim was based upon the fact that the Nikkei North Americans had fought or been betrayed by Japan in WWII, adversely influencing research of them. Aha. When the last speaker even asserted that Nikkei should being a White person to Japanese restaurants to get better service, I said, “It cuts both ways. There’s no science here.”

This confirmed a number of things I have been mulling over about these so-called Nikkei “returnees” (kibei) to Japan: How they seem to forget that their ancestors generally left Japan for perfectly good reasons, often because they didn’t fit in economically or socially. And they expect to come back and fit in now? I think it’s best to come here with no expectations or any trump cards due to genetics and make do as individuals, not Nikkei. But I’m sure they wouldn’t agree. To them it’s somehow some matter of birthright. Ah well. Enjoy the questionable social science from identity navel gazing and defeated expectations. It makes for exclusive ideological love-ins all over again, which happen to be just as exclusive as they feel they are facing in Japanese society.

Then in the late afternoon I carted my monolithic suitcase (full of books and T-shirts, https://www.debito.org/tshirts.html) through the subways (surprisingly unbarrier-free; I really feel sorry for people in wheelchairs), and found my way out to Tokai University, out in Odawara, an hour west of Tokyo. Hosts Charles and Yuki Kowalski had invited me out for two speeches care of their E-J translation ESP Classes in the International Studies Department. I had fortunately pounded out an 8-pager on “What is a Japanese?” shortly before I went to America weeks ago. I couldn’t even remember what I wrote, but as soon as we finished our home-cooked meal and some homeopathic remedy for my aching bike leg (it worked, actually–my leg hasn’t hurt since!), I went off to a deserted stay-over teacher’s dorm (I felt like I was walking the halls of the Overlook Hotel in THE SHINING, expecting to find twins behind every corner), was given two nights in a lovely old corner room with big windows overlooking trees, and got started on my Tokai speech Powerpoint (see it at https://www.debito.org/tokaispeech062507.doc)

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

Rising early the next morning (5AM), Monday, June 25, I put the finishing touches on a few visuals, was escorted at 9:30AM into a full classroom of perhaps 150 students, and asked to read my speech in English (without the E-J translation department there to help). I looked at the list of keywords carefully prepared by several teachers (who had done a hell of a lot of groundwork for my speeches–with classroom exercises on Japan’s internationalization, their opinions on who qualifies as a Japanese, and Japan’s future), and saw a full small-print page with words that were second-nature to me by now, but challenging to even advanced non-native speakers. Oops. Wound up paraphrasing the hard stuff, throwing in translations for difficult concepts, and finishing my talk early to power the rest of the presentation with Q&A. Anything to keep people from falling asleep. They didn’t. The questions came easily and quickly, and people of all langauge levels seemed to enjoy the conversation about Japan’s future.

But that’s not all. Later on in the afternoon, we were seated in a 500-seat auditorium with our ten translators, all raring to go, dreading the Q&A, but doing just fine on the prepared statements. I had prepared even more Powerpoint visuals in the interim (see the full version at https://www.debito.org/tokai062507.ppt), and we had a grand old time–especially since the hall had actually filled to 600 souls!, containing the crowded tension and interest when jokes come up and the speaker gets a little bombastic with his points.

But the questions were hell for the interpreters. One asked, “What do you think is the definition of ‘country’?” (as in nation–kuni). Another asked if my demand for Japan’s Census to measure for ethnicity was not a form of privacy invasion, even discrimination. Still another asked if I objected to the word “haafu” for international children (going instead for “double”), then how do Nikkei fit in? Having interpreters was lucky for me–their time taken to interpret gave me time to consider my answer, but when my answer go too tough to translate, I wound up giving my full ideas in fast Japanese like SNL’s Subliminal Man–to quite a few laughs. In the end, we had a wonderful time, and an audience, according to the ESP coordinators, more numerous, engaged, and thoughtful about the topic at hand than any other guest speech they had ever hosted.

Much merriment followed that evening over beers with the interpreters (two of them were actually Chinese, with excellent Japanese skills and even higher tolerance for alcohol), so much so I realized I had stayed out too late again and drunk too much. And I hadn’t even started my Powerpoint presentation for my last speech to be given in less than 24 hours. The problem was this time it was entirely in Japanese…

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

Rising even earlier (4AM) on Tuesday, June 26, I set to work. Major publisher Shogakukan in Jinbochou, Tokyo, had invited me as part of their guest lecturer series for raising the awareness of their writers, inviting minorities and interest groups to give their perspectives on the mass media. They asked me to speak on a dream topic–“Language that Japanese don’t notice is discriminatory”–and believe you me I had a lot I’ve wanted to say.

So much so, however, that my Powerpoint slides kept growing and growing. By 9AM I had finished a first draft of 45 slides. On the train back to Tokyo I started getting more ideas, and by the time I camped out for two hours at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Library, I had put together 51 slides (see them all here at https://www.debito.org/shougakukan062607.ppt), proofreading and checking text animations just once more with 30 minutes to go. Grabbed a sandwich and a cab, sailed into Shogakukan (in my daze I remembered that I had tried to sell them both my novel MS in 1994 (excerpts at https://www.debito.org/publications.html#FICTIONAL), and my children’s comic book two years ago (more on that later sometime)), and with T minus ten I was hooked up and let fly. It was not the first time I’ve finished my Powerpoint presentation less than an hour before I gave it, but it was the first time I’d ever done it without any help from a native speaker. And from what I was told afterwards, the Japanese was just fine.

I won’t get into what I said here, as this essay is long enough, (read the Powerpoint–maybe I’ll get around to translating it some day), but two hours later I was back on the street, having accomplished my goals completely. I headed back to the FCCJ, had a big dinner of comfort food (nachos and fish and chips, washed down with Grolsch), and attended a compelling Book Break by Roland Kelts (http://www.fccj.or.jp/~fccjyod2/node/2272), author of “JAPANAMERICA: How Japanese Pop Culture has invaded the US”, who very articulately spelled out how manga and anime are influencing both American society and international print media. And in passing he described how Pokemon really affects kids, without lapsing into jargon or faffing about with personal impressions. Well done. We exchanged books (or actually, he’ll send me a copy of his later), and someday I might even get around to reviewing it for Debito.org.

Then friend and Amnesty International Group 78 Coordinator Chris Pitts (http://www.aig78.org), gave me a room to crash in in West Tokyo, and we stayed up nursing beverages until the wee hours. I was up this morning at 5AM to beat the morning rush hour and catch my 9:50 flight back to Sapporo. Then I taught a class, writing this up before and after. I’m going to leave the keyboard now and sleep, thank you very much…

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Again, I don’t think I’ve been this busy since grad school. Well, okay, once or twice since then. I can see that my daily grind of one paper per day back then was indeed good training. I’ll be down again in Tokyo in late July for yet another speech–if more don’t pop up like dandelions like what happened this trip. Keep you posted.

Returning to my regular blog schedule, I hope. Sorry for the hiatus. Arudou Debito back in Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
UPDATE JULY 27, 2007 ENDS

MOJ Website on fingerprinting/photos at Immigration from Nov 2007 (UPDATED)

Posted on June 17, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Lovely bit of Japanicana at the GOJ online TV network. Except that as well as being kinda weird and laughably amusing, it’s deadly serious about targeting foreigners as potential terrorists.

Friend just sent me a link to a new site talking about the new Immigration procedures coming into effect in November 2007, which will involve taking fingerprints and photographing of all “foreign visitors” crossing the border into Japan.

http://nettv.gov-online.go.jp/prg/prg1203.html

This will, however, not be restricted to “foreign visitors”. It will be applied to everyone BUT (quoting the website):

==========================
1. Persons under the age of 16
2. Special status permanent residents
[presumably the Zainichi generational “foreigners”, which means regular-status permanent-resident immigrants are NOT exempt]
3. Those performing actions which would be performed [sic] by those with a status of residence, “diplomat” or “official government business”
==========================

Which means even people who are long-term residents will get fingerprinting reinstated, despite having it abolished after decades of protest in 1999 (See article with more details at https://www.debito.org/fingerprinting.html)

And this time, if you don’t comply, you can’t take it to court (like Kathy Morikawa and others did). You’re just refused entry at the border.

GOJ’s justification? Prevention of terrorism, and the “safety of foreign visitors”.

The video in English is a hoot too, wheeling out a few token foreigners of color hamming it up, and agreeing to have their privacy violated on suspicion of terrorism.

But the irony here is that all the terrorist activities that have happened so far in Japan (from Aum on down) have been Japanese.

The association of foreigners with terrorism (moreover apparently helping to save them from themselves) is pretty presumptuous.

Why are they doing this? Because they can. If the GOJ were really serious about combatting terrorism, they would fingerprint everybody. But they can’t. They tried this before years ago with widespread protest. Look what happened to the failed Juki-Net system with universal ID cards (it was even ruled unconstitutional in December 2006, see https://www.debito.org/?p=97

The GOJ info site on fingerprinting is at
http://nettv.gov-online.go.jp/prg/prg1203.html

Distressed about this? More on what you can do about it here:
https://www.debito.org/?p=627

REFERENTIAL LINKS:
Trace the arc of this policy proposal as it became law at:

THE ZEIT GIST
Here comes the fear
Antiterrorist law creates legal conundrums for foreign residents
By DEBITO ARUDOU
Column 21 for the Japan Times Community page, MAY 24, 2005
https://www.debito.org/japantimes052405.html

THE NEW “I C YOU” CARDS
LDP proposal to computer chip foreigners has great potential for abuse
By Arudou Debito
Column 26 for the Japan Times Community Page November 22, 2005
https://www.debito.org/japantimes112205.html

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

============================
–UPDATE JULY 2, 2007
MARK MINO-THOMPSON OF THE COMMUNITY ADDS:

I decided to call around to a few places in Japan, specifically to
get the official word on what new immigration procedures will be
happening at airports starting in November. I called the Ministry
of Justice Immigration Division (General Affairs), Narita
Immigration and Japan’s Foreigner(?) Human Rights Bureau.

First off, not that I expected much from Houmushou, but I was able
to get the person answering the phone to confirm that all
foreigners, except Zainichi and government staff on offical business
will be photographed and printed each time they enter and exit
Japan. When I suggested that this procedure could be seen as
invasive to long-term visa holders and permanent residents (who have
already gone through an extensive vetting process by immigration) he
simply restated that all foreign guests would have to submit their
biometric data. Of course, I do understand that front-line
government staff have no power to comment on laws nor to change
them. I thanked him for his info and asked that please pass on my
concerns to his superiors.

Narita Immigration also confirmed the same information, although
they were slightly more sympathetic in tone of voice. I asked them
what the procedure would be for international families entering
Japan. Would they be forced to separate into foreigner and Japanese
lines at immigration or would they be able to enter together as is
currently. The woman explained to me that situations like this are
being debated within the department, but as far as the plan goes for
now, she believes that all foreigners will have to use the “foreign
national” line. She did add that front-line staff at Narita are
hoping to have one or more booths on the “Japanese National” side be
able to handle reentry permit holders. I also asked her a
hypothetical question about what were to happen if a permanent
resident visa holder with a valid re-entry permit were to refuse to
get printed and photographed. “They would be denied entry into
Japan.” she said.

Finally, after being given the number from the woman at Nartia
Immigration, I called a number of an organization dealing with human
rights for foreigners in japan. I spoke to a nice woman who was
well aware of the upcoming regulations. I asked her whether the
organization felt this legislation was a violation of human rights,
and if so, would they be writing some sort of report to the
government. She said that they really can’t make a statement about
something being a human rights violation until AFTER it has been put
into place. In other words, they’re adopting a wait-and-see
approach. She further added that if there comes a time in which
they feel these new procedures ARE infringing in foreigners human
rights, they will consider writing a report to that fact to the
Ministry of Justice. (although, by then millions of foreigners will
have their biometric data collected and stored on some huge, on-line
database that other government agencies will have access to).

Well, that’s where it stands at the moment. Any chance that we can
get the media to talk about this again before November? It seemed
from articles months ago and several Ministries were surprised and
concerned that this new policy was blanketing the entire non-
Zainichi foreign population. Perhaps there’s still hope for getting
this revised?

Mark Mino-Thompson

ENDS

Jun 27 Sophia U Film Showing: “Refusing to Stand for the Kimigayo”

Posted on June 13, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Little something which might interest you. Debito back in Sapporo

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

From: David Slater
Subject: Film Showing at Sophia U: “Refusing to Stand for the Kimigayo” (June
27th)
Forwarded by Robert Aspinall

Institute for the Study of Social Justice at Sophia University
Invites you to a film screening:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
AGAINST COERCION:Refusing to Stand for “Kimigayo”
(87 minutes/in Japanese with English subtitles)
Directors: Matsubara Akira and Sasaki Yumi (Video Press)
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
17:00-19:30
Room L921, 9th Floor, Central Library
Yotsuya Campus, Sophia University
Free Admission
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Since the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education issued
a decree to strictly enforce the hoisting of Hinomaru
and the singing of Kimigayo at school ceremonies in
2003, over 340 public school teachers in Tokyo have so
far faced disciplinary actions for “negligence of
duties.” Although the Tokyo Local Court ruled such
coercion unconstitutional in September 2006, the Tokyo
Metropolitan Board of Education took disciplinary
measures against a further 35 teachers in March 2007
and appealed to Tokyo High Court. The punitive
measures of the Tokyo Board of Education are
cumulative, and as a consequence, it looks quite
possible at this point that some teachers will face
dismissal in March 2008 –if they continue to refuse
to stand for Kimigayo.

Such developments are not limited to Tokyo public
schools, and are indeed of particular relevance to
those who are in teaching professions at school as
well as university levels. The new Law on National
Referenda that the Abe government enacted last month
contains a stipulation that prohibits teachers (and
public servants) to “utilize their positions” during
future campaigns on constitutional revisions –in
other words, a school teacher or university professor
who expresses a view that does not conform with the
government proposal may very well face similar
disciplinary measures for “negligence of duties.”

This documentary film follows the school teachers, and
their students, as the teachers refuse to stand for
Kimigayo and face pay-cut, suspension, and re-training
programs. The doors open at 17:00, and the movie
screening is followed by a Q&A session with Ms.
Kawarai Junko, who is currently suspended from her
position at a school for the disabled in Tokyo.

This event represents the first part of a program
entitled “Is Freedom in Danger?” organized by the
Institute for the Study of Social Justice, Sophia
University. It will be followed by a symposium on
October 11, where Prof. Takami Katsutoshi (Sophia Law
School) will speak on the subject of constitution and
freedom, Father Tani Daiji (Bishop of Saitama,
Catholic Church) on freedom of religion, and Koichi
Nakano (Sophia University) on the contemporary
politics of illiberalism (all in Japanese).

ENDS

上智大学映画上映『君が代不起立』6月27日（水）

Posted on June 13, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

上智大学社会正義研究所では、連続企画『自由は危ないのか』第1回として、下記の予定でドキュメンタリー映画上映会を開催いたします。

2007年6月27日（水曜日）
上智大学　中央図書館9階L921号室
17：00〜19：30
参加無料・事前登録不要
ドキュメンタリー映画
『君が代不起立』
（With English Subtitles）

上映時間87分＆河原井純子さん（東京都教員・停職処分中）たちとの質疑応答
2003年に東京都教育委員会が卒業式や入学式での日の丸掲揚・君が代斉唱の「厳格実
施」を通達して以来、のべ340人を超える教員が職務命令違反を理由に懲戒処分を受
けている。2006年9月には東京地裁が「強制は違憲」とする判決を下したにもかかわ
らず、東京都教委は2007年3月に新たに35人に処分を行った。都教委の処分は累積性
を持つことから、現況では2008年3月についに免職処分（解雇）となる教師が現れる
ことが危惧される事態となっている。

2006年12月にビデオプレス社が公開した『君が代不起立』は懲戒処分に直面している
不起立の教職員たちの考え、教育への想いと行動、そして彼らの教え子たちの姿を
追ったドキュメンタリー映画であり、これまで各地市民団体、ICU、外国人記者クラ
ブなどにおいて上映会を積み重ねている。

折しも、憲法改定を掲げる与党による国民投票法が制定され、この法律が教員・公務
員の「地位利用」を禁止した規定を含むことによって、同様に政権与党の意に沿わな
い見解を表明した教員は懲戒処分の対象となる可能性も出てきている。私立大学で教
育に携わる私たちにとっても他人事ではありえないこの問題を通じて、思想良心の自
由について、本学教職員・学生らと議論し考えることが本企画の趣旨である。
————————————
＜予告＞
連続企画第2回『自由は危ないのか』シンポジウム
2007年10月11日（木曜日）
中央図書館9階L921号室
17：00〜19：30
参加無料・事前登録不要・使用言語日本語
「憲法と自由」高見勝利・上智大学法科大学院教授
「信教の自由と政教分離」谷大二・さいたま教区司教
「反自由の政治」中野晃一・上智大学国際教養学部准教授
思想良心の自由、表現の自由に限らず、信教の自由なども含めて今日自由をめぐる問
題は実に多岐にわたっている。戦後憲法の中で曲がりなりにも保障されてきた個人の
自由がかつてないほどに脅威にさらされていると危惧する声が上がる一方で、逆に
「戦後民主主義」の行き過ぎた自由が国家の存続基盤そのものを危うくしているとい
う論調も強くなってきている。
ドキュメンタリー映画『君が代不起立』上映会での問題提起を受けて、自由の現在と
将来についての学術的論考と討論を更に進めることが本企画の趣旨である。

—
David H. Slater, Ph.D.
Faculty of Liberal Arts
Sophia University, Tokyo

U Chicago talk by Imai Noriaki

Posted on June 7, 2007June 8, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Interesting talk here by Imai Noriaki, one of the group of Japanese who went to Iraq three years ago on their own for research and humanitarian work, and wound up getting kidnapped (and shown on J TV with knives to their throats) by Iraqi militants. They were released, but not after running the gauntlet of hostile J media and politicians, and in my view quite a setback for activists in Japan.

Why this is interesting is because Imai doesn’t really come off as strongly as he should in his talk. Granted, he was young then (18), and full of vim and will. But he doesn’t really make his case even today as to why it was important that he go, and how unfair the consequences were in Japan afterwards (I do it instead in my Japan Times article excerpted below). Could be a language barrier (I’ve met the guy personally in Sapporo, since he’s from there, and he’s got a good heart), but at root is his pichipichi idealism which needs a few more doses of the realities of debate in the 21st Century.

He does, however, offer his attempts to make himself heard (trying to answer the critics–even making his cellphone number available to the anonymous and often very abusive online community in Japan), and where they got him (nowhere, really).

I sympathize. I am no stranger to criticism–I receive it practically every day from people who nitpick or attack without daring to identify themselves, or take any responsiblity whatsoever for what they say. They are not in the debate to actually offer any possiblity of changing their own minds–just blowing off steam or criticizing for sport. And I’ve long since learned there’s practically no point in responding because they are beyond being reached (especially when I have made my views as clear as I can in the thousands of essays over fifteen years I’ve archived on Debito.org), so I for the most part just don’t answer. After all, there are lots of them and one of you, and there are only so many hours in a day. More on how I reached this conclusion myself in my book JAPANESE ONLY.

Anyway, have a listen. Arudou Debito in Upstate NY.

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

“Why I Went to Iraq…Three Years Later”

March 29, 2007
Noriaki Imai, student environmental and peace activist

At 18 years of age, Noriaki Imai traveled to Iraq to study the effects of depleted uranium on Iraqi children. While in Iraq, he was taken hostage and threatened to be killed unless Japan withdrew its troops from Iraq. Fortunately, he was released alive, but when he returned home to Japan, he faced enormous public criticism.

Two different audio and video formats at
http://chiasmos.uchicago.edu/events/imai.shtml

Part of the Japan at Chicago Lecture Series: Celebrating Protest; sponsored by the Japan Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Human Rights Program, the Center for International Studies, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, the Environmental Studies Program and Middle Eastern Studies Students Association.

=========================
Kidnap crisis poses a new risk
Japan’s outrage toward the former hostages in Iraq could result in bad public policy
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20040511zg.htm
By Debito Arudou, The Japan Times, May 11, 2004

When five Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq last month, huge public concern for their safe return quickly gave way to hostility and a campaign of vilification. A disastrous public appeal by the families of three of the hostages for the withdrawal of SDF troops from Iraq encouraged the government to take a tough line, and facilitated a media frenzy that sought to paint the hostages as reckless, naive and of dubious political affiliation.

However, a series of measures proposed by officials emboldened by the backlash and designed to prevent a repeat occurrence of the kidnap crisis may only have the effect of snuffing out Japan’s nascent volunteer movement…

Rest at https://www.debito.org/japantimes051104.html

ENDS

Yomiuri: GOJ split over what to do about Trainee Visa abuses

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. It’s becoming a hot issue at last: What to do about all the NJ labor coming over here and getting abused by unscrupulous employers and officials. The Yomiuri offers a good overview, then Matt Dioguardi offers an even better overview of the GOJ debate and proposals popping up there to fix the situation. Kinda. Debito in Sapporo

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

Govt split over foreign trainee program
Takeshi Kosaka, Masaharu Nomura and Soichiro Kuboniwa
Yomiuri Shimbun May 19, 2007
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070519TDY03003.htm

Government officials are engaged in a heated debate over an on-the-job training system for foreigners, which has been criticized by some as allowing employers to exploit foreign trainees as low-wage laborers.

Study panels established by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry recently proposed a review of the system, while Justice Minister Jinen Nagase on Tuesday said he personally believes a new system for accepting foreign manual laborers should be introduced to replace the current system.

Concerned ministries, eyeing a drastic review of the foreign trainee system, plan to hold discussions on the issue with a view toward revising relevant laws in an ordinary Diet session in 2009.

But the motivations for any review vary markedly among the ministries, and it is unclear how these differing views can be reconciled.

The current system is widely used, with the number of small and midsize companies taking advantage of it rising considerably since 1990 over concerns about labor shortages.

However, there have been numerous reports of unlawful or improper action by host companies, such as a refusal to pay overtime wages and withholding foreign trainees’ passports or bankbooks.

It has also been revealed that in some cases, foreign trainees had to pay large fees to brokering organizations in their home countries before leaving for Japan. As a result, many foreign trainees went missing after entering Japan, to work illegally.

The succession of problems prompted the ministries separately to discuss a possible review of the system.

For the first of the three years of on-the-job training under the scheme, foreign trainees are not legally considered employees, and are thus not covered by the Labor Standards Law, the Minimum Wage Law and other laws protecting workers.

The labor ministry’s panel on May 11 compiled a plan that would abolish the one-year training period, to allow the workers to be treated as employees for the whole period.

One senior ministry official noted, “Even if foreign trainees are forced to work under terrible conditions, labor laws don’t cover them during the trainee period, so we have no way of protecting them.”

But three days later, the METI panel issued a report that said the one-year trainee period should be maintained.

“Companies shoulder the cost of accommodating the foreign trainees and also provide Japanese language classes and work-safety training,” a ministry official said. “If they’re made employees from the start, it could actually create a situation whereby they are abused as low-wage laborers.”

The economy ministry believes the best way to prevent improper treatment of foreign trainees is to toughen penalties on host companies, and introduce some sort of certification for legitimate host firms.

The two ministries’ proposals have some points in common, such as proposing extending the permissible period of stay for trainees in Japan from the current three years to five.

However, there are also noticeable differences between the two ministries’ positions. These differences stem largely from the fact that the labor ministry wants to expand the coverage of labor laws, while the economy ministry wants to give due consideration to the small and midsize companies accepting foreign trainees.

The justice minister’s proposal is to abolish the current system and introduce a totally new one to allow the acceptance of a wider range of foreign workers for short periods. It would also in effect lift the ban on domestic firms accepting foreign manual laborers.

Nagase has instructed the Justice Ministry to examine his plan based on the following premises:

— The purpose of accepting foreign trainees or workers will change from “contributing to the transfer of job skills as part of international cooperation” to “contributing to securing the necessary workforce in Japan.”

— Atrocious working conditions and extremely low wages for foreign workers are unacceptable.

— Foreign trainees or workers are not allowed to reenter Japan with the same visa status, to prevent them from permanently settling in the nation.

Justice Ministry officials were generally positive toward the minister’s plan, with one senior official saying, “By withdrawing the official rationale of international contribution, the debates can be grounded in reality.”

But some in the labor and economy ministries were critical of the justice minister’s plan.

One official said, “It’s too drastic to say the system should be scrapped just because there is a discrepancy between the goal and the reality.” Another was concerned the plan would completely overturn the government’s policy of not accepting foreign manual laborers, while a third said, “The current system has been, to a certain degree, effective as part of the nation’s international contribution.”

But all three ministries agree that a revised or completely new system should include measures to crackdown on overstayers through tighter immigration controls, and improvements in managing foreign workers’ information.

Since February, the Justice Ministry has been considering integrating control and management of immigration-related data held by the central government with data on foreign nationals’ resident registration held by municipal governments, so that overstayers can be identified more easily.

The labor and economy ministries plan to proceed with discussions on possible changes to the system, while cautiously eyeing moves by the Justice Ministry.

(Yomiuri Shinbun May 19, 2007)
=======================================

MATT DIOGUARDI ADDS:

Now recently three ministries have stepped forward with a plan to save the day. These would be:

The Ministry of Justice
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

There would seem to be the three views, roughly something like this …

Justice Ministry: Let’s stop pretending this is a trainee program and just admit openly that it’s a guest worker program. Then let’s be very clear that we expect labor laws to apply to the guest workers just like anyone else. We’ll crack down on the abuses. However, let’s be very clear that after the guests have stayed for three years, they MUST leave and they certainly can NOT come back. We don’t want these poor low life scum ruining Japanese society and culture.

Labor Ministry: Let’s just reform the system a bit. Let’s throw out the Industrial Training Program and instead focus on the Technical Internship Program. And you know that clause we’ve got about labor law not applying for the first year, well, let’s go ahead and apply it. That should fix things up, well, you know, maybe a little. I mean, this whole system is pretty lucrative for us bureaucrats, so let’s not rock the boat too much.

Economics Ministry: Let’s not let go of the idea that Japan is trying to help other countries by training their people. So what if the program becomes near slave labor at times. Even if it’s not true that were helping other countries, it’s the thought that counts. Do you know how much trouble it’ll be for us MITI bureaucrats to deal with these other countries if we were OPENLY using and throwing away their workers? They would hate us. We can’t lose the important facade that we’re helping to develop poor countries. Why don’t we offer a certification program for those who want to abuse the trainees. It won’t mean dirt, but it’ll give us bureaucrats a bit more power and that’s not bad, right?…

MORE ANALYSIS OF THIS ISSUE AND ARCHIVING OF ARTICLES AT MATT DIOGUARDI’S BLOG (CLICK HERE)
ENDS

Dietmember Hosaka critical of “thought screening” in new J jury system

Posted on May 31, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Excerpting an excellent article from Chris Salzberg at Global Voices Online on Japan’s upcoming jury system (from May 2009). He translates Lower House Dietmember Hosaka Nobuto‘s questioning of the Justice Minister et al regarding their proposed screening of applicant citizen jurors in the new and upcoming jury for criminal cases.

I don’t want to cut and paste in Chris’s entire blog entry, so see it here. But I will paste below his and his partner’s translation of Hosaka’s blog entry (Japanese original here or up at the abovementioned Chris blog link).

This is very important, since for once Japan’s judiciary is trying to open the sacerdotal system of judicial decisionmaking to more public input and scrutiny. And here they go all over again trying to screen jurors to make sure they are sympathetic towards (i.e. trusting of) the police. The police and prosecutors have enough power at their disposal to convict people (to the point of raising hackles at the UN Committee Against Torture) without proposing to stack the jury too.

Again, it’s best written up at Chris’s blog, so also take a look at that. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

==============================
(Written by Chris Salzberg and Tokita Hanako)

…It is only against this backdrop of the chronic problem of forced confessions that Hosaka’s blog entry can really be understood. The blog entry is called “The hidden ‘trap’ of the citizen judge system: thought checking in citizen judge interviews“, and begins:

Yesterday, in the Lower House Committee on Judicial Affairs, I questioned [the government] for 40 minutes over a legal revision of criminal proceedings to institutionalize “Participation in the Judicial Action of Crime Victims”. In exchanges between the Supreme Court and the Justice Ministry, a state of affairs was revealed in which the legal system would be swayed from its foundation by a “wide range of views from a group of citizens chosen by drawing lots”, part of the [new] citizen judge system. When a police officer is called by the prosecution to testify as a witness, it is permissible to ask the citizen judge candidates and the court of justice: “Do you have trust in the investigation of this police officer?” If you answer: “No, I do not trust this police officer”, then the prosecutor can judge that “A fair trial cannot be guaranteed” and can instigate a procedure in which, without indicating any reasons, a maximum of 4 candidates can be disqualified.

The 6 members of the citizen judge system, acting as “representatives of the people”, under this filtering by the prosecution, becomes a group of only “well-intentioned citizens without any doubts about the police”; this in turn has a huge influence in court battles in which the prosecution argues with the defence over the “voluntariness of confessions” [extracted by the police]. The investigation has the authority to perform a “thought check” on these delegates of the citizen court system, chosen by “drawing lots”, related to issues such as their “degree of confidence in the police investigation” and their “view on the death penalty”, and, without stating any reason, can carry out a “challenge” procedure to eliminate up to 4 candidates. I am shocked that this scheme has been hidden. For the “bureaucracy”, this very convenient “well-intentioned citizen without doubts about the bureaucracy”, chosen from the entire population by drawing lots, is nothing more than a disguise under the name of “participation in the legal system”. If the three elements of the judicial community have concocted these “unacceptable questions” which could impinge on the freedom of thought and creed, we cannot ignore this. Below I have presented a tentative record [of the proceedings]. Starting next week, I will try to put the brakes on this reckless degeneration of justice. Please have a look at the exchange that took place in the Committee of Judicial Affairs, reproduced below.

The rest of the blog entry consists of the proceedings of the Diet session, translated here in their entirety:

Hosaka
There was an article in yesterday’s newspaper about the finalization of the essentials of a supreme court outline relating to procedures for the court of justice’s new citizen judge system. In this article, it was explained that the citizen judges would be questioned in an oral consultation or interview. In these consultations or interviews, “investigator testimony” — i.e. in cases in which the police officer (witness) is scheduled to testify — if there is an appeal by the person concerned (prosecution), then the presiding judge can ask: “Are there any circumstances in which you would be able to trust this investigation conducted by the police and others? Or, alternatively, are there any circumstances about which you do not have particular confidence?” In cases in which the answer is “no”, no further questions are asked [of the candidate citizen judge]. In cases in which the answer is “yes”, the citizen judge is asked: “What kind of circumstances are these?” Depending on the answer to this question, if necessary, the candidate citizen judge is then asked: “Do you think you can consider the contents of the police officer’s testimony and render a fair judgement?” The citizen is assessed on the basis of the existence or nonexistence of doubts about the fairness of the trial. What is the meaning of this? We are all acutely aware of the fact that there are cases, such as the Shibushi incident, in which police investigations have gone much too far. One of these citizen judge candidates might for example say: “Police investigations sometimes do things behind closed doors, so in this sense perhaps they go too far.” What is the intention of this questioning?

(Detective Superintendent of the Secretariat of the Supreme Court) Ogawa
I will answer the question. In cases in which there are arrangement procedures preceding the public trial, when it becomes known either that applications are being processed for an investigator witness, or that an investigator is scheduled to appear, in cases in which the party concerned has made a request, in order to assess whether or not there is any possibility that judgement about the “confidence in the verbal testimony of the investigator witness” will be dealt with in an unfair manner, we are right now considering questions indicated by the committee member (Hosaka) so that we can use it as one reference. In a practical sense, the court makes the decision, so how things will turn out, in concrete terms, is really a judgement to be made by the court.

Hosaka
I am asking this question to the Detective Superintendent of the Justice Ministry. In cases such as you just mentioned, in which the investigator appears as a witness, probably a confession has been made. However, what about cases in which, after the [confession], the person switches their position and issues a denial, and raises doubts about the voluntariness of the “recorded confession”? I believe that there are many cases of this kind. The court is asking questions: “Do you have trust in the investigation of the police officer?” If a candidate answers in an interview: “I have no trust at all. I think that it is strange, all these things going on behind closed doors recently,” then the investigator is able to challenge the candidacy of the citizen judge. Could this be a reason for disqualification?

(Someone from the ruling party [LDP] exclaims:
They can do that? Hosaka’s explanation to this ruling party member: “Yes, they can issue challenges. Without giving a reason, they can disqualify up to 4 candidates. How will the prosecution judge people who have doubts in their mind about the police officer?”)

(Detective Superintendent of the Secretariat of the Supreme Court) Ogawa
On the question of under what circumstances an investigator can, without indicating any reason, challenge [the candidacy of a citizen judge], we really haven’t done any concrete investigation on this. I think it is up to the judgement of the investigator in each individual case.

Hosaka
I request that the Minister of Justice share his thoughts on this. The citizen judges are chosen by drawing lots. From a list of registered voters in the Lower House elections. However, in this process, in cases in which [the candidate citizen judge] says: “I have a bit of trouble placing my trust in this police investigation”, the prosecution can declare that “We challenge [the candidacy of] this citizen judge”. The citizen judge may then be excluded. ……if citizen judges become the object of such challenges, I wonder if we can really say that this is a system which draws on an even distribution of representative views of people from the entire country? I am extremely concerned. What do you think about this situation?

Justice Minister Nagase
I remember that there were various views expressed when the citizen court system was being set up. “If this is in there, then won’t everybody be judged innocent?”, “No, everyone will be sentenced , right?”, I remember that there were arguments like this. The concerns that you are expressing now are I believe related to those earlier arguments. However, in the three branches of government, in an appropriate manner, we are working toward a citizen judge system that reflects the good sense of the average citizen, not some kind of legal debate in which people quibble over every insignificant detail.

Hosaka
My intention is not to quibble over every insignificant detail. What we have to debate about, in a broader sense, is the participation, in the court of justice, of the “victim” within the citizen judge system. As we now understand the meaning of the “challenge” [of candidates], I want to have a thorough debate on this issue.
ENDS

保坂衆議院議員：裁判員制度の知られざる「罠」、裁判員面接で思想チェックを問う

Posted on May 31, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

ブロク読者の皆様おはようございます。有道　出人です。

年金問題の大騒ぎで気付いていないことかもしれませんが、きのう、衆議院保坂展人氏のブログによると、これから「犯罪被害者の訴訟参加」の「思想チェック」を実施するようです。

「どれぐらい警察官を信じるのか」をチェックしてから陪審員として取り入れるかどうかを決心するようです。衆議院法務委員会で表面化したことを転送します。長勢法務大臣の返答も入っています。これはGlobal Voices OnlineのChris Salzbergさまからいただいたお知らせです。感謝いたします。

早速記載しますが、宜しくお願い致します。有道　出人

=================================
裁判員制度の知られざる「罠」、裁判員面接で思想チェック
保坂展人衆議院議員　著
裁判員制度を問う / 2007年05月26日
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/hosakanobuto/e/27f78e12828b4ce61eb1beb8d0ab42ff）

昨日は、衆議院法務委員会で「犯罪被害者の訴訟参加」を制度化する刑事訴訟法改正案の質疑を40分行った。この最高裁と法務省とのやりとりの中で、裁判員制度の「くじで選ばれる国民の幅広い意見」という根底から揺らぐような事態が明らかになった。検察側が「警察官」を証人として出廷される時に、裁判所に対して裁判員候補に対して「あなたは警察官の捜査を信用していますか」と質問させることが出来る。「いや、信用ならないですね」と答えると「公平な裁判が保障されない」と検察官が判断して最大4人まで理由を示さずに「忌避」の手続きを行うことが出来るというものだ。

「市民の代表」として出てくる6人の裁判員たちは、検察側のフィルタリングにかけられた「警察を疑わない善意の市民」ばかりとなり、「自白の任意性」をめぐって弁護側と激しく争う事件について、大きな影響を与えるのは間違いない。「くじ」で選ばれた裁判員候補を、捜査権力が「警察の捜査への信頼度」「死刑についての考え方」などに対して「思想チェック」をして、理由を述べずに4人まで「忌避」という排除手続きを取るという仕組みが隠れていたことに愕然とする。「官」にとって、都合のいい「官を疑うことなき善良な市民」が国民全体から「くじ」で選ばれたとすれば、これは「市民の司法参加・偽装」そのものである。法曹三者で国民の思想信条の自由を侵すような「許しがたい設問」をつくりあげていたとすれば、看過出来ない。以下に仮記録を示しておく。来週から、国会内で「裁判員制度を問う超党派議員の会」を呼びかけ、司法の変質と暴走にブレーギをかけていきたいと思う。以下、委員会でのやりとりを再現してみよう。

保坂　昨日の新聞に裁判所の裁判員制度の手続きに関する最高裁規則の要綱がまとまったという記事が出ています。そこで、質問を裁判員について口頭諮問というか面接でするわけですが゛、この中に「捜査官証言」、つまり警察官等（※証人）が予定されている事件において、当事者の求めがあった場合（※検察側）、裁判長が口頭で「あなたは警察等の捜査が特に信用出来ると思う事情がありますか。あるいは、逆に特に信用出来ないという事情がありますか」と質問をし、「いいえ」と回答した場合は、何も質問しない。「はい」と回答した場合は、「それはどのような事情ですか」と質問する。その回答によって必要がある時には、「警察官等の証言の内容を検討して公平に判断することが出来ますか」と質問をし、不公平な裁判をするおそれの有無を判断する、とある。どういう意味ですかね。我々は志布志事件などで警察の捜査も行き過ぎがあるということを随分認識しています。たとえば裁判員の候補者がですね、「警察の捜査も時々、密室で行われているから行き過ぎがあるかもしれません」と言うかもしれません。どういう意図でこの設問があるのですか。

小川最高裁事務総局刑事局長　お答えします。公判前整理手続きをやっていく際に、捜査官証人が申請される、また予定される事件があるとわかりました時に、当事者の方から求めがあった場合に「捜査官証人の証言の信用性」について不公平な裁判をするおそれがあるかないかという点を判断をするために、今、委員の御指摘のような質問をさせていただく、ひとつの判断資料となろうかと思います。実際には、裁判体が判断されますから具体的どうなるかというのは裁判体の判断となります。

保坂　法務省刑事局長に聞きたいのですが、今のような捜査官が証人として出てくる場合には、おそらく自白はしている、しかし、その後に否認に転じて、「自白調書」の任意性に疑いがある場合、こういうことが多いんではないかと思います。裁判所が設問していますよね。「警察官の捜査等にどれだけ信用性を置いているかどうか」と。「私は全然信用していないんだ。最近は相当密室でおかしいと思う」と面接で言っていたら、検察官はこの裁判員候補者を忌避出来るんですね。忌避する理由になりますか。

（そんな事が出来るのか？　と与党席からの声。「忌避出来るんですよ。理由を示さずに４人まで忌避出来るんです。警察官はどうかなあという人に対して検察側がどう判断するかどうか」と保坂議場の与党議員に説明）

小津法務省刑事局長　　この件、検察官がどのような場合に理由を示さないで忌避するかどうかということは、私どもで何も具体的に検討しているわけではないわけで、個々の事件における検察官の判断ということになろうかと思います。

　保坂　法務大臣に感想を求めたいんですよ。裁判員というのはくじで選ばれるんですよね。衆議院選挙の有権者名簿で。しかし、その中で、「警察の捜査はちょっと私は信用出来ないですよ」と言った場合には、検察側から「この人、忌避」と出るかもしれない。……忌避の対象になってくると、本当に国民全体の意見を代表して、まんべんなく汲み上げた制度になるのかどうか、大変不安になってきたんですね。その点、どうですか。

長勢法務大臣　裁判員制度を創設する時、当時は色々な御意見があった事を思い出します。片一方は、「こんなのが入るとみんな無罪になってしまうんじゃないか」「いや、みんな重罪になってしまうんじゃないか」という議論があったことを思い出します。
今の議論もそういうことに関連しているのかなと不安を感じますが、法曹三者において適切にですね、こういうあまり重箱のスミをつつくような法律論じゃなくて、一般の国民の良識が反映されるような裁判員制度にしていきたいと思います。

保坂　重箱のスミをつつくような議論をしているつもりはありません。これは裁判で裁判員制度の中で「被害者」の方が参加されるというトータルなパッケージとしての議論をしなければならない。この「忌避」ということも今、わかってきたわけなので、トータルに議論したい。
（保坂議員のブログでコメントを）
===========================

裁判員制度の知られざる「罠」、裁判員面接での選別の論理
保坂展人衆議院議員　著
裁判員制度を問う / 2007年05月27日
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/hosakanobuto/e/8e2558afdb37d497aae9a00efcfa6c4c

昨日のブログには大変な数の反響を頂いた。土・日にも関わらず、弁護士会内部でも賛否両論の議論が起きているようだ。「裁判員制度」の導入が全国民を対象にしているだけに、誰もが「警察官の捜査を信用出来ますか」と裁判官から尋問を受けて、「NO」と答えた人たちはこの質問を要求した検察官から「理由を示さずに忌避」されて不選任となるという事態に正直言って私は驚いた。ところが、裁判員制度に関わってきた関係者からは、「何、今ごろゴタゴタ言ってるの。アメリカの陪審制でも同様の制度があるし、04年の立法当時にもそう議論にならなかったじゃないか」と、「驚いている人たちが出てきたことに驚く」という反応があるらしい。「アメリカでも陪審制…」と言う人たちに聞いてみたい。アメリカの捜査と日本の捜査は透明度は同一なのだろうか、と。陪審員が全員一致で判断するかどうかで有罪・無罪を決める陪審制と、多数決に従う日本の裁判員制度は同一の制度ではない。さらに、そのアメリカでも冤罪事件が後を絶たないことも忘れてはならない。
ここで、「面接・質問」と「忌避」「不選任」の条文を見ておこう。

「裁判員の参加する刑事裁判に関する法律」

（裁判員等選任手続の方式）
第三十三条　裁判員等選任手続は、公開しない。
２　裁判員等選任手続の指揮は、裁判長が行う。
(省略)

（裁判員候補者に対する質問等）
第三十四条　裁判員等選任手続において、裁判長は、裁判員候補者が、職務従事予定期間において、第十三条に規定する者に該当するかどうか、第十四条の規定により裁判員となることができない者でないかどうか、第十五条第一項各号若しくは第二項各号若しくは第十七条各号に掲げる者に該当しないかどうか若しくは第十六条の規定により裁判員となることについて辞退の申立てがある場合において同条各号に掲げる者に該当するかどうか又は不公平な裁判をするおそれがないかどうかの判断をするため、必要な質問をすることができる。
２　陪席の裁判官、検察官、被告人又は弁護人は、裁判長に対し、前項の判断をするために必要と思料する質問を裁判長が裁判員候補者に対してすることを求めることができる。この場合において、裁判長は、相当と認めるときは、裁判員候補者に対して、当該求めに係る質問をするものとする。
３　裁判員候補者は、前二項の質問に対して正当な理由なく陳述を拒み、又は虚偽の陳述をしてはならない。
４　裁判所は、裁判員候補者が、職務従事予定期間において、第十三条に規定する者に該当しないと認めたとき、第十四条の規定により裁判員となることができない者であると認めたとき又は第十五条第一項各号若しくは第二項各号若しくは第十七条各号に掲げる者に該当すると認めたときは、検察官、被告人若しくは弁護人の請求により又は職権で、当該裁判員候補者について不選任の決定をしなければならない。裁判員候補者が不公平な裁判をするおそれがあると認めたときも、同様とする。
(以下省略)

この法律は04年の国会で全会一致で成立している。しかし、この裁判長の質問の具体的な内容と、検察官の「忌避」と不選任の流れが、明確に語られることはなかった。国会審議の議事録で具体的に掘り下げた議論の形跡はない。たしかに「被告人」「弁護士」にも「忌避」の権利が同等にあるじゃないかという指摘もあるだろう。裁判員法は「公平な裁判をするかどうか」で国民を選別しようとしているが、
私たちは「裁判所が公平な裁判をするかどうか」を問うているのである。「公判前整理手続き」という名で「裁判迅速化」が進み、「厳罰主義」の風潮の中で「被告人」「弁護士」は、検察官と対等に選任手続きに臨めるだろうか。たぶん、昨日のブログで紹介した「質問案」を見て、私は背筋が寒くなって鳥肌が立ってしまった。それは「直観的」「感覚的」なものかもしれないが、公権力が国民をくじで呼び出しておいて、「警察を信じるか」「死刑についてどうか」と思想・信条、内面の関わる質問をしようとしていることに拒否感が強いのだ。弁護士の『ヤメ記者弁護士さんのブログ』も、さっそく反応してくれた。以下、紹介する。

(引用開始)
これは、大変なことだ。警察官の捜査に対して、批判的な気持ちを持っている人は、裁判からはずしてしまう。少しくらい、警察官が行きすぎたことをしていても、まぁ、悪いことをした奴を自白させるには手荒いこともしないとねって許してしまう人ばかりが、裁判員になるかもしれないということだ。

　質問自体は、「警察の捜査は特に信用できると思うような事情、あるいは逆に、特に信用できないと思うような事情がありますか」という一見公平なものであるから、問題ないのではないか、という反論がありそうだが、「特に信用できると思うような事情」がある人なんているだろうか？やはり、具体的には、「特に信用できないと思うような事情」が問題になるケース、例えば、自分の身内が警察の取調で酷い目にあったから信用できない、などというケースがほとんどだろう。
　
　その場合、検察は、裁判員から外してしまうことができるのだ…。あきれはてる。警察を信用する人によってしか裁判ができない、しかも、その裁判は、まさに警察官が証人として採用され、その証人の信用性が問題になろうとしているものばかりというのだ。刑事裁判が市民にさらされ、警察の不適切な捜査が市民によって問題化されることを恐れているのだろう。このような質問を用意すること自体、毛札は信用できないと自白しているようなもんだ。

　陪審制を採用している米国でも裁判官の質問制度はあるが、このようなアホな質問は許されない。

　例えば、マサチューセッツ州では、�事件の当事者・証人・弁護士を知っているか、�その事件について個人的に知っていたか、又はテレビ・ラジオ、新聞等から知っているか、�当該事件及びこの種の事件に意見を発表したり、又まとめたことがあるか、�どちらかに何らかの先入観又は偏見を持っているか、�当該事件に個人的興味・関心を持っているか、�その他当該事件に公正に対処できない何らかの事情があるかどうかの６問である（「陪審制度」第一法規）。

　まさに、その具体的な事件について、不公平な裁判をするかどうかが、問題とされているのであって、それ以外の政治信条について聞くことはない。

　なお、裁判員制度に伴うこの質問制度の問題点は、以上のことだけではない。

　死刑の適用が問題となる事件については、「起訴されてる○○罪について法律は、『死刑または無期懲役または○年以上の懲役に処す』と定めています。今回の事件で有罪とされた場合は、この刑を前提に量刑を判断できますか」という質問を裁判官にさせることができる。そのうえ、「できない」と答えた場合、「証拠によってどのような事実が明らかになったとしても、絶対に死刑を選択しないと決めていますか」と聞くというのだ。
　
　はぁ、それじゃあ、死刑積極論者しか残らないではないか！

　この質問がもし許されるとしたら、反対の質問として、「人を殺したら原則死刑にするべきだと思うか」という質問をして、するべきだと答えたら、排除する制度がある場合のみだろう（このような質問自体が許されないと考えるが…）。

　変な裁判員制度…。(引用終了)

幸いあと2年の時が残されている。今、きちんと議論をし徹底的に制度を検証しておかないと、取り返しがつかなくなってしまうと私は考える。

(昨日に引き続き、引用歓迎です)
（保坂議員のブログでコメントを）
ENDS

FT: UN Committee against Torture castigates Japan’s judiciary

Posted on May 29, 2007May 20, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hello Blog. The Financial Times (London) reports that more bodies within the UN are joining the fray and pointing out Japan as not only a slacker in the human rights arenas, but also as sorely lacking in terms of checks and balances regarding the criminal procedure and the judiciary.

We’ve been saying things like this for years, glad to see it catching fire.

Pertinent UN Press Releases on this subject dated May 2007 are in the Comments section below the article (to save space), so do click on “Comments” at the very bottom if you are interested. Related article on how this pressure is starting to affect things (such as recording interrogations) blogged here.

The entire 11-page report being referred to in the FT article below is downloadable in MS Word format at
UNComttTortureMay2007.doc

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

UN body attacks Japan’s justice system
By David Turner in Tokyo
Financial Times, May 23 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3dfc6122-08ca-11dc-b11e-000b5df10621.html
Courtesy of Ludwig Kanzler and Olaf Karthaus

A United Nations committee has castigated Japan’s criminal justice and prison system, listing a wide range of problems including the lack of an independent judiciary, an extremely low rate of acquittal and human rights abuses among detainees. The UN Committee Against Torture takes a broad interpretation of its brief, criticising the state’s physical treatment of citizens and the fairness of the justice system.

The report comes at an embarrassing time for Japan. The government has been trying to restore the country’s status as a nation with the moral and political authority of a world power, in addition to an economic powerhouse. Shinzo Abe has tried to accelerate this process since he became prime minister since last year, but with mixed results.

In an 11-page report completed last week, scarcely any part of the system escapes criticism. For example, it raises suspicions over a “disproportionately high number of convictions over acquittals”. There were only 63 acquittals in the year to March 2006, compared with 77,297 convictions, among criminal cases that had reached court, according to Japan’s Supreme Court.

In a version of the report released in Tokyo on Monday and described as “advanced unedited” [sic], the committee links the high conviction rate to the state’s emphasis on securing confessions before trial.

It cites fears about “the lack of means to verify the proper conduct of detainees while in police custody”, in particular “the absence of strict time limits for the duration of interrogations and the absence of mandatory presence of defence counsel”.

Parts of the law relating to inmates on death row “could amount to torture”, it says, criticising the “psychological strain imposed upon inmates and families” by the fact that “prisoners are notified of their execution only hours before it is due to take place”.

The committee also “is concerned about the insufficient level of independence of the judiciary”.

It attacks Japan’s dismissal of cases filed by “comfort women”, who were forced to work in military-run brothels during the war, on the grounds that the cases have passed the country’s statute of limitations.

The report, written after an 18-day session of the committee in Geneva, asks the Japanese government to consider a slew of measures, including “an immediate moratorium on executions”.

The committee issued its attack after receiving a report from the Japanese government on its efforts to prevent human rights abuses. All UN member states must submit such reports regularly, although the UN Committee scolds Japan for filing its report “over five years late”.

The committee’s findings are in line with complaints by human rights lawyers. But the report has attracted controversy within the UN.

Keiichi Aizawa, director of the Japan-based United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, told the Financial Times: “The treatment of offenders in Japan is fair.”

Japan’s Justice Ministry declined to comment on the report.
ENDS
============================

REFERENCED UN COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE REPORT ON JAPAN MAY 2007 AVAILABLE IN FULL IN MS WORD FORMAT:
UNComttTortureMay2007.doc

Click on “Comments” below to see UN Press Releases.

LAT: First recorded police confession OK as evidence

Posted on May 28, 2007May 29, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’ve talked numerous times on Debito.org (artery site here) about your rights when under “voluntary detention” and arrest by Japanese police. (Headline: As there is the presumption of guilt, you don’t have many at all, and those being interrogated will be under constant pressure to confess to something in lengthy tag-team police interrogations over the course of weeks.)

This is especially germane as the NPA’s tendency has been to target NJ for instant questioning, search, and even seizure while under suspicion for, say, cycling while foreign-looking.

However, the LA Times came out with an article with some good news–a recorded police interrogation admitted in court. Now let’s hope that with recent pressure from both popular culture (Suo Masayuki’s movie I JUST DIDN’T DO IT) and from overseas (the UN) results in more judicial oversight, and required recordings of all police interactions with suspects (with lawyers present as well). Don’t hold your breath, but still…

I’ll have something tomorrow blogged here on the UN’s Committee Against Torture, and their recent harsh words for Japan’s judicial system. Stay tuned. Debito in Sapporo

=======================
Case may shine light on Japanese interrogations
A suspect’s confession is admitted as court evidence. The move could pave the way for greater oversight of the country’s secretive investigation culture.
By Bruce Wallace, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 26, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-confessions26may26,1,7852068.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Courtesy of Jon Lenvik

TOKYO — For the first time, a DVD recording of a suspect confessing his crime to police was admitted as evidence in a Japanese court Friday, a move that could lead to stricter checks on the lengthy, secret police interrogations that defense lawyers say result in pressure on suspects to make false confessions.

Prosecutors and police have long resisted demands from human rights activists and lawyers to record their questioning of suspects, who can be held without charge for 23 days in special police cells with limited access to defense lawyers.

But a court case here may open the way for greater oversight of the confession-based investigation culture.

Prosecutors record interrogation sessions only in cases of their choosing, and it was they who introduced the recording played during a murder trial in Tokyo District Court on Friday. The prosecution was seeking to demonstrate the credibility of a confession by a man accused of plotting the killing in a scheme to acquire insurance money.

Prosecutors asked the court to admit the recording as evidence when the accused changed aspects of his story during testimony.

But even though the prosecutors’ move was aimed at bolstering their case, it may also serve as a precedent for those who claim they confessed under coercion to demand that recordings of their interrogations be played in court as well.

Last week, the United Nations’ Committee Against Torture amplified Japanese activists’ call for an end to the nation’s system of pretrial detention of suspects in police stations without access to lawyers.

The committee said Japanese prosecutors were overly dependent on extracting confessions through long periods of incarceration and unlimited time for questioning, an investigative method that has resulted in an almost 100% conviction rate for cases that go to trial.

The committee demanded the 23-day holding period be shortened to match standards in other countries. And it said interrogations should be monitored by independent observers as well as recorded, so courts can later judge whether confessions may have been obtained through coercion.

“The Japanese police should now admit that they cannot investigate people for 23 days in detention,” said Eiichi Kaido, a lawyer who has been active in the campaign by Japanese bar associations to reform the system. “No other countries have such a long detention period. The U.N. report means the Japanese legal system has to be amended.”

The Justice Ministry said only that it was studying the U.N. report, noting that its recommendations cut across several government jurisdictions.

“We will examine it in a prudent manner and, depending on the content, will respond to it appropriately,” said Hiroshi Kikuchi of the ministry’s Criminal Affairs Bureau.

The government has shown little inclination to radically overhaul a system that is defended by police and that attracts little criticism from the Japanese public or media. The U.N. review of the justice system was largely ignored by media here, despite its charge that the Japanese system fails to meet minimal international standards in many areas.

The U.N. report also takes issue with Japan’s treatment of death row prisoners, noting that they await execution in solitary confinement that in some cases has stretched more than 30 years. It says Japan should consider commuting death sentences when the execution has been extensively delayed.

And it criticizes the Japanese practice of notifying prisoners of their execution only hours before it takes place. The U.N. condemned “the unnecessary secrecy and arbitrariness surrounding the time of the execution,” saying the measure imposes a psychological strain on prisoners and their families “that could amount to torture.”

bruce.wallace@latimes.com

Naoko Nishiwaki of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.
ENDS

読売：授業の日本語わかりません　外国人の子供２万人

Posted on May 22, 2007May 23, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

授業の日本語ワカリマセン　外国人の子供２万人
読売新聞 2007年5月21日夕刊
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/kyoiku/news/20070521ur01.htm

　全国の公立の小・中・高校で、日本語が十分に使えない外国人の児童・生徒が増えている。文部科学省によると、その数は全国の８８５自治体で約２万人。
指導教諭　大幅に不足

　同省は指導方法の手引を作成するなど対策に取り組んでいるが、学校現場では日本語指導に不慣れな先生も多く、専門家は「外国人の子供に日本語を教える専門の先生を養成する必要がある」と指摘している。
　人口約４万２０００人のうち約６８００人が外国人の群馬県大泉町。町立小中学校７校の児童・生徒の１割が外国人で、通常の授業とは別に日本語の力を付けるための「日本語学級」というクラスが全校にある。
　しかし、教えるのは、日本語指導が専門ではない一般の先生だ。町教委の担当者は「ポルトガル語やスペイン語を話せる人を町の予算で雇ってサポートしてもらっているが、指導が行き届いているとは言えない」と打ち明ける。
　東京・歌舞伎町に近い新宿区立大久保小学校では、韓国、中国、フィリピンなど外国人の児童が、全校児童（約１８０人）の半数を超える。長岡富美子校長は「日本語で日常会話が出来るようになっても、学習活動ができるまでの日本語能力を付けるのには時間がかかる」と話す。
　文科省によると、日本語指導が必要な外国人の児童・生徒数は、１９９１年は５４６３人だったが、９３年には１万人を超えた。２００５年は２万６９２人で、全外国人児童・生徒の約３割を占める。母国語別の内訳は、ポルトガル語約３７％、中国語約２２％、スペイン語約１５％の順に多い。
　背景には、９０年の出入国管理法改正で、日系人については、それまで認められていなかった単純労働が可能になり、主に南米からの入国者が急増したことがある。ただ、日本語が十分使えないことで、子供が学校に来なくなったり、卒業しても定職に就けなかったりする問題点が指摘されていた。
　このため、文科省は、教科内容を教えながら日本語指導をする際の注意点をまとめ、０３年に小学生用、今年３月には中学生用の指導手引を作成。例えば、中学の国語の授業ではなぞなぞやしりとりをして日本語の単語の数を増やすことや、知らなかった言葉を集めて辞書を作ることなどをアドバイスしている。
　しかし、日本語指導の担当教師を置いている自治体は７０にすぎないなど、指導体制は不十分なのが現状。文科省では、一般の先生が日本語を指導できるよう、研修体制の充実を図る方針だが、早稲田大大学院の川上郁雄教授（日本語教育）は「米国やオーストラリアには英語を話せない子供に英語を教える先生を養成するシステムがある。日本でも、こうしたシステムを導入し、外国人の子供に日本語を教える専門の先生を必要な学校に配置すべきだ」と訴えている。
(2007年5月21日読売新聞)
ENDS

Fun Facts #5: Nat Geo on Japan’s Tsunami Charity

Posted on May 21, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I voice enough criticism of Japan on this space. Let’s also give praise where it is due.

According to the National Geographic Dec 2005, Japan’s record regarding keeping its international promises regarding tsunami relief has been excellent. In fact, it’s basically the only country which made (even superseded) enormous pledges of donations for victims of the big waves a couple of years ago.

Bravo, Japan! Shame on everyone else, especially the oil-rich countries–both in terms of pledge and fulfillment. Where’s the Muslim feeling of brotherhood when you need it? Debito

ENDS

Asahi: Update on NJ Trainee Worker program: reform or abolition? (UPDATED)

Posted on May 18, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’m heading down to Tokyo tomorrow to give a speech at a human-rights retreat for some major Japanese corporations (Kirin, Mitsubishi etc), so I’m not sure when’s the next time I’ll be online. But anyway, here’s an update on what the Japanese government is thinking about the much-abused “Trainee Visa” program for NJ workers (more on the abuses blogged here). Debito in Sapporo

ADDENDUM: Original memos from Nagase included below article, courtesy of an insider friend. (長勢法務大臣のメモ「外国人労働者受入れに関する検討の指示について」、平成１９年５月１５日付）原文は記事の下です。）

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

Nagase enters foreign-worker feud
05/17/2007 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200705170115.html

Justice Minister Jinen Nagase proposed that Japan move to accept unskilled foreign workers, a “personal idea” that has startled bureaucrats and complicated debate on reforming a problem-ridden trainee-intern program.

Nagase’s proposal was broached on Tuesday amid a tug-of-war between the labor and industry ministries over their conflicting reform plans released over the past week on the foreign trainee-intern program.

The labor ministry wants to end unlawful labor practices associated with the program, while the industry ministry wants to help smaller companies that are having a tough time finding workers.

Nagase entered the fray Tuesday with a plan that called for the program’s abolition, rather than reform. The plan would, in effect, pave the way for unskilled workers to enter Japan under certain conditions.

Specifically, a limited number of foreigners will be allowed to work up to three years under the supervision of government-sanctioned entities. These workers should not stay after that period, and their wages and working conditions must be safeguarded, according to Nagase’s proposal.

The plan surprised mandarins of both the labor and industry ministries.

“We’ve never expected such a bold plan to come out,” one official said.

The government introduced the trainee-intern program in the early 1990s to help workers from developing countries learn industry skills here.

In their first year, they learn work skills as “trainees.” In the second and third years, they work as “interns” at companies under labor contracts.

Critics say, however, that companies are using them as low-wage workers to make up for labor shortages.

According to Justice Ministry figures, cases of unlawful practices involving foreign trainees and interns shot up to 229 in 2006, from 92 in 2003. In many cases, the foreigners worked overtime hours beyond the limits or were not paid in full.

Some of the workers have taken their problems to court.

To remedy the situation, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare proposed scrapping the “training” part of the program and integrating it into the internship part.

Under the current system, trainees are not subject to labor law protections, including minimum wages, which allowed businesses to exploit them.

But officials of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said the labor ministry’s plan would weaken the program’s intended purpose of technical transfers.

Instead, the industry ministry plans to beef up the program with tighter controls and penalties, and allow interns to work two additional years at small as well as major companies.

The labor ministry’s plan will allow an extension only at major firms.

Japan’s tightening labor market, which has hit smaller companies especially hard, is behind the calls for the program’s review.

In 2006, 41,000 foreign trainees went on to internships, a jump from 11,000 for 1999. Most of the employers were small companies.

To cope with the shortage of workers, business circles are calling on the government to lift the ban on unskilled foreign workers under certain conditions.

But the government has so far maintained its position to keep out unskilled workers for social security and other reasons. The labor ministry insists that accepting them could negatively affect wages and other working conditions for Japanese workers.

Related ministries reconfirmed this stance last June, but Nagase nonetheless came out with his proposal.

Hidenori Sakanaka, director at the nongovernmental Japan Immigration Policy Institute, welcomed Nagase’s idea and urged debate on the issue.

“The current system is an epitome of problems because foreigners are forced to work at low wages in the name of training or internship,” he said. “As Japan’s population shrinks, we need full debate with their (foreign workers’) settlement and permanent residence in view.”

(IHT/Asahi: May 17, 2007)
ARTICLE ENDS
==================================

MOJ MINISTER NAGASE’S MEMOS TO KASUMIGASEKI IN JAPANESE (two pages)
（クリックすると拡大されます）

ENDS

Asahi: Kurashiki hotel refuses foreigners

Posted on May 17, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This just came through this morning on the Asahi. They haven’t bothered to translate it for the IHT, so I will:

==============================
PERSON REFUSED HOTEL LODGING IN KURASHIKI BUSINESS HOTEL “BECAUSE HE’S A FOREIGNER”
THE ASAHI SHINBUN May 17, 2007
Translated by Arudou Debito. Thanks to about ten people for notifying me.
Original Japanese blogged at
https://www.debito.org/?p=400

KURASHIKI, Okayama Pref: In April, a Chinese man (45) living in Hiroshima was refused lodging in a Kurashiki business hotel. The reason given was that he was a foreigner.

According to Japan’s Hotel Management Law, refusals may only take place if there is a clear risk of infection from a patient, or the suspicion that illegal activities will occur, such as gambling [tobaku]. [sic]

The City Government of Kurashiki apologized for causing discomfort to the refused man. They added that they will redouble their efforts to ensure that every hotel in the area is informed not to refuse non-Japanese.

The Chinese man first went to a Kurashiki hotel on the evening of April 3, which was full, so management phoned around and found another hotel with rooms available.

Unfortunately, they were told by the management there that “we don’t allow foreigners to stay here”.

When the Chinese man went to the other hotel to find out more, he was told by the manager (70) that “our rule is to not give foreigners accommodation”, and was refused a room.

A few days later, a friend of the man contacted the Kurashiki Tourism Convention Bureau, which followed up on the issue. Kurashiki’s Desk for Promoting International Peace and Communication then called the Chinese man in late April to apologize, saying “We’re sorry for the discomfort caused you by our city, which is promoting itself as a a place for international tourism.”

The same bureau sent a letter of warning (chuui kanki) and guidance to its affiliated members dated May 7.

The Chinese man works in Japan and has no problems communicating in Japanese. He fumed, “This is outrageous. How would Japanese feel if the same thing happened to them? It must stop.”

The management of the hotel refusing foreigners, on the other hand, said, “We can’t deal with all the language issues regarding foreign lodgers, so that’s why we refuse them.” They indicated that they would continue doing so.
======================
ARTICLE ENDS

COMMENT: Not mentioned in the article is that the hotel in question is

BUSINESS HOTEL APOINTO
(Kurashiki Miwa 1 chome 14-29, phone 086-423-2600), website http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~apoint/

I called the Kurashiki City Government (particularly the Kankou Convention Bureau, 086-421-0224, Mr Ono), and a few other places today to find out more about the case.

Finally calling the hotel, I talked to a Mr Kawakami, who said that they saw the error of their ways (thanks to administrative guidance from the city government), and would no longer be refusing foreign guests.

Good, but this is quite a U-turn, on the very day an Asahi article comes out saying that they would continue. Guess it remains to be seen. I have notified my friends in Kurashiki to keep an eye out.

In the end, thanks are owed the Kurashiki City Government (unusually; see other cases of government inaction in the face of clear and signposted racial discrimination archived at the ROGUES’ GALLERY OF EXCLUSIONARY ESTABLISHMENTS) for actually doing something about the problem.

They were, of course, legally bound to, since the Ryokan Gyouhou (Hotel Management Law) Article 5 requires hotels to keep their doors open to anyone, unless there is a health issue involving contagious disease, a clear and present endangerment of public morals, or because all rooms are full. (See Japanese original of the law here.) [No mention of “gambling” as one of the endangerments, despite what the Asahi article says above.]

Which is what makes hotels a relatively refusal-free haven for NJ in Japan (on the books, anyway). One of the issues brought forth in the Otaru Onsens Case was that the Otaru City Govt’s hands were tied because the bathhouses were private-sector, therefore outside of any legal control vis-a-vis discrimination. As I keep saying, racial discrimination is not illegal in Japan.

But hotels in particular are specifically-governed by a law preventing wanton refusals, including those based upon race or nationality. See more here.

Still, the law is only as good as those who enforce it. Tokyo Shinjuku-ku, for example, has a business hotel named TSUBAKURO (Tokyo Shinjuku-ku Hyakuninchou 1-15-33, Tel 03-3367-2896, website here.).

TSUBAKURO has been refusing foreigners for years (see their signs at https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html#Shinjuku) and have been called and visited a number of times (last time by Debito and friends in February 2005).

I have even told the local Hyakuninchou Police Box about this, shown them the law, and photos of the sign. They told me to take it up with the Shinjuku Police HQ. Great job, boys.

Meanwhile, the signs and exclusionary rules stay up at Tsukaburo. Anyone want to take this up with the authorities? (I’m too far away to make any visits to police HQ.)

In any case, thanks Kurashiki City Govt.! Arudou Debito in Sapporo

朝日：「外国人だから」と宿泊拒む　倉敷のビジネスホテル

Posted on May 17, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

ブロクの皆様こんばんは。有道　出人です。いつもお読みいただいてありがとうございました。

さて、今朝新聞に載った記事ですが、私はきょうそれぞれのところに調べに電話して、結果発表を記事の下に記載します。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
「外国人だから」と宿泊拒む　倉敷のビジネスホテル
朝日新聞　2007年05月17日06時53分
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0517/OSK200705160090.html

　岡山県倉敷市内のビジネスホテルで４月、広島市在住の中国人男性（４５）が、外国人であることを理由に宿泊を拒否されていたことがわかった。旅館業法では、伝染病患者であることが明らかな場合や賭博などの違法行為をする恐れがある場合など以外は宿泊拒否は認められておらず、同市は男性に「不愉快な思いをさせた」と謝罪した。同市は市内の宿泊施設に外国人を理由に宿泊拒否をしないよう周知徹底を図る、としている。

　中国人男性は４月３日夜、最初に訪れた倉敷市内の別のホテルが満室だったため、ホテルの従業員が電話でこのビジネスホテルに空室があることを確認してくれた。しかし、従業員を通じて「外国人は泊めないと言われた」と伝えられた。

　男性がビジネスホテルを訪れて真意をただしたところ、フロントで支配人の男性（７０）に「外国人は泊めないのが方針」と言われ、宿泊を拒否されたという。

　男性から話を聞いた知人が数日後、同市の外郭団体の倉敷観光コンベンションビューローに相談し、同市が事実関係を確認。市国際平和交流推進室が４月中旬、「国際観光都市として売り出している中、不愉快な思いをさせて申し訳ない」と電話で男性に謝罪した。

　同ビューローも加盟施設あてに５月７日付で指導の徹底を求める注意喚起の文書を送付した。

　日本で仕事をしている男性は日本語に不自由はなく、「日本人が同じことをされたらどう思うか。非常に心外だし改善してほしい」と憤っている。一方、宿泊を拒んだビジネスホテルの支配人は「外国人客は言葉などの面で対応しきれずお断りしている」と話し、今後も外国人の宿泊を断るという。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

有道よりコメント：

　本日午後、当局（倉敷市観光振興課、観光コンベンションビューロ（086-421-0224 小野氏)など）に電話して、結局ホテルの名前を聞きました：

　ビジネスホテル「アポイント」（倉敷市美和１丁目１４−２９, 086-423-2600）website http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~apoint/

　当ホテルに電話して、「かわかみ」という方と話しましたが、「外国人お断りは取り止めました。市から指導を受けて、これから外国人を受付します」などと言いました。

　よかろうが、なぜ今朝こその朝日新聞さえ『宿泊を拒んだビジネスホテルの支配人は「外国人客は言葉などの面で対応しきれずお断りしている」と話し、今後も外国人の宿泊を断るという』を報道したのでしょうか。ましてや、倉敷市の観光コンベンションビューロがアクションを起していなければ、このUターンにならなかったのではないでしょうか。

　対照的な事例は東京都新宿区の「ビジネスホテル　つばくろ」（東京都新宿区百人町1-15-33 Tel 03-3367-2896）は数年間「外国人お断り」をしています。私と友人は数回も（２００５年２月は前回）「このポリシーはいかないですよ、旅館業法五条違法」と説明しても、支配人はそのままです。最近「（日本語話せる方はＯＫ）」を書き加えたが、それでも違法行為です。（当ホテルの「外国人客お断り」の看板はこちらです。）しかし、近くの交番にこの件を通報しても、「新宿区警察署に言って」と盥回しました。結果は、放置のままです。

　要は、当局からのアクションがなければ、「放置」国家となりますね。差別撤廃は行政府次第です。特に注目することは、小樽温泉問題と違って、「入浴施設は民間会社なので差別行為を取り止める法律がないため、行政府は拘束力がない」と当局が言ったが、ホテルの場合該当する法律（旅館業法）が存在しています。
———————————
旅館業法第五条
　営業者は、左の各号の一に該当する場合を除いては、宿泊を拒んではならない。
一　宿泊しようとする者が伝染性の疾病にかかつていると明らかに認められるとき。
二　宿泊しようとする者がとばく、その他の違法行為又は風紀を乱す行為をする虞があると認められるとき。
三　宿泊施設に余裕がないときその他都道府県が条例で定める事由があるとき。
———————————

　よって、「外国人だから」を理由して拒んではいけません。いつ東京都は法律を執行するのでしょうか。

　とにもかくにも、倉敷市へ感謝いたします。有道　出人

　以上

LA Times: More on forced police confessions

Posted on May 16, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Another in a series on how warped the judicial system here can get, with its overreliance on confession (as opposed to gathering evidence). To the point where we have a rare case of a former judge cracking and spilling his guts over a case, giving us some insight on how a panel of three judges could convict a person on circumstantial evidence. Pity the convicted has already spent 28 years in solitary confinement on death row…

Anyway, read on. Another good article. Debito in Sapporo

====================
Japan urged to come clean on confessions
Police routinely torment suspects, say activists for a death row convict whose judge admits, 40 years later, that he erred.
LOS ANGELES TIMES May 12, 2007
By Bruce Wallace Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-confessions12may12,1,5427226.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Courtesy of Larry G and Jon L

TOKYO — The physical evidence that implicated former pro boxer Iwao Hakamada in the stabbing deaths of a family of four on a summer night in 1966 was hardly conclusive.

The clothes prosecutors said he had worn during the killing did not fit him.

The murder weapon Hakamada allegedly used was, according to his lawyers, too small to make the wounds. And, they said, the door police claimed Hakamada used to enter and leave the victims’ house was locked.

But prosecutors had the most important piece of evidence they needed, enough for the three judges of the Shizuoka District Court to find Hakamada guilty and sentence him to death.

Hakamada’s confession.

It did not matter that Hakamada almost immediately retracted his admission and then testified during his trial that he had been beaten and threatened during extended interrogations over 22 days in a police detention cell, with no lawyer present. His signed admission of guilt has kept him in prison ever since, through failed appeals, still awaiting an execution that could come at any time.

Now his conviction is again under scrutiny, after the only surviving judge of the three-man panel that found him guilty — by consensus — broke four decades of silence to say he had always believed that Hakamada’s confession was coerced. The case is seen by analysts here as a stark illustration of the Japanese legal system’s addiction to acquiring convictions by confession.

“I knew right away that something was wrong with his confession,” said the former judge, Norimichi Kumamoto, after he finally went public with his belief that he had participated in sentencing an innocent man to die.

Kumamoto, 70, quit the bench six months after the 1968 trial, and says he has carried “hurt in his heart” over his role in sending Hakamada to death row.

“I have always regretted that I couldn’t persuade the chief judge” to acquit, he says. “He was older than me, and I thought that because he had experienced the war when freedoms were taken away or oppressed, that he would understand what had happened to Hakamada.

“But judges in Japan tended to be influenced by the media and social pressures, and the media were being very aggressive, describing [the accused] as an evil figure,” Kumamoto recalls. “And Japanese tend to believe that the prosecutors’ office, as an arm of the government, wouldn’t do anything intentionally wrong.”

Japanese courts deliberate in secret and verdicts are issued under all three names. (Japan does not have a jury system but plans to introduce a hybrid form of judges and juries in 2009.) Kumamoto kept his doubts about the boxer’s conviction to himself, maintaining silence even as Hakamada’s confession was cited as the reason for turning down his appeals and a bid for retrial.

When the ex-judge finally went public in March at a news conference in Tokyo, much of the subsequent media coverage attacked him for flouting a law prohibiting judges from disclosing deliberations.

Some, however, did welcome Kumamoto’s blistering indictment of the system’s reliance on confessions to maintain a conviction rate that exceeds 99% in criminal trials. Unlike American law, which gives suspects the right to have a lawyer present during questioning, Japan allows police to interrogate people without a lawyer for as many as 23 days before pressing charges or releasing them. They can then be rearrested, beginning another 23-day session.

‘Substitute prisons’

The suspects are kept in small holding cells known as daiyo kangoku, or “substitute prisons,” a setting that critics say allows police to coerce confessions to crimes they did not commit. The Japan Federation of Bar Assns. recently joined human rights groups in contending that holding suspects in such cramped conditions, with little or no contact with the outside world, “is a breeding ground of confession coercion and false accusations.”

“This type of interrogation causes heavy mental suffering to suspects and can be considered torture,” the lawyers group said.

Some judges have shown an increased willingness to question the methods used to acquire confessions. In February, a judge in western Japan reprimanded police and prosecutors for their handling of a case in which 12 defendants were eventually found not guilty of using beer and cash to buy votes in a local election.

Six of the suspects had confessed, but the judge ruled that they probably did so “to please the investigators, as they desperately wanted to be released.”

Police had arrested, released and rearrested some of the suspects — one defendant was held for a total of 395 days — and some said they had been told that unless they confessed, their children would be fired from their jobs. The bullying was so bad that one defendant tried to drown himself, but was rescued.

In two other high-profile cases this year, murder and rape convictions were overturned that had been based solely on confessions extracted under intense pressure.

In 2005, the government made slight modifications to the daiyo kangoku system, allowing video cameras to record questioning in select cases.

But the bar associations say the location of the interview is itself the problem: a holding cell where a suspect can be questioned at any time, for any length of time, without food, breaks or a lawyer.

“Even strong people can confess under those circumstances,” says Katsuhiko Nishijima, a Tokyo human rights lawyer who is at the forefront of the legal campaign to get Hakamada’s conviction overturned.

The greatest resistance to introducing new guidelines comes from the police, Nishijima said. “The police argue that videotaping interviews and allowing lawyers would destroy the necessary trust between police and the suspect,” he said.

Many here say the dependence on confessions is a cultural phenomenon in a country where even the best TV detectives are the ones who pull an admission from the crook in a dramatic interrogation scene rather than uncover evidence.

“The general public has trust in this confession system,” Nishijima says. “It’s in the Japanese DNA: There’s a belief that if you commit a crime, you should come clean and confess. When someone is arrested, the newspapers report that ‘police are now aggressively interrogating the suspect.’ And if he doesn’t confess, then the public are unhappy. ‘Ah, he’s still denying it,’ they say.”

That’s why the recent criminal trial of fallen Internet mogul Takafumi Horie for financial malfeasance was seen here as so extraordinary: The young businessman refused to confess during his incarceration. Other top executives at his firm quickly admitted guilt to investigators and agreed to testify against their boss. But Horie held out and, at his trial, made a rare not-guilty plea. He was convicted anyway.

Maintaining innocence

Since recanting his initial confession, Hakamada, too, has always denied any guilt. His lawyers say the onetime contender for Japan’s flyweight crown now refuses to see either family or his lawyers, his mental condition having deteriorated over 28 years in solitary confinement on death row. In Japan, death row inmates are not told when their sentences will be carried out and some have awaited execution for decades. The 99 inmates currently awaiting hanging live with the knowledge that their death will come with as little as a few minutes’ warning.

Working on Hakamada’s behalf, a team of lawyers and activists, which includes 12 former Japanese boxing champions, announced this week that they would petition the Supreme Court for a retrial. They are optimistic that the late-in-life admission by the judge who helped send him away can still free Hakamada, who is 71.

The former judge himself, aging and becoming weaker, says he is trying to right a wrong before it’s too late for both of them. Kumamoto saw himself as a rising star in the judiciary in the mid-1960s, working his way up the case ladder in Tokyo District Court. He had no compunctions about capital punishment, having presided over five death penalty convictions before Hakamada’s trial.

When he arrived in Shizuoka prefecture to hear the boxer’s trial, the media were clamoring for a conviction. But Kumamoto had also schooled himself in American case law, using Time magazine as a reference for U.S. Supreme Court cases of interest. He was particularly impressed by the Warren court of the 1950s and ’60s, lauding it for “its professionalism and its commitment to the rights of the accused.”

Listening to the evidence, Kumamoto says, he believed the boxer was innocent of the murder charges. Hakamada described in court how police pulled his hair and slapped him during interrogations that lasted more than 12 hours a day, and how he was forced to use a portable toilet in the room. He testified that police threatened to bring his mother and brothers in for questioning as well unless he confessed.

By the morning of the 21st day, he said, he was dizzy, feverish and wanted only to rest. Begging for a break, he offered to confess “in the afternoon” if they would just allow him to rest. Instead, the officers came back into the room with a document labeled “Confession” and berated him into signing. He told the court the document was never read to him.

“I wanted a silence and had a headache so just wrote down my name and put my head down on the table,” he testified. “They held my hand and took my fingerprint.”

‘Media pressure’

Although the interrogators testified that they did not use force to get the confession, Kumamoto says he was convinced at the time that it was unreliable. The retired judge says he had even drafted a thick “not guilty” ruling to be read in court when the other two judges insisted on a conviction and ordered him to rewrite the ruling.

“It was half because of the confession, half because of the media pressure,” Kumamoto explains.

He still can’t get Hakamada out of his mind. The images come to him in the late afternoons, he says: the way Hakamada confidently met the judges’ eyes when they entered the courtroom, convinced he was about to be set free. The way his body slumped and his head fell forward at the guilty verdict.

“I couldn’t hear the words that I had written being read out in court,” Kumamoto recalls, tears in his eyes. “I almost lost my mind.”

Kumamoto said he always hoped that a higher court would overturn the verdict. He never considered going public until now. Not after he left the judiciary when a senior judge suggested to him that such a liberal thinker would be happier and more productive as a lawyer or academic. Not during Hakamada’s appeals and pleas for retrials.

“There was no right time until now,” Kumamoto says, refusing to elaborate.

But he’s ready to meet Hakamada to apologize. “And I’ll stand as a witness for him in the Supreme Court, if this is possible,” he says.

“It’s getting late. It’s the last chance.”

—————————
bruce.wallace@latimes.com

Hisako Ueno of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.
ENDS

NYT on forced confessions by Japanese police

Posted on May 12, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Thanks to two friends for sending me this. Another good article from former hack and now serious journalist Norimitsu Onishi. Keep it up!

Japan’s interrogation techniques of 23 days’ incarceration with marathon inquests break down plenty of innocent people, as the article below demonstrates. A primer on the issue available at debito.org artery site at https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#arrested

IF YOU DID NOT DO IT, DON’T CONFESS. OR ELSE YOU WILL GO TO JAIL.

And it’s certainly an issue germane to this blog since Japanese police routinely engage in racial profiling and targeting foreigners–expressly in the name of “effective prevention of infectious diseases and terrorism”. It’s lucky that with Japan’s extremely high conviction rates (more than 99%) that these people got off. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

=====================================
Pressed by Police, Even Innocent Confess in Japan
THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 11, 2007
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/world/asia/11japan.html?ex=1179547200&en=a4eb5f0efa88a7a9&ei=5070&emc=eta1

SHIBUSHI, Japan — The suspects in a vote-buying case in this small town in western Japan were subjected to repeated interrogations and, in several instances, months of pretrial detention. The police ordered one woman to shout her confession out a window and forced one man to stomp on the names of his loved ones.

In all, 13 men and women, ranging in age from their early 50s to mid-70s, were arrested and indicted. Six buckled and confessed to an elaborate scheme of buying votes with liquor, cash and catered parties. One man died during the trial — from the stress, the others said — and another tried to kill himself.

But all were acquitted this year in a local district court, which found that their confessions had been entirely fabricated. The presiding judge said the defendants had “made confessions in despair while going through marathon questioning.”

The Japanese authorities have long relied on confessions to take suspects to court, instead of building cases based on solid evidence. Human rights groups have criticized the practice for leading to abuses of due process and convictions of innocent people.

But in recent months developments in this case and two others have shown just how far the authorities will go in securing confessions. Calls for reforms in the criminal justice system have increased, even as Japan is to adopt a jury-style system in 2009 and is considering allowing victims and their relatives to question defendants in court.

In Saga Prefecture in March, a high court upheld the acquittal of a man who said he had been coerced into confessing to killing three women in the late 1980s. The court found that there was no evidence against the man other than the confession, which had been extracted from him after 17 days of interrogations that went on more than 10 hours a day.

In Toyama Prefecture the police acknowledged early this year that a taxi driver who had served almost three years in prison for rape and attempted rape in 2002 was innocent, after they found the real culprit. The driver said he had been browbeaten into affixing his fingerprint to a confession drawn up by the police after three days of interrogation.

“I Just Didn’t Do It,” a new documentary by Masayuki Suo, the director of “Shall We Dance?” has also raised popular awareness of coerced confessions. The documentary is based on the real-life story of a young man who was falsely accused of groping a teenage girl on the Tokyo subway and imprisoned for 14 months. It portrays how the authorities extract confessions, whether the accused are guilty or not.

“Traditionally in Japan, confessions have been known as the king of evidence,” said Kenzo Akiyama, a lawyer who is a former judge. “Especially if it’s a big case, even if the accused hasn’t done anything, the authorities will seek a confession through psychological torture.”

The law allows the police to detain suspects for up to 23 days without an indictment. Suspects have almost no contact with the outside world and are subject to constant interrogation, a practice that has long drawn criticism from organizations like the United Nations Human Rights Committee and Amnesty International.

Suspects are strongly pressed to plead guilty, on the premise that confession is the first step toward rehabilitation.

The conviction rate in Japanese criminal cases — 99.8 percent — cannot be compared directly with that of the United States, because there is no plea bargaining in Japan and prosecutors bring only those cases they are confident of winning. But experts say that in court, where acquittals are considered harmful to the careers of prosecutors and judges alike, there is a presumption of guilt.

In Tokyo, the National Police Agency acknowledged mistakes in the vote-buying case here in Shibushi but defended the system. “We do not think that this is the kind of thing that happens all the time,” said Yasuhiro Shirakawa of the agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau.

“It is not only about confessions,” he added. “We always inspect whether there is corroborating evidence and whether what the suspects said is true or not.”

In Shibushi, the authorities have gone unpunished, as have those in the two other cases. In a written reply, the police said they had followed the law in their investigation but seriously took the verdict to heart.

It remains unclear what set off the investigation in 2003 of the campaign of a local politician, Shinichi Nakayama, who was elected for the first time to the local assembly that year, beating the protégé of a longtime power broker.

The police started by accusing Sachio Kawabata — whose wife, Junko, is the assemblyman’s cousin — of giving cases of beer to a construction company in return for votes. Mr. Kawabata said he had given the beer because the company had sent guests to an inn that he owned.

Mr. Kawabata soon found himself enduring nearly 15 hours of interrogation a day. Locked in a tiny room with an inspector who shouted and threatened, he refused to confess.

So on the third day, Mr. Kawabata recalled, the inspector scribbled the names of his family members on three pieces of paper. He added messages — “Grandpa, please hurry up and become an honest grandpa,” and “I don’t remember raising you to be this kind of person” — and told Mr. Kawabata to repent.

Drawing no confession after an hour, the inspector grabbed Mr. Kawabata by the ankles and made him trample on the pieces of paper.

“I was shocked,” recalled Mr. Kawabata, 61, who was hospitalized for two weeks from the stress of the interrogation. “Man, I thought, how far will the police go?”

Mr. Kawabata, who was never indicted, recently won a $5,000 judgment for mental anguish. Trampling the pieces of paper, it turned out, had its roots in a local feudal practice of ferreting out suspected Christians by forcing them to stomp on a cross.

The police then moved on to more potent alcohol. According to the trial’s verdict and interviews with 17 people interrogated by the authorities, the police concocted a description of events according to which the assemblyman spent $17,000 to buy votes with shochu, a popular distilled spirit, and gifts of cash.

One of the first to confess was Ichiko Fujimoto, 53, a former employee of the assemblyman. After a couple of days of interrogation she broke down and admitted not only to distributing shochu and cash to her neighbors, but also to giving four parties at her home to gather support for the assemblyman.

“It’s because they kept saying, ‘Confess, just confess,’ ” Ms. Fujimoto said in an interview at her home. “They wouldn’t listen to anything I said.”

Everything in her confession was made up, a court concluded. But it was enough for the police to start extracting confessions from others for supposedly receiving shochu and money at the parties. One neighbor, Toshihiro Futokoro, 58, began despairing on the third day of interrogation, even though he had yet to be formally arrested and was allowed to go home after each day’s questioning.

“They kept saying that everybody’s confessing, that there was nothing that I could do, no matter how hard I tried,” Mr. Futokoro said, adding, “I thought that nothing I said would ever convince them.”

At the end of the third day, Mr. Futokoro tried to kill himself by jumping into a river but was pulled out by a man out fishing. He then confessed.

Another man, Kunio Yamashita, 76, succumbed after a week of interrogation. The police told him that he was the lone holdout and that he could go home if he confessed. “I hadn’t done anything, but I confessed, and I told them I’d admit to whatever they said,” said Mr. Yamashita, who eventually spent three months in jail.

A woman, Eiko Hamano, 65, confessed after the police threatened to arrest her unless she cooperated. “They said that my grandson would be bullied at school, that my child would be fired from his company, that my whole family would suffer forever,” she recalled.

On the fourth day, feeling so sick that she could barely walk, Ms. Hamano confessed to accepting money. To prove that she had spent the money, the police told her to find a receipt for an $85 purchase, she said.

But when she presented the police an $85 receipt for adult diapers she had bought for her mother, they told her she was now confessing to having received $170 instead and needed a receipt for that amount. Luckily, she had just bought a sink for that amount.

“Now I can laugh about it,” said Ms. Hamano, who refused an order by the police to shout a confession out of a window. “But it was serious back then.”

Others never confessed, including the assemblyman, Mr. Nakayama, 61, who spent 395 days in jail, and his wife, Shigeko, 58, who spent 273 days.

The village postmaster, Tomeko Nagayama, 77, spent 186 days behind bars. She was held alone in a windowless cell that she was forced to clean every night after enduring a full day of interrogation.

The police said her refusal to confess was harming her family, she said. Her husband was sick and could not live alone; her daughter had to quit her job to take over the duties at the post office.

But Ms. Nagayama, a former schoolteacher, never once considered confessing.

“I felt I’d rather die,” she said. “This kind of thing just shouldn’t be tolerated in this world.”
ENDS

Peace as a Global Language calls for submissions by May 31

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Friend Albie Sharpe asked me to pass this along to you. I submitted a proposal for four different talks this morning–we’ll just let them choose which one (or two, perhaps) they want. Debito in Sapporo

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

Call for Presentations

6th Annual Conference

Peace as a Global Language Conference

Cultivating Peace, in association with a Model United Nations ‘Imagine Peace’
Date: Saturday, October 27 – Sunday October 28.
Venue: Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. 6 Kasame-cho, Sakyo ku, Kyoto 615-8558.

Submissions related to education and research in the following areas are invited:
– peace, the environment, human rights and other global issues,
– intercultural communication, values, health, gender and media literacy,
– foreign language education focusing on global issues.

Presentations may be in English or Japanese, or bilingual. The following presentation formats are possible:
– panel discussion (50 110 minutes)
– workshop (50 minutes)
– research presentation (50 minutes)
– poster sessions (no limit)
– other (please specify clearly).

Presenters may be teachers, students, researchers, journalists, activists and others interested in education for a better world.

Submissions should be no more than 100 words, with a 30 word abstract, and accompanied by the following information:
– Name & contact details of each speaker
– Format (Please also indicate if you are willing to give a poster presentation instead of another format.)
– Presentation language (English, Japanese or bilingual)
– Equipment required (please be very specific)
– Preferred date of presentation (November 12 or 13)
Applications may be rejected if the information provided is insufficient.

Submissions should be sent by e-mail to: submissions@pgljapan.org

Submissions may also be sent by post to the following address:
Craig Smith, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
6 Kasame-cho, Sakyo ku, Kyoto 615-8558

Deadline for Submissions: May 31, 2007

Notification of Decisions: On/around June 30, 2007 via e-mail

Please note: Our budget is very limited. We regret that we cannot provide funding for transport and other expenses. We do not provide guarantees or other documents for visa applications. We are unable to send volunteers to meet presenters at the airport or provide assistance with accommodation (although homestay might be available for a limited number of presenters applying from overseas). Those unable to meet the above requirements are discouraged from submitting proposals as it may result in somebody else losing the opportunity to present. Please be sure to let us know of any change in your details such as e-mail address.

Further information will be posted on our website soon: http://www.pgljapan.org

ENDS

IPS: Xenophobia May Hamper Economic Growth

Posted on May 9, 2007June 5, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s another article outlining the social damage created by Japan’s close-to-a-decade (since April 2000, see my book JAPANESE ONLY) of media, police, and governmental targeting of NJ as agents of crime and social instability: Even when the press finally decides to turn down the heat, the public has a hard time getting over it.

More on the history of the GOJ’s anti-foreign campaigns starting from:

https://www.debito.org/TheCommunity/communityissues.html#gaijinimages

https://www.debito.org/TheCommunity/communityissues.html#police

One more stat from the article below:

“On average, foreigners are paid around 15,000 US dollars annually, almost half the minimum considered necessary to live in this country.”

Hope to see this substantiated more fully elsewhere so we can cite it in future. That’s quite a bellwether wage differential.

Debito in Sapporo

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

LABOUR-JAPAN:

Xenophobia May Hamper Economic Growth

By Suvendrini Kakuchi

Inter Press Service News Agency, May 8, 2007

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37549

Courtesy of Hans ter Horst

TOKYO, Apr 30 (IPS) – Junko Nakayama, 56, refuses to believe that the number of foreigners arrested for crimes is decreasing as per statistics released by the National Policy Agency.

”There are an increasing number of foreigners, mostly Asian, in the area where I live and they look menacing. I am now very nervous when I walk back home from the train station in the evening,” she says.

Nakayama, who works in an international company, is not alone. Surveys indicate that more Japanese — over 70 percent in a poll — believe that the influx of foreigners into Japan is posing a threat to the country’s famed domestic peace. The notion is fuelled, say activists, by sensationalism in the media over crimes committed by overseas workers.

Accepting foreign migrant workers and treating them equally has been a long simmering debate in Japan where pride in national homogeneity is deep-rooted.

Says Nobushita Yaegashi at Kalaba No Kai, a leading grass roots group helping foreign labour: �-?’Despite new steps to allow foreign workers into Japan, they are viewed as cheap labour not as individuals who have the right to settle down and make a life in Japan. This policy reveals Japan’s xenophobia and is represented in the media.”

The debate over foreigners and crime was highlighted in January when prosecutors in San Paulo, Brazil, charged Milton Noboru Higaki, a former Brazilian worker in Japan, with professional negligence in a hit-and-run case in 1999.

Higaki, a Brazilian of Japanese descent, fled to Brazil four days after the incident that killed a high school girl Mayumi Ochiai, then 16. Her parents then pursued Higaki in his home country in a case that hailed in Japan as a step forward in ensuring judicial accountability of foreigners. Brazil and Japan have no extradition accord and Brazil’s laws forbid the handover of its nationals to foreign countries.

In 2005, Chinese nationals topped the list of foreigners arrested for crime. Nikkei, or second and third generation, Brazilians came next. According to justice ministry figures there are 320,000 of Nikkei living in Japan, working mostly in factories.

�-?The Yomiuri’, Japan’s largest daily, commented on Feb. 17 in an editorial titled �-?Fleeing foreign criminals should be tried in Japan’, said �-?’crimes committed by foreign residents is a serious problem”. The editorial called for a “stringent stance by the Japanese authorities in not allowing foreign criminals to escape punishment.”

But Yasuko Morioka, a human rights attorney, says the media would have done better to focus on the lack of laws to protect foreigners’ rights in Japan. �-?’There is no doubt that provision for access to professional interpretation, documents in their native language, and a legal hearing that considers the rights of foreign foreign workers is largely lacking in Japan,” she explained to IPS.

Morioka said there is no attempt to link crimes committed by Japanese-Brazilian workers to the abuses they suffer — poor working conditions, denial of education for children due to language barriers, discrimination and gross state negligence.

Japan is an attractive labour market for Asian and Latin American overseas workers given the high value of the Japanese yen. On average, foreigners are paid around 15,000 US dollars annually, almost half the minimum considered necessary to live in this country.

Eagerly sought after by small manufacturing companies and farms for cheap labour, they are considered essential to stay competitive against rapid globalisation.

Activists also say Japanese employers easily get away without paying compensation or providing relief when foreign employees are injured during work on the grounds of the lack of documented visas or access to an established system where workers can report this abuse.

Indeed, Higaki was quoted in the media as saying the reason why he fled was because he feared ‘discrimination’ as a foreigner in Japanese courts.

”The charge is understandable,” said Morioka, who is lobbying hard, with the Japan Lawyers Association, for the government to pass legislation that will guarantee the right of foreigners to be treated equally in the host country.

Experts warn that resistance to accepting migrant workers on an equal basis in Japan can result in a host of social problems that can only be blamed on government policies.

According to Hidenori Sakanaka, a former justice ministry official, Japanese companies are desperate to take in foreign workers to make up for a drastic population decline that can only worsen in the coming years.

Japan needs immigrant workers because its own population is both aging and declining. In 2005, deaths outnumbered births by 10,000. From 2006 onwards, the population was projected to dwindle steadily with some projections saying that Japan’s population, currently standing at 127 million, could dwindle to around 100 million by 2050. (FIN/2007)

ENDS

Gyaku Website: Accenture, JAPAN-VISIT, future Immig surveillance of NJ

Posted on April 20, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hello Blog. Got something very interesting to impart. In a new website entitled GYAKU, which offers in-depth reportage about lesser-known stories, we have the eye-opening story about the future of electronic surveillance of foreigners entering Japan.

I have reported in the past about how Japan’s new Immigration powers will now reinstate fingerprinting for all foreigners who cross Japan’s borders:

Mainichi Daily News, Dec 5, 2004: “Japan seeks foreigners’ fingerprints, photos, lists to fight terror”
https://www.debito.org/mainichi120504.html

Japan Times May 24, 2005: “Here comes the fear: Antiterrorist law creates legal conundrums for foreign residents”
https://www.debito.org/japantimes052405.html

Japan Times November 22, 2005: “THE NEW “I C YOU” CARDS: LDP proposal to computer chip foreigners has great potential for abuse”
https://www.debito.org/japantimes112205.html

Even though Japan’s NJ residents have fought long and hard (and successfully, until the police took advantage of the fear of terrorism) to end fingerprinting as part of Immigration procedure.
https://www.debito.org/fingerprinting.html

So here’s how it’s playing out. According to GYAKU, company without a country (which to some constitutes a security risk in itself) ACCENTURE (which created the digital mug-shot and fingerprint scans seen at US Immigration nowadays) has not only acted as consultant to Japan’s upcoming version, but also has been awarded the contract to develop Japan’s system for a song. This means that Japan becomes the second country to institute one of these systems in the world, in a bid to get a toehold in Asia and profit from the fear of terrorism.

The issues involved, the political backrooming, and links to all the necessary documents to make the case for concern are available at
http://gyaku.jp/en/index.php?cmd=contentview&pid=000188

Here’s an excerpt from the article. Debito in Sapporo

======================================
Accenture, JAPAN-VISIT, and the mystery of the 100,000 yen bid
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
By gyaku (http://gyaku.jp/en/)

The story first came to light nearly one year ago, on April 21, 2006, during questioning at the House of Representatives Committee on Judicial Affairs in the Japanese National Diet. Hosaka Nobuto of the Japan Social Democratic Party, a former journalist active in educational issues and one of the leaders in the fight against wiretapping laws in Japan, launched a barrage of questions at government officials over revelations that a contract for a new biometric immigration system had been awarded to Accenture Japan Ltd., a corporation previously hired in the role of “advisor” for the same project. For many years a thorn in the side of the ruling party coalition, Hosaka in 2000 was ranked by the Japanese newspaper Asahi shimbun as the most active member of the House of Representatives, with a record 215 questions, a number that rose to over 400 by 2006 [1]. The questions Hosaka put to the government on April 21st were undoubtedly some of the most important of his career, and yet, now nearly a year later, the story that he fought hard to publicize has barely made a ripple in the Japanese media, and remains virtually unknown to the outside world.

The background to the story reads as follows: Accenture Japan Ltd., the Japanese branch of the consulting firm Accenture, active in the Japanese market as far back as 1962 but only incorporated in Japan in 1995, received in May 2004 a contract to draft a report investigating possibilities for reforming the legacy information system currently in use at the Japanese Immigration Bureau. The investigation was requested in the context of government plans, only later made public, to re-implement and modernize a certification system to fingerprint and photograph every foreigner over the age of 18 entering the country, replacing an earlier fingerprinting system abandoned in the year 2000 over privacy concerns after prolonged resistance from immigrant communities.

Earlier the same year, against the backdrop of a post-9/11 society anxious about the threat of vaguely-defined dark-skinned “terrorists”, the U.S. had begun taking fingerprints of foreigners with visas entering the U.S. at international airports and other major ports. A program entitled US-VISIT (Visitor and Immigrant Status Information Technology) was initiated in July of 2003 with the intention to secure nearly 7000 miles of borders along Mexico and Canada, including more than 300 land, air and sea ports [2]. Described as “the centerpiece of the United States government’s efforts to transform our nation’s border management and immigration systems”, planners envisioned “a continuum of biometrically-enhanced security measures that begins outside U.S. borders and continues through a visitor’s arrival in and departure from the United States” [3].

======================
EXCERPT ENDS

Read the rest of the article at:

http://gyaku.jp/en/index.php?cmd=contentview&pid=000188
ENDS

Lunchtime Speech Mon Apr 23 at ICU, Mitaka, Tokyo

Posted on April 19, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Giving a speech at International Christian University (open to the public) in Mitaka, near Tokyo, next Monday. Details as follows. Debito

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

Institute of Asian Cultural Studies
ASIAN FORUM
第104回

“JAPANESE ONLY”
-The Otaru Onsens Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan
「外国人おことわり」——小樽温泉訴訟と日本における外国人差別

Despite effecting the UN Convention on Racial Discrimination in 1996, Japan still has no laws against racial discrimination. “JAPANESE ONLY” signs are appearing on places like shops, hotels and public bathhouses nationwide.

The speaker will talk about his activities against this sign-posted discrimination, including successful lawsuits against an exclusionary onsen, and another against the the City of Otaru that went all the way to Japan’s Supreme Court. He will also discuss what this trend means for Japan’s future, both as a society with an aging labor force and as a member of the international community.

Arudou Debito

Associate Professor at Hokkaido Information University
A human rights activist
北海道情報大学准教授

Monday, April 23, 2007
　2007年4月23日（月）

Lunch Time (12:50 – 13:40)
East Room, ICU Cafeteria
大学食堂　イーストルーム

Lecture in English
英語での講演です
Everyone interested is welcome!

Coffee, tea, and cookies will be served

Institute of Asian Cultural Studies
アジア文化研究所
Tel: 0422-33-3179 Fax: 0422-33-3633 （本館255）
e-mail: asian@icu.ac.jp
http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/iacs/
ENDS

Economist: UN Human Rights Council “adrift on human rights”

Posted on April 17, 2007May 21, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I post on this topic because (follow the daisy chain):

1) As the new UN Human Rights Council does, given Japan’s shabby record on following human rights treaties…

2) so Japan will do when it comes to Japan’s aspirations for a UN Security Council Seat…

3) which is really the only ace in the hole for putting pressure on Japan to finally pass a law against racial discrimination…

4) which Japan lacks, yet promised to establish all the way back in 1996 when it effected the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

I’ve been wanting to present the indicative Otaru Onsens Case to the HRC for some years now, but bureaucratic snafus, and warnings from my activist friends that doing so would probably be a disappointment, have kept me at bay. Meanwhile, these articles from The Economist keep coming out and offering bad news about the meetings I’ve missed.

Would be nice to believe that human rights, from the organization which has established some of the most important conventions and treaties in history, still matter in this day when rules seem grey, and even the most powerful country in the world dismisses long-standing international agreements as “outmoded” and “quaint”…

Debito in Sapporo
(Referential Links follow the article)

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

BACKGROUND INFO FROM THE ECONOMIST:
The United Nations
Jan 10th 2007
(From Economist.com, from link followed from article below)

Since its foundation in 1945 the United Nations has grown in remit and size. Its main job is keeping the peace, but its Security Council is forever hobbled by squabbling over membership and doubts about its legitimacy. When the UN acts, it often fails to provide its peacekeepers with adequate means. The organisation enjoys greater success raising living standards through its specialised agencies.

Kofi Annan, the UN’s secretary-general from 1997 to 2006, presided over an organisation accused of inefficiency and scandal and subject to constant attack from America’s legislators. George Bush opposed the UN’s plans for an international court and agreements on abortion and torture, and then invaded Iraq without its backing. Mr Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-moon, may get on better with America—which would leave him with a host of other, institutional problems to face.

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

NOW THE ARTICLE:

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

Human rights: Bad counsel
THE UN ADRIFT ON HUMAN RIGHTS
THE ECONOMIST Apr 4th 2007
http://economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RJGGNJP

“WE WANT a butterfly,” John Bolton, then America’s ambassador to the United Nations, said a year ago when explaining his country’s rejection of plans to replace the UN’s High Commission on Human Rights with a leaner and supposedly more credible Human Rights Council. “We don’t intend to put lipstick on a caterpillar and call it a success.” Mr Bolton, now in enforced retirement from the UN, may feel vindicated as the ludicrously painted creature creeps along, seemingly doomed never to metamorphose and take wing.

In its fourth regular session, which ended in Geneva on March 30th, the 47-member council again failed to address many egregious human-rights abuses around the world. Even in the case of Darfur, on which one of its own working groups had produced a damning report, it declined to criticise the Sudanese government directly for orchestrating the atrocities, limiting itself to an expression of “deep concern”. Indeed, in its nine months of life, the council has criticised only one country for human-rights violations, passing in its latest session its ninth resolution against Israel.

This obsession with bashing Israel and turning a blind eye to so much else has disappointed those who hoped that the new council might perform better than its predecessor. Now alarm is growing that its anti-Israel bias is going to be compounded by an excessive zeal to defend the good name of religions, and especially that of Islam, at the expense of free speech.

A new resolution, proposed by Pakistan, on the need to combat the “defamation of religions”, has drawn sharp criticism from watchdogs. Human Rights Watch pointed out that a focus on the protection of religions, rather than individuals, could be used to justify curbs upon free thought and conscience. Freedom House said the resolution was inimical to free speech and constituted “a perversion of the language and institutions hitherto used to protect human rights”.

The actual wording of most of the resolution is not in fact so objectionable. After voicing concern at “attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human-rights violations”, it urges states to prohibit the dissemination of “racist and xenophobic ideas and material aimed at any religion or its followers that constitute incitement to racial and religious hatred, hostility or violence”. So far so good, perhaps. But it goes on to say that free expression should be exercised “with responsibility”, and may be limited in regard to “public health and morals”, and, worse still, “respect for religions and beliefs”.

There’s not much encouragement for future Voltaires in that. As a piece of advice on manners, the proposition that freedom of expression should be exercised responsibly may well be sound. As a principle on which to organise society, it is not. The right to free speech is not a right if it cannot be exercised irresponsibly and, so long as it does not promote violence, jinx trials, libel individuals without cause or, in rare circumstances, threaten national security, freely is how many feel it is best exercised. Mankind has long advanced in the slipstream of ruffled feathers: a society in which no one may cause offence is likely to moulder in unquestioning obedience to the rules of those in authority.

Of the 17 members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference on the council, all but one voted for the resolution, along with China, Russia and South Africa. Fourteen Western countries voted against, including all eight EU states, plus Japan, Ukraine and South Korea (home of the UN’s new secretary-general). Nine countries, all from the developing world, abstained.

A central task for the new council was supposed to be regular reviews of human rights in each of the UN’s 192 member states. But nine months since its founding, nothing has happened. A key test of whether the council would prove any better than its derided predecessor would be to get this “universal periodic review” under way, Louise Arbour, the UN’s respected High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the Geneva meeting. The council has now given itself a year to establish such a mechanism.

ARTICLE ENDS

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

REFERENTIAL LINKS:

UN HRC SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR DOUDOU DIENE ON JAPAN’S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD
https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html

UNITED NATIONS ICERD COMMITTEE ON JAPAN’S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD (1998-2002):
https://www.debito.org/japanvsun.html
(Note that Japan is now five years late on handing in its biennial report on human rights to the ICERD Committee…)

Washington Times on UN Diene visit, Ibuki, Gaijin Hanzai mag etc
Insular power poses unique issues on bias
Published March 9, 2007 Washington Times
By Takehiko Kambayashi
https://www.debito.org/?p=255

Japan Times: U.N. special rapporteur challenges Ibuki’s ‘homogenous’ claim
February 28, 2007
https://www.debito.org/?p=239

Transcript of Press Conference with United Nations Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene and Debito Arudou at Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan
Feb. 26th, 2007, 12:30 to 2PM
https://www.debito.org/?p=238

Endgame on GOJ push for UNSC seat?
Japan’s eyes still on UN seat
Asia Times January 3, 2007
https://www.debito.org/?p=173

Japan Times: JAPAN’S DISINGENUOUSNESS
“We support human rights!” Just don’t scratch the surface.
On how Japan finagled its way onto the newfound HRC, November 7, 2006
https://www.debito.org/japantimes110706.html

PLUS: ECONOMIST: Human Rights Council in Trouble (March 22, 2007)
https://www.debito.org/?p=297

ENDS

Kyodo on LEE Soo Im, ethnic Korean-J activist and scholar

Posted on April 16, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Now here’s something more in depth from the Japanese media. Thanks Kyodo.

I know Lee Sensei as she cites Debito.org in:
Lee, Soo im; Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen; and Befu, Harumi, eds., “JAPAN’S DIVERSITY DILEMMAS”. iUniverse Inc. 2006. ISBN 0-595-36257-5. Two citations, in Chapter 4 (Murphy-Shigematsu, “Diverse Forms of Minority National Identities in Japan’s Multicultural Society”, pp. 75-99) and Chapter 5 (Lee, “The Cultural Exclusiveness of Ethnocentrism: Japan’s Treatment of Foreign Residents”, pp. 100-125).

Read on. Debito in Sapporo

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

FOCUS: Koreans’ struggle casts fresh light on Japanese immigration debate
NEW YORK, March 28 2007 KYODO NEWS
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=306223
Thanks to Matt Dioguardi for notifying me.

Debates over whether or not to import more foreign workers have always been a thorny issue in Japan, but it came to bear an extra sense of urgency when the country’s total fertility rate dropped to a new record low of 1.25 in 2005.

While foreigners still comprise about 1 percent of Japan’s population, the number of new arrivals has been steadily rising, especially from South America and China.

As these newer immigrants struggle to settle into the Japanese society, the decades-old struggle of the zainichi, or the ethnic Koreans in Japan, has come into clearer focus, says Lee Soo Im, professor at Ryukoku University.

A third-generation ethnic Korean, Lee was born in 1953 in Osaka Prefecture. Like hundreds of thousands of their compatriots, Lee’s grandparents emigrated to Japan in 1921 after losing their farmlands following Japan’s colonization of Korea in 1910.

Her maternal grandfather had a job in Tokyo, but never returned after the massive 1923 Kanto Earthquake. Through various contacts, the family learned that he was among about 6,000 Koreans killed by vigilantes acting on rumors that Koreans were planning a riot.

At the end of World War II, Korean population in Japan totaled over 2 million, swelling through forced conscriptions to make up for labor shortages in the Japanese mainland.

For a few years after 1945, Koreans in Japan were still considered Japanese citizens. But their citizenship was revoked abruptly in 1952 as Japan regained independence that year.

Becoming foreigners in the country they have already settled in, Koreans in Japan faced enormous hurdles in the coming decades, denied a variety of rights including social welfare and national pension.

While Japan’s ratification of the 1982 refugee recognition treaty, which barred nationality-based discrimination, improved the situation to some extent, unspoken discrimination in jobs, bank loans, housing and marriages persisted.

Growing up in Osaka, home to a large ethnic Korean community in Japan, Lee said she had grown immune to racial slurs, including the neighborhood kids’ yelling at her, ”You stinking Korean!”

But Lee was unprepared for her first encounter with an ”institutional discrimination” when she was about to graduate from Kyoto’s renowned Doshisha University.

”My grades were good, and I wanted to work for a municipal bank…and the teacher said, ‘No, they won’t hire Koreans.”

”I lost all my hope. I graduated from my university in 1975 and decided to immigrate to this country (the United States),” Lee spoke recently at New York’s Korea Society.

Financing her tuition with money she saved by teaching English and mathematics in Japan, Lee taught English to immigrants’ children in the United States, majoring in teaching English as a second language at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at Boston State College.

”I got a lot of hope, and courage from these immigrants, especially Korean children. They were telling me, ‘Teacher, one day we want to be like you.”

While in the United States, Lee also met her Iranian husband and gave birth to a daughter in Boston. Having little desire of returning to Japan, the family was set to move to Iran, but the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 made this impossible.

Back in Japan, Lee decided to apply for Japanese citizenship to safeguard her family’s visa status. But the immigration office was not convinced that she would become the ”head of a family” under Japan’s quintessentially paternal family registry system.

”They didn’t even give me an application form,” Lee said.

Fortunately, demand for English teachers was growing at the time, and Lee managed to find a secure job as a general director at an English language institute.

Her career bloomed, but seeking a fresh challenge, Lee applied for a teaching post at Ryukoku and was hired by the university in 1996. The move opened up her world to the study of ethnic Koreans and a host of human rights issues ethnic minorities face around the world.

Regaining her confidence, Lee went back to the immigration office in 1999 to apply for citizenship. The office was initially reluctant, but gave in after she threatened legal action, Lee said.

Lee became a Japanese citizen in 2002. Unlike most Koreans who naturalize, however, she decided to retain her Korean name, a decision questioned by an official in the process.

”I was told, ‘Why don’t you become a pure Japanese? That way, you could avoid discrimination, and your life will be better off,”’ Lee said.

”I said no. I want to naturalize, of course, to make my status more established, but I want to naturalize to make my presence become more visible in the society.”

Growing up, Lee used a Japanese name and hid her ethnicity until she was 18, when she decided to receive a high school diploma in her Korean name after a long struggle over her identity.

”I have to be a living example, teaching the domestic internationalization to Japanese people,” Lee said.

Lee, who recently co-edited ”Japan’s Diversity Dilemmas: Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Education” to highlight issues surrounding the country’s immigrant population, says there are no such thing as pure Japanese. A homogenous Japan is a myth built upon foreigners forced to live ”invisibly,” she says.

While the Japanese perception toward Koreans got a lift in recent years thanks largely to the Korean pop culture, there is a backlash by nationalists, in addition to a move to reinstate patriotic education, a trend she is particularly concerned about.

Lee forecasts that the Japanese attitude toward immigrants will not change unless the situation ”really hits the bottom.” But she believes Japan can no longer expect foreigners to choose between assimilation and exclusion under the forces of globalization.

”I love Japan and fighting against the system is my way of showing patriotism to my country,” Lee said.
==Kyodo

JT: Shiga governor backs antidiscrimination law

Posted on April 11, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This just turned up when I was searching my files for something else. A Japan Times article from last August I missed because I was doing one of my cycletreks. Better late than never:

There are indeed people in the government, particularly at the local level, who see sense and speak it: Japan needs a law to ban racial and other forms of discrimination. They are doing things in their own way which shouldn’t be overlooked:

Some local governments are abolishing the Nationality Clause”. Tottori Prefecture even passed its own anti-discrimination law (before it was UNpassed months later). Several city governments around Gifu and Shizuoka Prefectures themselves have been working since 2001 (starting from a signed declaration called the Hamamatsu Sengen) to get the national govenment to take specific measures to secure better systems re education, social security, and registration for their NJ residents. (I have heard some updates on this recently from a student doing his dissertation on this very subject. Should have a brief from him presently.)

Anyway, the JT article. Within it are the typical “chicken-and-egg” arguments which keep derailing the debate: Change society before changing the law. Sort of like asking rapists and stalkers nicely to desist their naughtiness before you pass a law against rape and stalking.

It’s ludicrous, but, I might add, historically not unique to Japan. Read some of the arguments raised in the Lincoln-Douglas Slavery Debates of 1858 or by the US South supporting segregation in the 1950s, and you’ll see remarkable similarities in the points raised by people on the wrong side of history. Debito in Sapporo

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

Shiga governor backs antidiscrimination law
The Japan Times Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006
By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20060824a2.html
Courtesy of The Community and Steve Silver

OSAKA — Shiga Gov. Yukiko Kada said Wednesday [August 23, 2006] she generally supports the creation of a national law to ban racial discrimination.

“Yes, at first glance, I support such a law,” Kada said. “But Shiga Prefecture still needs more hard data on the condition of foreign residents before deciding what policies to support.”

In May, nearly 80 human rights groups around Japan, and the United Nations, urged the country to enact legislation to guarantee the rights of foreigners and to show people thinking of moving here that the government will protect their legal rights.

However, many people in the central government and business who are pushing for more foreign labor oppose legislating against discrimination. Some say it would be better to change the attitude of society to be more tolerant of foreigners.

Speaking at the Kansai Press Club, Kada, who last month became the nation’s fifth female governor, said her prefecture is lagging behind others in integrating non-Japanese, especially foreign laborers, into the community.

Shiga has about 30,000 foreigners, including about 14,000 Japanese- Brazilians. In the Kansai region, it has the largest ratio of foreign residents who have moved there in the last two decades to Japanese.

Many of them came to work in auto-parts factories.

“Compared with Gunma and Shizuoka prefectures, which also have large populations of Japanese-Brazilians, the debates and policy measures for integrating foreigners into the community have not advanced very far in Shiga,” she said.

ENDS

Alex Kerr falls into “Guestism” arguments with unresearched comments

Posted on April 7, 2007May 31, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I covered some of this material in a previous post on the blog. However, for the newsletter I did a significant rewrite last night, describing how flippant and unresearched comments from a noteworthy person (Alex Kerr) can cause problems for others (particularly through unscrupulous anonymous editors on places like Wikipedia). I don’t want this new version to be buried in a newsletter, so I repost it separately and delete the older version from the blog. Debito in Sapporo

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

Some time ago, Alex Kerr, author of DOGS AND DEMONS and LOST JAPAN (and a person I have great respect for), was asked in an interview with the Japan Times (Oct 25, 2005) about he thought about activists (and, er, about me in particular). He responded:

=========================================
JT: In Dogs and Demons you argue that Japan has failed to internationalize. What do you think about the work of Debito Arudou and others to combat racial discrimination in Japan?

AK: Well, somebody has to do it. I’m glad that there is a whistle-blower out there. But, I am doubtful whether in the long run it really helps. One would hope that he could do it another way. He’s not doing it the Japanese way. He’s being very gaijin in his openly combative attitude, and usually in Japan that approach fails.

I fear that his activities might tend to just confirm conservative Japanese in their belief that gaijin are difficult to deal with.

That said, perhaps we who live here are slow to stick our necks out when we sense an injustice, and quick to self-censor in order to get along smoothly in our communities.

To me the most interesting aspect of Arudou Debito is that, in taking on Japanese citizenship, he has brought the dialogue inside Japan. His activities reveal the fact that gaijin and their gaijin ways are now a part of the fabric of Japan’s new society. A very small part of course, but a vocal and real part.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?fl20051025zg.htm
=========================================

This sticks in my craw for two reasons: One is that Alex, who does incredible amounts of research for his books, seems ill-informed about the ways we have combatted racial discrimination. If he had read my book JAPANESE ONLY (and despite receiving a copy from me nearly two years ago, he wrote me last January that he still hadn’t read it), he might understand that ARE doing it the so-called “Japanese Way”. We took every channel and route available to us WITHIN the Japanese system, as I meticulously detail in the book. In fact, there are plenty of Japanese who do exactly what we do (and more), and don’t get slapped with a “gaijin” label. It is out of character for Alex to comment on something he hasn’t done thorough research on.

The other reason is that this quote has been lifted out of context and selectedly reproduced by the unscrupulous on places like Wikipedia:
=========================================
Some critics question Arudou’s brand of conflict resolution: the judicial system. Alex Kerr, author of the best-selling Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan (ISBN 0-8090-3943-5), criticize such tactics as “too combative,” is doubtful “whether in the long run it really helps,” noting that “in Japan…[the combative] approach fails.” Acknowledging that “gaijin and their gaijin ways are now part of the fabric of Japan’s new society,” Kerr also notes that Arudou’s activities may “confirm conservative Japanese in their belief that gaijin are difficult to deal with.”[24]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arudou_Debito
=========================================
The essence and thrust of Alex’s comment, which is in fact about two-thirds positive, is lost.

Anyhow, the reason I bring this up now is because Matt Dioguardi in a recent, thoughtful essay, grounds this phenomenon in historical context, from an angle I hadn’t considered before:

=========== MATT DIOGUARDI WRITES =================
As a foreign national who is making a life for himself in Japan, I’m personally concerned that remarks like his have a negative effect on me (as a so-called “gaijin”). Because regardless of what one may or may not think of Debito, unintentionally Kerr is commenting on all “gaijin”.

Compare this to C. Eric Lincoln’s vivid description of a “smart nigger” in Coming Through the Fire: Surviving Race and Place in America:

————————————————
The smart nigger was likely to be everything the good nigger was not. Most likely he was educated above the norm considered sufficient for colored folks; whether he got it in school or some bigger fool than he had put it into his head, he had some dangerous notions. In either case, Mr. Martin said that the smart nigger was a pain in his own ass, and everybody else’s too. He wanted too much. He wanted his street paved, and he wanted it paved because he paid taxes rather than because his wife cooked for the judge. His house was painted and well kept and he didn’t waste his money on rattletrap cars. He didn’t “owe money downtown,” or “take up” advances on his pay every Monday morning. More than likely he had “been up North,” and he had a colored newspaper come to his house in the mail. The smart nigger paid his poll taxes, and he was mighty slow, it seemed to Mr. Dubbie Gee, to answer when somebody said “Boy!” He didn’t think that the bad nigger was funny, or that the good nigger could be trusted. Clearly, every smart nigger would bear watching. “They don’t last long,” Mr. Martin said, and he “flat out had no use for them.” He said that if he were colored he’d either kick a smart nigger’s ass down off his shoulders or keep away from him. A smart nigger, he said “is a damn fool hell-bent for trouble. And mark my words, he’s gon’ find it quicker’n a catfish can suck a chicken gut off a bent pin.”
————————————————

Is Alex Kerr saying Debito is a “smart nigger”?

I’d like to note that Kerr should be more specific in his comments, because is it really the case that there are no non-“gaijin” doing the things that Debito does? Is he saying that when Japanese file lawsuits, this is a natural evolution of culture, but when Debito does it, it’s reinforcing the notion that “gaijin” have an “openly combative attitude”?

Is he saying the teachers who refuse to sing Kimigayo are acting like “gaijin”?

What exactly is the definitive way some one displays an “openly combative attitude”?

Moreover, what is the definitive “Japanese way”? And in what specific way is Debito not doing it?

It’s very disappointing to see some of Alex Kerr’s calibre engaging in Nihonjinron. He should know that there is nothing so destructive to Japan’s traditional local customs as Nihonjinron. Do I need to quote from his own books? Just like the centralization of construction standards begins to make all parks and all buildings look bleakly similar, the centralization of identity around the concept of “Japanese” in an essentialist sense is just as destructive to the development of a full personality.
=========== END MATT DIOGUARDI ==============

More at
http://japan.shadowofiris.com/nihonjinron/is-alex-kerr-calling-debito-a-smart-nigger/

The point is, I always find it amazing how easily people can fall right back into the “Guestist”-sounding paradigms of “nicely, nicely, don’t get too uppity, for it’s not ‘The Japanese Way'”. When in fact everything we have ever done has also been done by Japanese. I hope Alex gets around to reading my book (https://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html) and will offer more informed comments. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Economist: UN Human Rights Council in trouble

Posted on March 29, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Bad news from The Economist. I really have no comment at this juncture, as I don’t have enough information about the situation to draw conclusions, and don’t want to bend over backwards to paint an overly rosy picture. Debito

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

Human Rights and the UN
Great expectations
Hopes fade for a fairer UN policy on human rights
Mar 22nd 2007 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RRJQQJQ

A LOT of optimism attended the birth of the UN Human Rights Council, created last year by a 170-4 vote of the General Assembly. Whereas the United States kept on the sidelines (and confirmed this month it would stay away), many Western states saw the new body as an improvement on the discredited Human Rights Commission it replaced.

But now some of the commission’s critics are fretting that the Geneva-based council may prove only a little better, or perhaps even worse, than its predecessor. What they are watching keenly is the council’s reaction to the massacres and humanitarian disaster in Darfur.

This month the council received a report on Darfur which did at least spell out some basic facts. It said the Sudanese government has aided janjaweed militias, “including in violations of human rights”. The council’s investigators had to glean this from refugees in Chad and elsewhere, as they were denied visas to visit Sudan. But the UN investigation managed to bring certain harsh truths to light: at least 200,000 are dead (many think the number is double that), the situation is getting worse not better, and the government is largely to blame.

Sadly, though, the full council is unlikely to draw the logical conclusion and hold Sudan’s rulers to account. That is partly because Muslim countries, along with various non-democracies with a soft spot for tyrants, hold a majority of the council’s 47 seats; between them they are shielding the Khartoum regime.

More surprisingly, countries such as South Africa and India are siding with Sudan. The best that can be expected is a weak EU-sponsored resolution that vows to monitor events and urges all parties to do their bit. That would leave Israel the only state to have been condemned by the council—eight times.

This sort of imbalance is all too reminiscent of the old commission. One much-vaunted improvement was a new universal-review system—under which every country’s record would be scrutinised from time to time. This would at least force human-rights abusers to answer some hard questions.

But it now looks clear that any follow-up to these inquiries will be feeble; and a group led by the Cubans wants to use the universal review as an excuse to get rid of the special rapporteurs who keep an eye on places such as Belarus, North Korea—and Cuba.

At best, the council is a declamatory body; real power lies with the Security Council in New York. But the mess in the UN’s top human-rights agency augurs ill for the reform of the UN as a whole.
ENDS

Niigata Nippou: Joetsu City to abolish Nationality Clause

Posted on March 29, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hello Blog. Good news. Local newspaper Niigata Nippou reports that another city government, Jouetsu, intends to abolish the “Nationality Clause” (kokuseki joukou), the guideline, enforced by many local, regional, and national government agencies, that only citizens may hold administrative positions (kanrishoku) in the Japanese civil service.

Non-Japanese, even those born in Japan with Japanese as their first language (as generational diaspora of former citizens of empire–the Zainichis), have been systematically excluded from even qualifying to sit examinations for Japan’s bureaucracy. Moreover, the Supreme Court decided in 2005, in defiance of Article 14 barring discrimination, that excluding a Zainichi Korean named Chong Hyang Gyun from sitting her admin exam for the Tokyo Government was constitutional!

Proponents of the Nationality Clause say inter alia that it is for security reasons, as you apparently cannot allow untrustworthy foreigners (especially those apparently shifty North Koreans) to hold jobs in, for example, firefighting and civil-service food preparation. Hell, you can’t trust a foreigner with a fire ax and potential damage to our Japanese property (potential insurance problems and international incidents), and what if they poisoned us during a busy lunchtime and took over! Or if proponents can’t be bothered to overthink the situation, they just punt and say that if anyone seriously wants to become a bureaucrat, they should naturalize, as many other countries require nationality for their civil-service jobs.

Both of these types of arguments overgeneralize and misrepresent the situation, as opponents point out. Namely, that if Japan had nationality laws like its fellow developed countries, there wouldn’t be more than a quarter of a million “Zainichis” lying in legal limbo for five generations now–they would be citizens already and eligible to take the exams anyway.

So the Nationality Clause is being slowly been done away with in municipalities (except those with bunker mentalities towards internationalization, such as Tokyo Met). Here’s an example: Jouetsu City, on the Japan-Sea side in SW Niigata Prefecture. Bravo.

Translating the article from Niigata Nippou for the record. Referential websites follow the article. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

======================================
JOUETSU CITY TO COMPLETELY ABOLISH THE NATIONALITY CLAUSE
Niigata Nippou March 28, 2007
http://www.niigata-nippo.co.jp/pref/index.asp?cateNo=3&newsNo=231718
(Japanese original) or
https://www.debito.org/?p=295

The City Government of Jouetsu made clear on March 27 its aims to completely abolish the Nationality Clause for its 2008 employee hires. Mayor Konoura Masayuki said as such during question time for the city’s March regular monthly meeting.

Jouetsu City removed the Nationality Clause for employment in the Arts and Child Care in 1995, and from Welfare employees in 2003. From 2008, it will remove the restriction from all city government employment, including civil engineers and construction.

As part of its General Plan for Human Rights, drawn up in 2002, Jouetsu had been condsidering abolishing this clause entirely. Mayor Konoura explained, “We wanted to take this up during 2007 entrance exams for employees.”

The City of Minami Uonuma in Niigata Prefecture also abolished the Nationality Clause for civil-service entrance exams in 2007. The City of Niigata has also indicated that it is considering a similar abolition.
ENDS
======================================

REFERENTIAL WEBSITES:
OTHER MOVES BY LOCAL GOVERNMENTS TO ABOLISH THE NATIONALITY CLAUSE (Kobe, Kochi, Osaka, Kawasaki)
https://www.debito.org/ninkiseiupdate1hiring.html

MORE ON CHONG HYANG GYUN CASE
ZNet February 4, 2005
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=17&ItemID=7178
More historical links (1995) from:
https://www.debito.org/ninkiseiupdate1hiring.html
In her own words at Debito.org (Japanese):
https://www.debito.org/chongsanessay.html

AN APPRAISAL OF JAPAN’S ASSIMILATION POLICIES, MENTIONING THE NATIONALITY CLAUSE PASSIM (Japan Focus, January 12, 2006)
https://www.debito.org/japanfocus011206.html
LIKEWISE PROBLEMS WITH JAPAN’S TREATMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RESIDENTS, AND PROPOSED SOLUTIONS (again passim)
https://www.debito.org/handout.html
ENDS

入店不可「純血日本人のみ」看板、帰化者入店拒否、外国人男根用心マンニュアル

Posted on March 22, 2007April 23, 2008 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

ブロクの皆様こんにちは。有道　出人です。いつもお世話になっております。

さてと、きょうのラインアップは以降の通りです：

/////////////////////////////////////////////////
１）越谷市で入店不可看板：中国人、帰化人、残留孤児、中国系混血人児。純血日本人のみ
２）広島市で帰化した東南アジア系の日本人でも入店拒否
３）「女子学生堕落マニュラル」で「外国人生殖器の違い」など
４）２ちゃんねる：「死刑になるなら敗訴賠償金を払うが」（読売）
/////////////////////////////////////////////////
By Arudou Debito
March 22, 2007
https://www.debito.org/nihongo.html
リアルタイムアップデートなら私のブログへどうぞ
https://www.debito.org/?cat=8

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

１）越谷市で入店不可看板：中国人、帰化人、残留孤児、中国系混血人児。純血日本人のみ

私の店舗前に掲げる「外国人お断り」の看板のコレクションが増えつつあります。しかし、先日、唖然とするくらいの排他的な看板を記者に送付されました。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
入店不可
中国人＆帰化人、残留孤児、中国系混血人児、接待に入店禁止、純血日本人男児のみ。
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店舗「エデン」
埼玉県越谷市越谷２ー３
Phone: 048-964-8852
http://www.k-eden.com
看板の写真は
https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html#Koshigaya

これは「アダルト・ストア」だそうですが、この看板が掲げ続けられると、「中国人の血が汚点だ」が公に助長されるのにちがいません。ましてや「帰化人」なら無論日本国憲法違反ですね。放置されると模倣を促進すると思います。どうぞ事情を調べて下さい。

同様に…

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２）広島市で帰化した東南アジア系の日本人でも入店拒否

場所「ＣＬＵＢ　サマ　サマ」
住所　広島市中天地１ー２　広島代ビル３Ｆ
電話　０８２ー２４６ー２３２０
看板は
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　暴力団及びその関係者の方、風俗者、風俗関係者、酩酊者、１８歳未満の未成年者、当店でトラブルのあった方、外国人の方、プロモーターの方の入店は固くお断ります。入店後発覚した場合、即退場して頂きます。御料金は返金致しません。
またそれ意外の方でも、当店の判断でお断りする場合もありますので、ご了承下さい。
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https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html#Hiroshima

但し、この規則に反していない人も外見のみで退場させられました：

入店拒否された東南アジア系帰化した日本人より本文：
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　「ご無沙汰しております。昨日、広島で人権講演の仕事があって(２００７年３月 8日）、その前の日（7日）から入っていました。男性友人（いわゆる日本人）二人と食事をしてその次に広島の繁華街にあった紹介所を訪れました。紹介所では「インドネシアの女性がいる店でも良いか」と聞かれて「良い」と返事をしました。しばらくすると、そのインドネシアの女性などがいる店【サマ　サマ】の従業員が来て私たちを案内してくれた。そしてお店の中に入りました。

　「入って座るやいなや奥の方から男性が走って来て「すみなせん、外人は駄目なんです」って言いました。私はたまたまパスポートを持っていたので「国籍は日本人なんですよ」って言いました。でも「見た目が外国人なので退室してください」って言われました。そして店の外に出された後に、店の外に書いてあった看板を見せられました。そこには、外国人が断りと書いてあった。写真を取ろうとしたときに邪魔されましたで少しぶれていますが、その写真も添付いたしました。いかがいたしましょう。」
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帰化も効かないならば、帰化は無意味となるではないでしょうか。阻害された人に弁護士を推薦しましたが、もし直接取材などをしたければ、どうぞ私にご連絡下さい。debito@debito.org.　転送させていただいきます。

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３）「女子学生堕落マニュラル」で「外国人生殖器の違い」など

当単行本はいかに科学的研究法に従っていない分析で笑いたいですが、大変真面目に読まれたいマンニュアルです。１９９５年に「非行問題研究会」に出版され、未だにアマゾンなどで発売中です。

内容は（抜粋）：
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外国人との交際法：
人種別ペニスの違い：日本人…白人…黒人…アラブ人（馬なみ！！）（イラスト付き）
外国人の困るところ：
体臭がきつい　気性が激しい　セックスがしつこい　お金を持っていない
ジャンキーが多く危険
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スキャンしたページはこちらです。
https://www.debito.org/joseidarakumanual.html

これと「外人犯罪裏ファイル」と同様に「言論の事由」で保護されていますか。

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４）２ちゃんねる：「死刑になるなら敗訴賠償金を払うが」（読売）

「死刑になるなら払う」２ちゃんねる管理者、賠償拒否
3月20日10時42分配信読売新聞
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070320-00000301-yom-soci
https://www.debito.org/?p=280

　インターネット掲示板「２ちゃんねる」への誹謗（ひぼう）中傷の書き込みなどを巡り、名誉棄損訴訟などで相次いで敗訴している管理者・西村博之氏（３０）が１９日、東京地裁で開かれた民事訴訟に出廷した。

　西村氏は閉廷後、報道陣に対し、過去の訴訟で確定した賠償金などについて、「支払わなければ死刑になるのなら支払うが、支払わなくてもどうということはないので支払わない」などと、支払いの意思がないことを明らかにした。

　西村氏は、これまでに全国で５０件以上の訴訟を起こされ、その大半で敗訴が確定。未払いの賠償金や、裁判所の仮処分命令に従わないことに対する制裁金が少なくとも計約５億円に上るとされるが、西村氏が自ら支払いに応じたケースはほとんどない。その理由について、西村氏は「踏み倒そうとしたら支払わなくても済む。そんな国の変なルールに基づいて支払うのは、ばかばかしい」と話した。
ends
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クイックコメント：西村氏は大人ですか。こういう議論は大人気ないですね。

私と２ちゃんねるの関係のいきさつは
https://www.debito.org/2channelsojou.html
https://www.debito.org/?cat=21

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きょうは以上です。いつもお読みいただきありがとうございました。
宜しくお願い致します。有道　出人
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
March 22, 2007
ENDS