Senaiho “Hair Police” School Bullying Case Update 4: Civil lawsuit launched against school bullies, gaining traction with other international couples

Posted on February 8, 2020February 8, 2020 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

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Hi Blog. Here’s the latest update from NJ resident Senaiho (previous updates three, two, and one here), whose daughter was not only bullied by school peers, but also had her hair forcibly cut by schoolteachers in public, causing her so much PTSD that she dropped out of school. This is yet another incident of Japan’s institutionalized school bullying of children of color that Debito.org has long called “the Hair Police“. Bullying is rife in Japanese education, but when it’s ignored (or even perpetuated) by officialdom, this feeling of powerlessness will leave children (particularly those NJ children with diverse physical features targeted for “standing out“) and their families scarred for life. (As discussed at length in book “Embedded Racism“, pg. 154-5.)

The difference now is that Senaiho has launched an actual civil court case. Over more than a year now Senaiho has tried other channels, such as taking it before school authorities and asking for criminal investigations, and all they have gotten is stonewalling and official coverup. So now he’s suing the bullies themselves. Let’s see what precedent this is going to set. Given that others are now standing up against insanely intrusive Japanese school conformity rules (“burakku kousoku”, including warmer clothes in winter, freedom of assembly or travel, and even the color of their underwear!), this may be a landmark case. Meanwhile, Senaiho offers an update with a newspaper clip below.

Well done, Senaiho. Stay the course! Debito Arudou Ph.D.

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

From: Senaiho
Subject: Brief update
Date: February 7, 2020
To: debito@debito.org

Hello Debito,
Included is an attachment from the Yamanashi Nichi Nichi Shinbun 2/5/2020 shot of an article that just gives an announcement of our case in the court, so I won’t bother to translate it all. It does state that the parents of the bullying perpetrators say in documents filed in the suit, that they think bringing awareness of N.J. and prejudice/bullying of these people should be the job of the schools, not theirs as parents. I think the school will argue that is the job of the parents, and not the schools. Passing the buck.

What I can say in addition to the article is that while we have a mountain of documents that the school and city officials provided according to the freedom of information request we made, there are glaring gaps in these documents — so much extensive redaction made that they become almost worthless. What we hope to do through this suit is use the power of the court to force the school officials and city office to provide us with complete files of information regarding us. This should include the names of the co-conspirators that engaged in the bullying, who hopefully can be brought into this suit at a later date.

There is also the option of reopening the criminal case with the prosecutors office if we find additional evidence. We have three years to do this.

We have also been contacted by several people from various parts of the country asking for advice on what they should do in their own bullying/futokou cases. Our impression is that children of international and mixed marriage couples suffer disproportionately at the hands of bullies, and school officials which is no surprise to you I am sure, but they also tend to suffer more because of a lack of support and isolation in getting information they need. There is also a great variety of policies that various school systems have around the country which makes it more confusing.

Thanks again for everything. Sincerely, Senaiho

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

The article:

======================
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“Gaikokujin Shimin”: Kawaguchi City Mayor Okunoki (kinda) answers a query about the racialized application of this term that officially makes Japanese into “foreigners” (UPDATED)

Posted on February 1, 2020February 8, 2020 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As we’ve talked at length before (it even topped my annual JT Top Ten Human Rights Issues for 2019), city governments have been using a racialized definition of local residents, namely “Gaikokujin Shimin“, that officially classifies even naturalized Japanese citizens, Japanese children with foreign roots, or anyone with connections to a foreign land as “foreigners”. Submitter ABC below offers a letter sent to the Kawaguchi City Government asking for clarification of the uses and effects of this official term. Thankfully, Kawaguchi City Mayor Okunoki Nobuo answered Submitter ABC. I enclose the query, Okunoki’s answer, and my attempt at a translation of the answer, below.

I’ll comment on the contents afterwards.

SUBMITTER ABC’S LETTER (reproduced here with permission):
//////////////////////////////////
From: ABC
Subject: A letter to and response from Kawaguchi mayor Okunoki
Date: January 30, 2020
To: Debito Arudou <debito@debito.org>
Hi Debito,

I wrote some posts in the comments section for “The annual Top Ten for 2019 of human rights issues as they affected NJ residents in Japan” upon seeing that the article mentioned Kawaguchi as using 外国人市民 like other municipalities. As a resident, this didn’t sit well with me and I wrote a letter to the mayor. I received a response today so I’d like to share what I sent (via snail mail) and what I received.

I’ve redacted certain sections and text for privacy reasons.
Sincerely, ABC

PDF: Letter to Mayor Okunoki 0113 redact (click on link to download)
//////////////////////////////////

MAYOR OKUNOKI’S ANSWER (click to expand in browser):

TRANSLATION BY DEBITO (WITH CORRECTIONS COURTESY OF DEBITO.ORG READER LOVERLAKKUMA IN THE COMMENT SECTION)
================================
(Basic official opening greeting)
Thank you very much for sending your opinion as a Letter to the Mayor. I will answer your questions below.

First, why does the “Kawaguchi City Vision for Coexistence with Multiculturalism” have the definition of “Gaikokujin Shimin: Not only foreigners who are local residents, but also includes residents who have taken Japanese citizenship, and residents who have cultural backgrounds in foreign countries”? It has that definition because even if someone has naturalized and taken Japanese citizenship, it is assumed (soutei) that they might still require some assistance in regards to multicultural coexistence. Please understand that this doesn’t mean our city has any intention of forcefully framing (gouin ni minasu) people who have taken Japanese citizenship as foreigners.

Second, why did the “Kawaguchi City Vision for Coexistence with Multiculturalism Ver. 2.0” delete that definition? While we were promoting multicultural coexistence based upon our “Revised Kawaguchi City Aims for Coexistence with Multiculturalism”, we were formulating our “Kawaguchi City Vision for Coexistence with Multiculturalism Ver. 2.0”. This does not mean that we revised the definition, but rather that we came to the conclusion (toraeta) that our efforts to support foreign residents — including naturalized people — had progressed enough (tsuchikawareta) to gain public understanding for those who may need support, so there was no need for further clarification of that definition.

For the third question “Under what concepts and framings is the city taking the initiatives toward foreign residents living in Kawaguchi City (short-term and/or long-term)?”: We are engaging in promotion of our multicultural co-existence by reframing the previous concept of “foreign residents,” from “recipients of support” (shien no taisho) to “providers of support” (shien suru gawa) in the “The Kawaguchi City’s Vision for Multicultural Co-existence Ver 2.0.”. This extols (utau) the vision of a city where people can participate positively in city planning (machi zukuri).

Fourth, how is Kawaguchi City envisioning the future for foreigners (and the descendants of children of international marriages)? Our city presumes that in future the number of foreigners will continue to increase. We want these people to serve as leaders in local community for any public need such as fire drills. We are seeking our goal by incorporating foreign perspectives, regardless of nationality, for the successful building community that all residents in our city can live peacefully and securely. We look forward to your understanding and cooperation.

January 29, 2020. OKUNOKI Nobuo, Kawaguchi City Mayor

PS: The people in charge of this matter are in the Cooperative Promotional Section of the city government. Yoroshiku.

ENDS
================================

COMMENT FROM DEBITO:

Y’know, I think Mayor Okunuki has his heart in the right place. I think he’s genuinely trying to assist people of diversity live peaceful lives in his district like any other person.

However, any discussion of how problematic it is to use the term “Gaikokujin Shimin“, i.e., grouping together people as “foreigners” regardless of nationality or legal status (based upon an explicit presumption that some people who have taken the trouble to naturalize still want to be treated as foreign), has been obscured in pat Bureaucratic Japanese sloganeering.

All this talk linking “multicultural coexistence” to “machi zukuri” (as if it wouldn’t happen anyway without the need to officially differentiate between people by assumed “foreignness”) doesn’t progress beyond the “sekkyokuteki” boilerplate, or the mutual-appreciation society of “let’s be nice to foreigners” that still manages to offset people with any foreign connections as somehow “different” and “worthy of special attention”. It’s as if Neanderthals still exist, and we’re still pondering policy on to integrate them into our Real-Human community.

Calling them “Gaikokujin Shimin” doesn’t help. It’s precisely the problem, actually, as the tool of offsetting. And just saying that the “definition has no forceful intent to presume that naturalized citizens etc. are foreigners” doesn’t make it so.

In sum, I think this is one of the best examples in favor of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, about how language and the very words we use constrict cognition and world views. The fact that Japanese bureaucrats cannot under any circumstances step out of their linguistic bubbles, and consider what it’s like as a minority in Japan dealing with the embedded racism of Japanese policymaking, is demonstrated very well here. Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

“Every Foreign Guest must present passport for photocopying” at Hotel Crown Hills Kokura; Japanese Police up to same old unlawful tricks in Fukuoka Prefecture

Posted on December 11, 2019December 13, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Despite years of articles and corrections made by official bodies, the Japanese Police are still bending the laws to have Japanese hotels engage in racial profiling, targeting all “Foreign Guests” (not “Foreign Tourists” as the law explicitly says), and demanding they produce ID for inspection and photocopying, including passports. More on all that here, here, here, here, and here.

Debito.org Reader MR sent word that the latest skulduggery can be found courtesy of the Fukuoka Prefectural Police at an establishment named “Hotel Crown Hills Kokura” in Kitakyushu.

ホテルクラウンヒルズ小倉(BBHホテルグループ): 093-521-0109

Here’s his report pieced together from texts:

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

MR: I made a reservation for a buddy on Japanese-language Rakuten Travel (楽天トラベル) website at the Hotel Crown Hills Kokura. At check in tonight (12/9/19) at around 7:45PM, the Front Desk asked for his passport to photocopy. He is a Permanent Resident (永住者), so I intervened and told them so. They then immediately withdrew the request for the passport, but still asked for and checked his Gaijin Card (在留カード).

To their credit, the clerks at the Front Desk were cool, and I have nothing against them given this sign from the Fukuoka Police at the counter. MR

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

COMMENT FROM DEBITO:

Here we have another multilingual sign (Japanese, English, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic) at a hotel front produced by the Japanese Police that ignores the law and encourages racial profiling. This one not only lists the approval of the Fukuoka Prefectural Police (and erroneously cites the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare), but also all Fukuoka Prefectural Public Health Departments (Fukuoka Kennai Kaku Hokenjo). Even though we’ve already had at least one Hokenjo (in Mito) correct the overzealous local police before on the letter of the law, which is:

If you have an address in Japan, you do not have to show any ID at a hotel check in. Just write that address in the hotel guest book. That goes for Japanese and NJ residents of Japan.

The law on hotel (and minpaku) ID checks only applies to foreign tourists without an address in Japan. So demand it be it enforced (download a file to help you do so here).

Meanwhile, if you want to do what Debito.org Reader Onur did some months ago, contact the local Hokenjo and get the law corrected. Clearly the Japanese police are not going to police themselves. Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Dejima Award #7: Nagoya City officially classifies “Foreigner City Denizens” to include “naturalized persons, children of international marriages, people with foreign cultures or roots in their backgrounds”. Viva Eugenics.

Posted on November 10, 2019November 15, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Alert Debito.org Reader XY sends me the following cover, for the Nagoya City Next Term General Plan (Intermediate Draft), dated August 2018.

Striking is what’s found on page 62, under official city definitions of terms:

It offers a definition of “Foreign City Citizens/City Denizens” (gaikokujin shimin), which is itself a reasonable category, since we want to attribute citizenry/residency within a city regardless of nationality (which the juuminhyou Residency Certificate system tried to separate and exclude for six decades).

But look who falls under the definition of “foreign” (my translation):

“In addition to people with foreign nationalities with an address within Nagoya City, this includes people like those who obtained Japanese citizenship, children born from international marriages, people with foreign cultures in their backgrounds, and people who have foreign roots.”

That pretty much makes it clear that you can’t ever be Japanese without “pure” Japanese blood and culture. In Nagoya, officially that also means you can’t escape being foreign. Ever. Even if you naturalize, or have a Japanese parent (who alas coupled with a foreigner), have any cultural ties to a foreign country, or have any roots in a foreign land.

Any taint or connection means you’re “foreign”. Not “international” (such as Kokusai Shimin). Foreign.

This not only defies common sense, it also, like the racist Japanese Sumo Association, violates the Nationality Law.

Granted, the next definition distinguishes between a foreign resident (gaikokujin juumin) and a foreign, er, citizen/city denizen (gaikokujin shimin), where the former is solely made into a matter of foreign nationality.

But in a society like Japan’s that adheres pretty strictly to a binary, where you’re either Japanese or you’re not, i.e., you’re a Nihonjin/Wajin or a Gaikokujin/Gaijin, I doubt that most people will be this sophisticated in their worldview. You’ve got any foreign ties? Case closed and door shut. You’re a foreigner, a gaikokujin. At best a Japanese with an asterisk. Even Nagoya City (Japan’s third largest city behind Tokyo/Yokohama and Osaka) officially confirms it.

Therefore, for this blatant and ignorant attempt to further classify, stigmatize, and alienate diverse Japanese away from a mythical “pure” Japan free from any foreign influences, I hereby award the coveted Debito.org “Dejima Award” to Nagoya City (only the seventh in Debito.org’s quarter-century of existence), for effectively reviving 19th-century discredited Eugenics theories about thoroughbredness. That any Japanese tainted by foreign blood, culture, roots or ties is to be classified as a foreigner. Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Senaiho Update 3: Civil suit to be launched over school “Hair Police” forced-haircut bullying of student in Yamanashi JHS (UPDATED)

Posted on November 2, 2019November 17, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. What follows is an update to the Senaiho Case of Junior High School bullying in Yamanashi, where a student three years ago had her hair forcibly cut by her Japanese school’s “hair police” (i.e., her teachers) against her will, resulting in trauma to the point where she could no longer attend. Debito.org has been covering this case for years now, and you can see previous entries here, here, and here. (And compare it with this.)

The news is that the family, working through “proper channels” to no effect (in fact, the opposite — officialdom harassed the victims further), are officially taking the bullies to court. Here’s Update 3. Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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

From: Senaiho
Subject: Senaiho Update 3
Date: November 1, 2019
To: Debito Arudou <debito@debito.org>

Hello Debito,
Since the Yamanashi Nichi Nichi published an article today (below) re the suit we will be shortly filing, I will go ahead and send this to you for your blog.

I will try to include some information not in the article.

The update:

Since my last update stating that the prosecutors office found insufficient evidence to proceed with charges, we have been working on the basis of filing a civil suit against the city of Yamanashi seeking a monetary amount of 7 million yen and a suit against the guardians of the perpetrators of the bullying seeking 5 million yen. This suit will be filed on the 8th of this month. This will be followed by a press conference at the press club office in the prefecture building.

The basis of the suit will be that our daughter was bullied and as a result of this, the school teachers cut her hair without her consent. This resulted in her being traumatised to the point of not being able to attend the last two years of her middle school education and requiring professional counseling, along with medical treatment for insomnia.

Since the original incident in ’16, many of the people involved have retired, transfered, divorced, and even been imprisoned, such as the former mayor of Yamanashi (for unrelated crimes). This however does not decrease the liability of the city or the perpetrators. It does make it difficult for those in charge though who have to catch up, but that is their problem.

This will be a long process though, probably two years at least and there is no guarantee we will come through as we wish, but if our daughter understands that what happened to her is not her fault, it will be a victory.

Thank you all here at debito.org for your continued support.

Sincerely, Senaiho

(Courtesy Yamanashi Nichi Nichi Shinbun, 11/2/19 edition, p. 26.)

UPDATE NOVEMBER 14, 2019, FROM SENAIHO (PDF FORMAT, CLICK TO DOWNLOAD)

SenaihoAsahi111419

Hello Debito,

I am including an article that appeared in today s Asahi Shinbun. It s not my intention to put up every article that concerns us, but I am sending you this one because I think it is important in that it features an example of how people in officialdom abuse their power over those they view as their inferiors. I mentioned this aspect in a recent post.

My translation:

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

Yamanashi School Hair Cutting Incident/Student Absence

Subtitle: A household who was a former member on the Yamanashi City Board of Education bashes the guardians by SNS of the student who s hair was cut by school officials.

Asahi Shinbun, November 14, 2019

In the spring of 2016, a second year student who s hair was cut by the school officials, was bashed by the household of a former member of the Yamanashi City B. of E. by way of Social Media (Facebook). The posted comment has since been deleted, but the Yamanashi B. of E. this month has received a copy of the deleted post from a concerned citizen of the local community, and have confirmed its contents. Mr. Kagami, the current head of the Yamanashi B.of E. said; “We are examining whether a leak of private information occurred and studying our response to this.” On 11/4 of this month, the guardians of the victim filed a 7.7 million yen lawsuit against the city of Yamanashi at the Kofu Municipal Court. The suit claims that the school officials, the B. of E. and the city are responsible, along with the perpetrators of the bullying of the victim, which resulted in the damages. As a result of the incident, the former B. of E. member manipulated information received obtained from their position on the Board, and used it to further bash the guardians of the student victim. The family member of SNS site claimed they heard the information from the former B. of E. family member “The parents of the victim gave permission to the teachers to cut her hair” they said in the posting on the SNS. The guardians of the student claim they did NOT give the school officials permission to cut their child s hair. The B. of E. without any investigation, accepted the word of the former B. of E. member at face value. The household of the former B. of E. member responded; “That was posted one year ago and has been deleted” they said. The household admits that the claim may have been based on speculation based on gossip. “It s possible we are mistaken” they said, also that it was “inappropriate to have done this.”

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

All The Best

Senaiho

Last word on NJ hotel passport checks (thanks to a lawyer): It’s as Debito.org has said for more than a decade: NJ Residents are exempt from showing any ID.

Posted on October 15, 2019December 15, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. With the influx of sports tourism (Rugby in 2019, Olympics in 2020), the National Police Agency (as reported before for years on Debito.org) has been erroneously telling hotels to demand passports and ID from all “foreigners”, including NJ Residents of Japan with addresses in Japan.

The Japanese police have been told for more than a decade now (even by the US Embassy!) that this is not lawful. NJ Residents are exempt from passport AND ID checks after indicating their residency in the hotel Guest Book.

(And if you want to carry a file substantiating that you don’t have to show any ID as a resident of Japan, download it from here: http://www.debito.org/newhotelpassportlaw.jpg)

So the police have become misleadingly legalistic, as Debito.org Reader Mamoru reports. He sends along this poster from the Shizuoka Police that lays out the letter of the law as follows:

Courtesy https://www.pref.shizuoka.jp/police/kurashi/gokyoryoku/documents/syukuhakusya.pdf (now dead link)

Here they are making clear in the introduction that they are asking for hotel managers to target foreigners without addresses in Japan, and ask for their passport numbers (the justification proffered: incidents of overseas terrorism, of course, since apparently there are no Japanese terrorists).

Even visually (the green bits), the Shizuoka Police are saying that there are two tracks grouped together: 1) Japanese (Nihonjin) and Resident Foreigners (Zainichi/Zaijuu Gaikokukjin), who have to note (kisai) their name, address, and occupation (under the Hotel Management Law Art. 6); and 2) non-resident Foreigners (Rainichi Gaikokujin/Kokugai Zaijuu), who have to reveal their nationality and passport number under additional Regulation 4.2 (more on this below).

HOWEVER,

Then the yellow bit says that all parties have to have a RELIABLE (kakujitsu) entry for their data.

For Japanese and NJ Residents, this means that the hotels must put into effect an identity check (mimoto kakunin) (although it notes that if they have a copy of the passport then data entry (kisai) is not necessary, which is suss since most Japanese guests would not be carrying a passport).

But unlike other entries, this is not grounded in any law mentioned in the flyer, making this even more suss.

Especially since the final yellow bubble asks for “cooperation” (kyouryoku) with the police in case they want to inspect the Guest Book (shukuhakusha meibo); note that “cooperation” in practice means the police merely asking nicely, because the police don’t have the force of law to compel. (It also asterisks that if there is a copy of the passport it is not necessary to write it down.)

As grounding in legal writ, the poster here does cite a “Notification” (tsuuchi) from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare that enables police inspection of the Guest Book. But as the below-mentioned Fukuoka Now website (citing a Japanese lawyer) states, these ministerial “directives” are “not laws and are therefore not legally binding, however, they are in practice extremely important as administrative bodies, who execute/enforce laws, follow these internal notifications until the law is clarified by amendment or a judge denied a specific interpretation at court.”

The point is still this is not grounded in actual law. Hence the request for “cooperation”. But any hotelier not a legal scholar will no doubt interpret these “weasel words” as a requirement to ask guests for ID.

What’s misleading in these yellow sections is whether or not ALL people regardless of nationality have to show ID (they don’t; they didn’t before, and there’s no law cited now to say that they do). But in practice, hoteliers will interpret this to mean that all “foreigners” will have to show ID, and the regular unwillingness to inconvenience “regular” Japanese customers will mean that Japanese won’t.

Finally, in the magenta balloons the Shizuoka Police mention that if the person asked for ID refuses to cooperate, then the hotel has the obligation to refuse that person accommodation. The law cited is not the Hotel Management Law, but a local Shizuoka Prefectural Ordinance (jourei) governing hotels.

In sum, the Shizuoka Police are reinforcing the status quo with weasel words asking for “cooperation” when law doesn’t require.

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

On a second page, the Shizuoka Police also cite various bits of the laws as substantiation:

Bits of this are backed up by an article at Fukuoka Now (courtesy of Debito.org Reader MR), which cites not only the letter of the law but also a lawyer opining:

(Courtesy https://www.fukuoka-now.com/en/can-hotels-take-a-photocopy-of-my-id/, current as of May 14, 2019):

旅館業法施行規則 [4]
第四条の二
３　法第六条第一項の厚生労働省令で定める事項は、宿泊者の氏名、住所及び職業のほか、次に掲げる事項とする。
一　宿泊者が日本国内に住所を有しない外国人であるときは、その国籍及び旅券番号
二　その他都道府県知事が必要と認める事項

Ordinance for Enforcement of the Inns and Hotels Act [5]
Article 4-2
(3) The matters provided for by the Order of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare set out in the Act shall be the following, in addition to the name, address, and occupation of the guests.
(i) The nationality and passport number if the guest is a foreign national who does not possess an address in Japan; and
(ii) Other matters that prefectural governors find necessary.

(All translations certified by Fukuoka Attorney Miyake Atsushi of Miyake Law, Apr. 2019.)

The Skinny:

At a bare minimum, this Shizuoka Police poster confirms that there are two separate tracks at check-in: One for Foreign Tourists, and another one for ALL Residents of Japan regardless of nationality (Japanese and NJ):

Foreign Tourists with no address in Japan must show ID, meaning a passport. Some places will require, as per local ordinance, that passport to be photocopied.

(I will let various governments continue to criticize the potential dangers of this practice, including fraud and identity theft: The Canadian Government, for example, explicitly says, “You take all responsibility for giving information in your passport to a third party.”

But there is still nowhere in the law that requires NJ Residents of Japan to show any ID after writing down their details in the hotel Guest Book.

And the fact that even this police poster is being intentionally confusing and misleading about the letter of the law, even when the law (or ministerial directive) is being selectively cited, indicates once again how the Japanese Police are continuing their SOP to bend the law and encourage hotels to racially profile their “foreign” guests. Debito Arudou Ph.D.

=====================
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Mainichi: New “open door” visa programs violate basic NJ human rights (now including marriage and children), don’t resolve cruel detention centers, and still curb actual immigration and assimilation

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. The Mainichi updates us on how Japan’s oft-toted “wider open door” new visa regimes make sure any actual immigration is held in check, with continuing draconian and deadly treatment for detained NJ.

The Mainichi calls them “haphazard immigration policies”, but that’s inaccurate. Japan still has no policy in place to encourage newcomers become immigrants (imin, i.e., firmly-established taxpaying residents and citizens). Au contraire, they’re still part of what Debito.org has called a “revolving-door” visa policy that has been in place for nearly thirty years now (what with the “Trainee” and “Technical Intern” programs that won’t even call NJ laborers “workers” (roudousha) in order to avoid granting them some legal protections), to make sure we take them in young, fresh and cheap, and spit them out when they’re too expensive or past their working prime.

For those who fall afoul of this exploitative system, they face being made an example of within cruel “gaijin tank” detention centers (which don’t fall under minimum standards covering prisons), which in effect send a deterrent message. It’s similar to what’s happening in the concentration camps now being run by the US Customs and Border Patrol (which, given that 45’s supporters are in thrall to Japan’s putative ethnostate, should not be too surprising).

As an interesting aside, the Mainichi below mentions how Japan even ethnically cleansed itself of Iranians in the 1990s, which can and will happen again. Now public policy is going one step further — trying to nip any possibility of marriage and children with Japanese. There are even bans on NJ on certain work visas having international liaisons, marriage, and children!

For all the new “open-door” visas being advertised, it’s clear that NJ are still seen more as work units than human beings. Debito Arudou Ph.D.

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

Left in limbo: Japan’s haphazard immigration policies, disrespect for human rights
April 19, 2019 (Mainichi Japan), courtesy of JK
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190419/p2a/00m/0fe/004000c

PHOTO CAPTION: Farhad Ghassemi’s father, Seyfollah Ghassemi, had been detained at Higashi Nihon Immigration Center, also known as Ushiku Detention Center, until his provisional release in October of last year. Pictured here at his home in Kanagawa Prefecture on March 12, 2019, Seyfollah says he is worried that his provisional release could be revoked at any time. (Mainichi/Jun Ida)

Japan is expected to see an influx of at least 340,000 people in the next five years, as a result of the amended Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act that went into effect April 1. But are this country’s people, society and legal system ready for such a sudden shift? Foreign nationals who have already lived in Japan for years and their Japanese supporters cast doubt not only on Japan’s preparedness, but on its willingness.

Kanagawa resident Farhad Ghassemi, 17, was born in Japan to an Iranian father and a Japanese Bolivian mother. He’s an Iranian national, but the extent of his skills in Farsi and Spanish, his father’s and mother’s mother tongues, respectively, are minimal. He filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court seeking, among other things, the invalidation of a deportation order that was issued when he was 6 years old. On Feb. 28, however, Presiding Judge Chieko Shimizu dismissed all of his requests.

Farhad was sitting in the gallery the moment the ruling was handed down. He cradled his head in his arms and did not move for a while afterward. “I was shocked,” he says. “I can’t help but think they’re just bullying us.”

Farhad’s father, 50-year-old Seyfollah Ghassemi, entered Japan in 1992, seeking work. Here he met Liliana, 50, and the two married. Their son Farhad was born in 2002. In 2009, the year after Seyfollah was arrested for overstaying his visa, the family of three was issued a written deportation order.

Farhad’s status until now has been “provisional release,” meaning he does not have a residence permit but is not in detention, allowing him to receive an education alongside his Japanese peers. The latest ruling has forced Farhad to enter his final year of high school not knowing what will happen to him, under an unauthorized status. He wants to further his education, but does not know how many universities here accept foreign nationals without authorization to live in Japan. Farhad appealed the district court’s ruling to the Tokyo High Court.

Farhad is naturally worried about what lies ahead. “I can’t plan my future,” he said.

This reporter has recently visited the family’s home in Kanagawa Prefecture. By the window was a photo of the family taken at an aquarium before Farhad had started elementary school. “Japan is the only place where all three of us can live together,” Seyfollah said.

Seyfollah is Muslim, while Liliana is Christian. In Iran, even the inter-sect marriage of Sunnis and Shias is highly controversial. Under Iranian law, Liliana would be forced to convert to Islam. Farhad, who does not follow any religion, would also be forced to become Muslim.

The Tokyo District Court acknowledged that there was a “risk of great loss” if Farhad’s request for permission to stay in Japan were not granted, because Farhad’s life was deeply rooted in Japan, both in terms of language and lifestyle. Moreover, the court stated that “the plaintiff could not be held responsible” for the fact that he has been on overstay status since he was 6 years old. And yet, the reasoning that is given for the government’s ultimate decision not to grant Farhad special residence permission is that it is “within the discretion of the government,” and is “legitimate.”

“This is the true face of a country that amended its immigration law to say, ‘Welcome, foreign laborers,'” says journalist Koichi Yasuda, who witnessed the sentencing in the gallery of the courtroom. “For self-serving reasons, the state is trying to kick out people who have actually put down roots in Japan. It’s a complete contradiction.”

Yasuda writes about discrimination against foreign nationals and human rights issues in his latest book, “Danchi to imin” (Danchi apartments and immigrants). He points out that until 1992, the year Seyfollah arrived in Japan, Iran and Japan had a mutual visa waiver agreement in place. “At the time, micro-, small- and mid-sized businesses were highly dependent on Iranian laborers, making their presence crucial. Many people can probably recall the sight of many Iranian workers who, on their days off, would congregate at parks in Tokyo to exchange information,” Yasuda says. “The Japanese government was effectively giving its approval to Iranian labor.”

However, once Japan’s economy tanked, society’s anti-foreign rhetoric spread. It was against this backdrop, Yasuda explains, that the government beefed up its policy of urging Iranians to leave Japan. Meanwhile, the 1990s saw a surge in the number of laborers coming into Japan from Brazil and other countries due to relaxed visa requirements for foreign nationals of Japanese descent.

“(Farhad’s mother) Liliana, who is of Japanese descent, arrived in Japan in 1994. Families like the Ghassemis are precisely the result of Japan’s haphazard immigration policies. And now the children of the couples who met in Japan are being told to leave the country. The phenomenon is symbolic of Japanese society,” Yasuda says.

Once in Japan, Seyfollah experienced discrimination at the workplace when he was an automobile mechanic, and also in his everyday life. But he recalls that ever since he met Liliana, they “helped each other lead their lives in Japan, a country that was unfamiliar to both of us.” Reading the court ruling handed to Farhad, it makes one wonder whether foreign nationals who come to Japan are forbidden from falling in love or getting married depending on their visa status.

“Such bans actually exist in Japan,” Yasuda tells the Mainichi Shimbun.

Through interns with the Technical Intern Training Program whom he has interviewed, Yasuda has learned of cases in which bans on dating and getting married — regardless of the other party’s nationality — are clearly outlined in the interns’ workplace regulations. “It’s like middle school ‘seito techo’ (school rulebooks that most Japanese middle schools distribute to their students), but they’re forcing these rules on foreign nationals in their 20s and 30s,” he says. “One rule even went like this: ‘Conduct that could result in pregnancy is banned.’ Japanese employers think they can include such a rule in their work regulations if they’re targeted toward foreign laborers.”

At the same time that the amended immigration laws went into force in a bid to bring more foreign workers to Japan, the long-term detentions of foreign nationals who have overstayed their visas is a common sight at immigration detention centers across the country. As of the end of July 2018, of the 1,309 detainees nationwide, 54% had been detained for six months or longer. According to attorneys and others who provide assistance to foreign workers in Japan, 13 foreign nationals died by suicide or from illness while in detention between 2007 and 2018. Many detainees complain of appalling health conditions at detention centers, saying they are hardly permitted to see physicians.

A damages lawsuit brought against the central government at the Mito District Court for the 2014 death of a then 43-year-old Cameroonian man while he was detained at Higashi Nihon Immigration Center in the Ibaraki Prefecture city of Ushiku is ongoing. His mother, who resides in Cameroon, filed the suit.

According to the legal complaint that was filed, the man had been confirmed as diabetic after a medical consultation at the immigration center. He began to complain of pain in February 2014, and died at the end of March that year. Security cameras at the center captured him saying in English that he felt like he was dying starting the night before his death, and the footage has been saved as evidence. Even after the man fell from his bed, he was left unattended, and a staff member found him in cardiopulmonary arrest the following morning. He was transported to a hospital where he was confirmed dead.

“Immigration officials have a duty to provide emergency medical care,” says the plaintiff’s attorney, Koichi Kodama. “The government should be accountable for revealing who was watching the footage of the man rolling around on the floor, screaming in pain, and whether anyone went directly to his room to check on his condition.”

There is no way a society that does not respect the human rights of individual foreigners and only sees them as “cheap labor” or “targets of public security measures” can flourish.

Says journalist Yasuda, “There are times when I wonder if Japan should be allowed to bring in foreigners, or has the right to bring in foreigners. At the same time, though, I believe that it’s a good thing for society that people with different roots live together. I think that the media should stop reporting on foreigners as people to be pitied, and not forget that this is a problem with our society.”

(Japanese original by Jun Ida, Integrated Digital News Center, Evening Edition Group)
Japanese version (excerpt)

特集ワイド
外国人労働者は恋愛禁止？　場当たり政策が生む「悲劇」
毎日新聞2019年4月1日　東京夕刊
写真：昨年１０月まで東日本入国管理センターに収容され、仮放免中のガセミ・セイフォラさん。「また仮放免を取り消されるのではないかといつも不安です」＝神奈川県の自宅で
外国人労働者の受け入れ拡大を目的にした改正入管法が１日、施行された。今後５年間で３４万人以上の増加を見込む外国人とともに暮らすための法制度や社会の準備は本当に整っているのか。長く日本で生活しながら差別的な扱いに苦しむ外国人と、支援者からは不安の声が聞こえる。【井田純】

改正入管法施行　消えぬ不安の声
判決が言い渡された瞬間、傍聴席に座っていた神奈川県在住の原告、ガセミ・ファラハッドさん（１７）＝イラン国籍＝は頭を抱えてうつむき、しばらくの間動かなかった。「ショックでした。自分たちをいじめているようにしか思えません」。父はイラン人、母は日系ボリビア人。日本で生まれ育ち、両親の母語はあいさつ程度しか話せない。６歳の時に出された「退去強制令書」の無効確認などを求めて東京地裁に提訴したが、２月２８日、清水知恵子裁判長はすべての請求を退ける判決を言い渡した。

この訴訟については途中経過を昨年９月の「特集ワイド」で取り上げたが、改めて経緯を振り返りたい。

Rest available by subscription at http://mainichi.jp/articles/20190401/dde/012/040/015000c

ENDS
=================================
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Yomiuri: GOJ now requiring hospitals (unlawfully) demand Gaijin Cards from NJ as a precondition for medical treatment

Posted on May 12, 2019May 12, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

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Hi Blog. Related to recent discussions about public refusals of service for either not complying with (unlawful) demands for NJ ID, or denial of service anyway when people in charge arbitrarily decide a visa’s length is not long enough, mentioned below is a move by the GOJ to require hospitals demand Gaijin Cards etc. (as opposed to just requiring medical insurance cards (hokenshou), like they would from any Japanese patient) as a precondition for providing treatment to sick NJ.

Granted, the Yomiuri article below notes that for Japanese patients, the government is “considering” requiring a Japanese Driver License etc. as well, because the hokenshou is not a photo ID. But once again, NJ are clearly less “trustworthy” than the average Japanese patient, so NJ will have more (again, unlawful) rigmarole first.

But there’s a deeper pattern in this policy creep. Recall the “Gaijin as Guinea Pig” syndrome we’ve discussed on Debito.org for well over a decade now: Public policies to further infringe upon civil liberties are first tested out on the Gaijin — because foreign residents even Constitutionally have much fewer civil liberties — and then those policies are foisted on the general public once the precedent is set. So once again, the GOJ is taking advantage of the weakened position of NJ to assume more government control over society.

NB: There’s also a meaner attitude at work: Note in the last paragraph of the article below the echoes of 1980‘s “foreigners have AIDS” paranoia creeping into LDP policy justifications once again. I say “mean” because the point would have been made by just stopping at “the person fraudulently used somebody else’s insurance”. And I’m sure presenting a Gaijin Card would have fixed the AIDS issue! (Not to mention that the GOJ apparently WANTS people to get AIDS screening, especially if they’re visibly foreign!) Such ill-considered policymaking signals!

Meanwhile, don’t expect equal treatment as a patient if you get sick while foreign. It’s official policy. Debito Arudou Ph.D.

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

病院で「なりすまし防止」外国人に身分証要求へ
2018/11/18(日) 読売新聞, Courtesy of SendaiBen and MJ
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20181118-00050002-yom-pol

（写真：読売新聞）

政府は外国人が日本の医療機関で受診する際、在留カードなど顔写真付き身分証の提示を求める方針を固めた。来年４月開始を目指す外国人労働者の受け入れ拡大で、健康保険証を悪用した「なりすまし受診」が懸念されるためだ。外国人差別につながらないよう、日本人にも運転免許証などの提示を求める方向だ。

来年度にも運用を始める。厚生労働省が在留外国人への周知徹底を図るとともに、身分証の提示要請を各医療機関に促す。

国民皆保険制度を採用する日本では、在留外国人も何らかの公的医療保険に原則として加入することが求められる。保険証を提示すれば、日本人か外国人かを問わず、原則３割の自己負担で受診できる。ただ、保険証には顔写真がついていない。「別人かもしれないと思っても『本人だ』と主張されると、病院側は反論が難しい」（厚労省幹部）という。

自民党の「在留外国人に係る医療ワーキンググループ」が医療関係者や自治体から行ったヒアリングでは、なりすまし受診の実例が報告された。神戸市では不法滞在のベトナム人女性が２０１４年、日本在住の妹の保険証を悪用してエイズウイルス（ＨＩＶ）の治療を受けていた。他人の保険証で医療費の自己負担軽減を受けることは、違法行為に当たる可能性がある。

ends

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

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“Gaikokujin Appetizer Charge” in Osaka Dotonbori restaurant? Debito.org investigates.

Posted on March 6, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Debito.org Reader XY sends the following message:

/////////////////////////////////////////////
From: XY
Subject: Racist Izakaya Bill?
Date: January 6, 2019
To: debito@debito.org

Hello Debito,

Happy New Year and thank you so much for all that you do for our community here in Japan.

A friend of mine found this on a message board:

I haven’t been able to do a proper identification of authorship and all that comes with that. I understand proper evaluation of sources is, more than ever, really important. However, I don’t have that.

Anyway, I have the bill (if it hasn’t been doctored), and the post from the message board.

My Japanese is nowhere near good enough to do the proper investigation of this. But I know that this sort of thing would be big news, (if we weren’t living in Japan).

Please have a look if you get a chance. You are pretty much my last resort here as I don’t have the skills to properly investigate. We passed it through the usual channels, JET boards, etc. People are pretty conflicted. I think the restaurant should get a chance to respond. Maybe this type of thing is probably normalized anyway and maybe I am just overreacting. It’s interesting to me that this was a systemic choice, not the work of a single employee (often the case in the States).

Sincerely, XY
/////////////////////////////////////////////

From: Debito Arudou
Subject: Re: Racist Izakaya Bill?
Date: January 29, 2019
To: XY

Hi XY. Thanks for your email. I finally got around to talking to the Izakaya (06-6646-4888) on January 30, 2019, at around 2PM. The person in charge (a Mr. Tada) said that this was not an addition to the bill for NJ customers. The charge for appetizers there listed is the same for Japanese and NJ. It’s just their way of letting their records know that there was a foreign customer. That’s what he said. Anyway, FYI.

Sincerely, Debito
/////////////////////////////////////////////

From: XY
Subject: Re: Racist Izakaya Bill?
Date: January 30, 2019
To: Debito Arudou

Thank you very much for getting back to me! It’s great that you called to confirm this with them given the weirdness of the whole situation and wording.

At the very least, this puts it on their radar and they will think twice about their “record keeping” practices. A few of my friends were curious about this and I’ll be sure to let them know the result and that you were on the case!

Thanks again so much!!

Sincerely, XY

==============================
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MC on new Minpaku Law and NJ check-ins: Govt. telling AirBnB hostels that “foreign guests” must have passports photocopied etc. Yet not in actual text of the Minpaku Law. Or any law.

Posted on February 23, 2019February 24, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. It seems the GOJ is up to its old tricks: Reinterpreting the law to pick on “foreigners” again. This was seen previously on Debito.org to encourage racial profiling at hotel check-ins, and now with the new Minpaku Law affecting AirBnB-style private homes opened for public accommodation (minshuku), it’s more of the same. Read on from Debito.org Reader MC:

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

From: MC
Subject: An experience with the new minpaku law that might interest your readers
Date: February 11, 2019
To: debito@debito.org

Hi Debito,

This might interest you and your readers. Feel free to post it if you think it might be appropriate. Sorry for the length, but it’s a bit of a complicated story.

I had an experience recently that raises a new aspect of the recurrent hotel registration problems that some people have. I have to admit I’ve rarely had problems at Japanese hotels, and on the few occasions I’ve been asked for ID, my polite refusal (aided by Debito’s very useful legal information -thanks Debito) has always been accepted. However the recent experience was a little different.

I was catching an early flight from Kansai, too early for the trains from home, so I decided to stay the previous night at a minpaku close to the airport, PLUS 9 Station Inn in Izumi Otsu, booked through booking dot com. They emailed information before check-in, among which they said “This is a staff-less guest house. You have to get your key at the accommodation and check in yourself.” No problem. The instructions for getting the key were clear. A later email, though, told me that there was an ipad in reception, and could we please scan and send copies of our passports, or in the case of Japanese people, driving licences (no mention of resident foreigners). Obviously realising that not everyone carries a driving licence, they asked for people without photo ID to photograph themselves on the iPad and upload the photo.

It was close to our departure day, and not having time to argue and possibly be asked to find somewhere else, I decided to simply ignore this. Arriving there, we retrieved the key from the key box, and stay went fine, with no contact from the company to ask why we hadn’t checked in through the iPad.

Afterwards I wrote to them with an explanation of the problematic nature of their system in regards to Non-Japanese customers. I also put a similar comment on their booking dot com page. First, they had no right to ask for photographs of anyone, resident or not, Japanese or not. The idea of requiring guests to upload a scan of a driving licence or passport, or even just a face shot, is just asking for identity theft, and is certainly illegal.

I explained the law on this as follows: “The Japan Hotel Laws are quite clear on this: If the guest is NOT a resident of Japan you DO have the right to ask for a passport number (not a copy of the passport). But if the guest IS a resident of Japan, on the other hand, whatever the nationality, they have no responsibility to provide any kind of copy of an official document or any photograph. It’s a gross invasion of privacy.”

They replied, saying that the new Minpaku Law of 2018 allowed for online check-in, and required photographic ID. The former is true, but I didn’t think the latter was. However, I checked out the wording at the Minpaku system portal on the MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) site, and it looks to me as though there is some cause for worry.

I’m not sure whether these pages quote the actual law, or whether they are simply guidance for owners regarding the effects of the law. The main MLIT portal site is here: http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/minpaku/business/host/responsibility01.html
(The page links to an English translation, but only of part of this section.)

[Ed: For the record, the MLIT portal page is a reinterpretation of the legal writ in plain language. For example, one of the main subject headers from MLIT is（１）本人確認の方法, or “Method for Confirming Identity”. Yet nowhere in the actual text of the law did I find the word “本人確認”. To check for yourself, here’s the actual text of the Minpaku Law in Japanese, word-searchable here online and here as a .txt file.]

Section 4 of the MLIT reinterpreted version deals with the requirement on minpaku owners to keep a register and to be able to provide it to the police on request. There’s no ambiguity in the first paragraph. Owners have to keep a record of the name, address, occupation and dates of stay for all guests. If the guests do not have a Japanese address, the owner also needs to record the nationality and passport number. All good so far.

Part (1) of this section, though, is a bit more worrying. First (A and B) it says that a photograph of the guest’s face or passport should be clearly confirmed to be accurate, and that this photograph should be identifiable as having been taken at or close to the premises. It suggests that a video phone or tablet in the minshuku could be used for this. There’s no mention here of Japan residency. Or of what sort of ID would be suitable for ALL guests (not just foreign guests), since not all guests carry passports.

上記の措置は、対面又は対面と同等の手段として以下のいずれも満たすICT（情報通信技術）を活用した方法等により行われる必要があります。
Ａ　宿泊者の顔及び旅券が画像により鮮明に確認できること。
Ｂ　当該画像が住宅宿泊事業者や住宅宿泊管理業者の営業所等、届出住宅内又は届出住宅の近傍から発信されていることが確認できること。

Then (Part (1), 2) is where it seems to require, or at least suggest, photographing the passports of non-resident foreigners. (Here it does specifically mention residence.) It even suggests that this photograph can be submitted as an alternative to filling in the guest register columns relating to nationality and passport number. (Part (1), 3) says that in cases where the guest refuses to provide a copy of their passport, they should be told that this is a government requirement, and if they still refuse it is possible that they do not have the passport on them, and therefore the police should be informed.

住宅宿泊事業者等は以下の内容に従って本人確認を行う必要があります。
１　宿泊者に対し、宿泊者名簿への正確な記載を働きかけること。
２　日本国内に住所を有しない外国人宿泊者に関しては、宿泊者名簿の国籍及び旅券番号欄への記載を徹底し、旅券の呈示を求めるとともに、旅券の写しを宿泊者名簿とともに保存すること。なお、旅券の写しの保存により、当該宿泊者に関する宿泊者名簿の氏名、国籍及び旅券番号の欄への記載を代替することもできます。
３　営業者の求めにも関わらず、当該宿泊者が旅券の呈示を拒否する場合は、当該措置が国の指導によるものであることを説明して呈示を求め、さらに拒否する場合には、当該宿泊者は旅券不携帯の可能性があるものとして、最寄りの警察署に連絡する等適切な対応を行うこと。

[Ed: Which means that if a NJ resident of Japan (who is not required to carry a passport; that’s why Gaijin Cards exist) shows up without a passport, under these directives he’s likely to have the cops called on him by careless or overzealous clerks. And as the Carlos Ghosn Case shows quite plainly, you do not want to be detained for questioning by the Japanese police.

[Moreover, after doing a word search of the actual text of the law, I CANNOT find the word 本人確認, or the words passport パスポート/旅券 or even photo/image 写真/画像. What section of the Minpaku Law (or of any law — the Japanese police have lied about the nonexistent photocopying requirement before) is the MLIT-reinterpreted version referring to?]

MLIT’s official English translation of the law is:

Private lodging business operators need to verify identity according to the following contents:
1. Keep an accurate record of guests on the guest list.
2. For foreign guests who do not have an address in Japan, accurately record the name, nationality and passport number in the appropriate column for each guest, request that each guest present their passport and save copies of each passport together with the guest list. By saving a copy of the passport, you can accurately record the name, nationality and passport number on the guest list.
3. If a foreign guest who does not have an address in Japan refuses to present their passport despite the request of the private lodging business operator, explain that the measures are based on national government regulations. If the guest continues to refuse, and there is the possibility that the guest is not carrying a passport, take the appropriate action such as contacting the nearest police station.

More worryingly, there is a link from this page to a model of a guest register. It’s here: http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/minpaku/business/system/regular_report.html

The model has a list of categories that need to be filled in: name, date etc. The last two are ‘nationality’ and ‘passport number’. Under ‘passport number’, it clearly says “If the nationality is other than Japanese, passport number must be entered.” There’s nothing, though to say a) that Japanese nationality does not need to be recorded, and b) that neither does nationality for foreigners with Japanese addresses.

[Ed: As MC notes, this is misleading. In the opening part of Section 4 of the MLIT-reinterpreted version, it says, as is proper, that “lodgers that are foreigners without addresses in Japan need to give nationality and passport number”: 宿泊者が国内に住所を有しない外国人であるときは、その国籍及び旅券番号. So why is this not continuously pointed out in this section? Again, as before, this encourages racial profiling of all guests who look “foreign”.]

So there are several inconsistencies here. On the one hand the guidance (if that’s what it is) confirms the requirement of the hotel law to date, namely that passport numbers (not copies) are required from non-resident foreigners, and only from them. On the other hand since they clearly want to allow for places to operate without any check-in staff, the distinction between providing a passport number and providing a copy of the passport, and the distinction between resident and non-resident gets blurred, and it’s easy to see how owners trying to keep up with this legislation will not be too conscientious about it.

I haven’t yet replied to the minshuku about this. I’d appreciate any advice, or any information anyone has about the new law, that I might have missed or misinterpreted.

Sincerely, MC

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

COMMENT: Interestingly enough, and on the plus side, there’s a special section in the Minpaku Law that specifically says that minpaku accommodations must aim for the comfort and convenience of “foreign tourists”. Clearly, none of these damned refusals of NJ reservations on the grounds of “we only have futons, not Western-style beds” or “we don’t speak any foreign languages” (as has happened to me on various occasions, even when I’m speaking Japanese).

（外国人観光旅客である宿泊者の快適性及び利便性の確保）

第七条　住宅宿泊事業者は、外国人観光旅客である宿泊者に対し、届出住宅の設備の使用方法に関する外国語を用いた案内、移動のための交通手段に関する外国語を用いた情報提供その他の外国人観光旅客である宿泊者の快適性及び利便性の確保を図るために必要な措置であって国土交通省令で定める者を講じなければならない。

Now, on the MLIT plain-language site, this is reinterpreted more clearly as follows:

住宅宿泊事業者は、外国人観光旅客である宿泊者の快適性及び利便性の確保を図るために必要な措置として、以下のことを宿泊者に対して講じる必要があります。
（１）外国語を用いて、届出住宅の設備の使用方法に関する案内をすること
（２）外国語を用いて、移動のための交通手段に関する情報を提供すること
（３）外国語を用いて、火災、地震その他の災害が発生した場合における通報連絡先に関する案内をすること
（４）外国人観光旅客である宿泊者の快適性及び利便性の確保を図るために必要な措置

Boldface added to item (3) because it includes information from a different clause (such as the one just before it on disaster information):

第六条　住宅宿泊事業者は、届出住宅について、非常用照明器具の設置、避難経路の表示その他の火災その他の災害が発生した場合における宿泊者の安全の確保を図るために必要な措置であって国土交通省令で定めるものを講じなければならない。

which says nothing about rendering it in a foreign language. Commonsensibly, this would be nice to do. But portraying translation as something required by law is another stretch.

So this seems to be a freewheeling interpretation of the law being made by MLIT (as keeps happening by Japanese officialdom, particularly the Japanese police, over-interpreting the law for their convenience to target foreigners). Again, I’m not sure where MLIT is getting the bit about passport numbers (and by extension and hotel interpretation, passport copies and mugshots).

But where is this going? Towards more rigmarole, policing, and official harassment of NJ-resident customers who just want to get a berth for the night. And I have been hearing (thanks SC) of other Japan-lifers now finding it harder to check-in while foreign.

Bottom line: The new Minpaku Law hasn’t fundamentally changed anything in regards to NJ resident customers. You are still not required to show ID, passport, or photo if you have an address in Japan. Debito Arudou Ph.D.

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

Senaiho on criminal complaint against Jr High School “Hair Police” in Yamanashi

Posted on January 19, 2019January 20, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. We are still hearing about Japan’s overzealous enforcers of Japan school rules, particularly when it comes to hairstyles, in what Debito.org has long called the “Hair Police“. This phenomenon particularly affects NJ and Japanese of diverse backgrounds, who are forced by officials to dye and/or straighten their naturally “Non-Asian” hair just to attend school and get a compulsory education.

Bullying is rife in Japanese education, but when it’s ignored (or even perpetuated) by officialdom, this feeling of powerlessness will leave children (particularly those NJ children targeted for “standing out“) and their families scarred for life. (As discussed at length in book “Embedded Racism“, pg. 154-5.)

It’s happened in Yamanashi to Debito.org Submitter Senaiho, who after many months of fruitless investigation has lodged a formal criminal complaint against his daughter’s school officials. Read on for his report. This issue has appeared in about 45 articles in Japanese media. Here’s hoping this blog entry helps attract attention from the English-language media too. Dr. Debito Arudou

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

December 17, 2018
By Y&D Senaiho

Everyone’s child is unique, at least most parents think and rightly so. All children are all unique in their own way. We felt no different when our fourth child was born. A beautiful baby girl who took the most honored place among three older brothers and we were constantly filled with joy as we watched her grow into a young woman. Little did we suspect after putting three boys through the difficult early-teen years of middle school in Japan, what we were going to experience when our little bundle of joy began her middle school enterprise.

Her first year of middle school began pretty much as her elementary school years in the Japanese public educational system finished, she would wake up every day more or less eager and looking forward to the days activities of classes, meals, meeting and playing with friends, and she would come home in the late afternoon bubbling with stories of the days events and happenings. We began to notice a dramatic change when she was no longer looking forward to going to school, or would leave reluctantly with a dire look on her face. Inquires about what was wrong only got short answers: “Nothing” or ominous silence.

We finally discovered the reason for her distress from her home room teacher. The cause was that she was being teased by a group of female classmates on account of her “Gaijin smell” or what we later came to know as “body odor”. I put it down to active hormones caused by puberty. Being the child of an Asian and western marriage, there was the scientific fact that she most likely has a larger than average (for Japan) number of sweat glands that secrete the proteins that causes body odor. No big deal, I thought, nothing a little deodorant would t fix, right! How naive I was.

We requested and got a C.A.R.E. package from my mother in the US in short order, filled with a wide assortment of feminine deodorants and fresheners. Along with these, daily baths, regular changes of underwear, and any other regimen we could think of, we tried. I have to say I never noticed any remarkable body odor in her presence, just the usual teen aroma that wasn’t any more or less fragrant than some of the odors I have noticed while teaching large groups of university pupils, and early adults. Our efforts were apparently not sufficient enough to relieve the offense of those in her class who were so nauseated. The teasing and complaints apparently continued for several months and into my daughter’s second year of middle school. She became less and less careful about things in general, and began showing signs of depression. Professional counseling seemed to help a little, but didn’t alleviate the root cause; Bullying for being a smelly half-gaijin!

Things seemed to have gotten out of control about the middle of the first semester of her second year, in order to try to reduce the teasing, her teacher decided that she needed to have her hair cut. We made an attempt in the evening of that day’s request by the teacher, but the next day on arriving to school my daughter’s haircut was deemed insufficient. The teachers decided to take matters into their own hands and decided to cut her hair in full view of other students and without our consent or even contacting us to ask permission.

That evening our daughter came home so traumatized that all I can say is that she has not been to school since that event. It was hard for me to understand how having ones hair cut could be so traumatic, but combined with all the other harassment that had been going on up till that point, it seemed to be the last straw. This was when the big cultural divide between the Japanese school system and my upbringing in the American school system came into full raging view. I vividly remember being in the third grade of elementary school and for some reason one day decided I wasn’t going to go to school anymore. My mother who happened to be an elementary school teacher herself, told me about the wonderful Truant Officer who would pay us a visit and force me to go to school. “He might even put your father and me in jail if you don’t go to school” she said. I decided I really didn’t want to see my parents go to jail; it would affect meals, Christmas presents and so on, I reasoned thankfully. The next day I reluctantly announced that for the good of all I will agree to return to school. I expected the same outcome with my daughters truancy. How could anybody just refuse to go to school? ‘This will not continue’ I remember thinking, after all it is “compulsory education” right? How wrong I was.

When my daughter’s absence went from a few days to several weeks I became alarmed. I got quite an education on where the burden of an education lies within Japanese society. Suffice it to say that it seems the entire burden is on the legal guardians of the child as to what constitutes an acceptable educational environment as far as the school system is concerned. On the other hand there are all kinds of educational laws on the books as to what and how the school system in obligated to make a safe and acceptable learning environment, especially with regard to compulsory education up through middle school. Cutting a child’s hair is not acceptable, as is allowing an environment of bullying and/or harassment, physical or mental. We spent the next year and six months trying to get the school to accept the responsibility for the trauma my daughter has suffered and to make a safe environment for her to return to her studies. All to no avail. Not only would they not even consider our issues, they branded us “Monster Parents” and tried to ignore that they had any responsibility whatsoever. However according to Guidebook of School Dispute Resolution by Kamiuchi Satoru, pg 216-217, The legal responsibilities of compulsory education in Japan are:

There shall be:

1. No provision of reasonable consideration based on developmental disability support law, disability discrimination prevention law

2. No response to bullying, contrary to the ordinance such as bullying prevention measure promotion law, Yamanashi city bullying countermeasure contact council, etc.

3. No School accident judgment incompatible and not pursuant to the “Ministry of Education, Culture, Administration” guidelines on response to school accidents.

What this legalese means in real life, is that the onus is legally completely on the school to make it safe and secure for every student to attend, including making any accommodations for special needs like attention deficit disorder, special training, or bullying awareness, really anything that would hinder any student from being able to participate in their education. In actuality, at least as far as the school system in our part of Yamanashi is concerned, they are still operating according to pre-Meiji era standards of education. According to Sakata Takashi (School Legal Mind: p. 3) This system assumed that the parents, neighborhood, and school would work together informally to solve any disputes. In fact, what has happened is that Japanese society has changed, within the past couple decades or so, so quickly and completely that Japanese compulsory education has failed to catch up. In fact modern Japan with the collapse of the economic bubble and dramatic decline in the number of child bearing couples finds itself at odds with an educational system stuck in the past. Parents are bucking heads with school officials demanding more and better legal responsibility and dispute formal resolution on the part of the schools their children attend.

For the parents of children born and/or being raised in Japan, who come into educational issues with school officials, this will require a willingness to choose a more legalistic route in settling disputes with school officials and even on occasion, parents of classmates. Changes come to all eventually, even Japanese education.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Satoru Kamiuchi, “Guidebook Of School Dispute Resolution” (Nihon Kajo Publishing, 2016) 216-217.
Takashi Sato, “School Legal Mind,” (Gakuji Publishing 2015) Introduction.

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

Update January 9, 2019

Since writing this article in the spring of last year, there have been several developments in our case. At the end of 2017, we submitted a petition to the Yamanashi board of education requesting they do an investigation into the bullying, and reasons for the trauma experienced by our daughter. As a result of this experience she has been absent for almost the entire last two years of her middle school education.

Over the course of 2017 with the help of our local Ombudsman, we managed to collect over 1500 signatures requesting that the school board do an internal investigation into the causes and responsibilities of the incidents regarding our daughter. The school board agreed to do an investigation. At the end of 2018 after reports of monthly meetings of the school board (in which we were not allowed to participate), we were informed that the results of this investigation completely exonerated the teachers and any public officials of any misdeeds or responsibility regarding the treatment of our daughter. It was all our fault as incompetent parents that our daughter was bullied and suffered such trauma that she was not able to attend school. Shame on us. We have requested to see a copy of this report, but have been informed that will not be allowed. The reason given is that it contains the names of private individuals involved whose privacy must be protected. Bullspit! We tried to be civil and it got us nowhere.

As of January 8, 2019, we have filed with the Yamanashi Pref. Police a criminal complaint naming the school principal and three teachers as defendants. Later that afternoon we also held a press conference. As of this writing articles regarding our case have appeared in several newspapers across the country. Since it is still early in the criminal case, I am sure there will be many developments over the next several weeks and months. I will strive to keep you informed as these occur. — Y&D Senaiho
ENDS

(January 8, 2019, Yamanashi Nichi Nichi Shinbun. Click on image to expand in browser.)

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Fuji TV’s “Taikyo no Shunkan”: Reality TV targeting NJ as sport. Again.

Posted on October 12, 2018October 13, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Japanese TV is at it again. Fuji TV is taking advantage of the weak position of Non-Japanese in Japan’s media, presenting sensational programming that specifically targets NJ for entertainment purposes.

Consider this report from Nevin Thompson at Global Voices (excerpt):

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

Japanese television program turns migrant raids and deportations into entertainment

By Nevin Thompson, Global Voices 10 October 201

https://globalvoices.org/2018/10/10/japanese-television-program-turns-migrant-raids-and-deportations-into-entertainment/

Captions: (Top) “Full Coverage: Immigration Bureau G-Men: Tracking down a Vietnamese illegal alien over the course of one month” (Bottom) “ILLEGAL OVERSTAYER” “FORCED DEPORTATION”

Screenshot from the television show “At the Very Moment They Were Deported” (タイキョの瞬間) on YouTube.

As Japan predicts a rise in the number of immigrants and foreign tourists in the coming years, a new television show has turned migrant deportations into entertainment. The program provoked some outraged viewer reactions and insights about the plight faced by visa overstayers and undocumented migrants in Japan.

Taikyo no Shunkan (タイキョの瞬間) (English translation: “At the Very Moment They Were Deported”) premiered on Fuji Television in a Saturday evening prime time slot on October 6, 2018.

Using a typical reality show format, the two-hour program follows a group of so-called “G-Men”, or immigration officers, employed by the Tokyo regional office of the National Immigration Bureau as they hunt down visa overstayers and so-called “illegal aliens” (fuhotaizaisha, 不法滞在者) and squatters (fuhosenshu, 不法占有) on camera.

In one segment, the immigration officers stake out the apartment of a Vietnamese man suspected of violating the conditions of his trainee visa. He and two others are arrested and interrogated on camera before being deported 24 hours later.

In another segment, the immigration officers storm a factory and detain a group of Indians suspected of being undocumented workers — the owners of the factory never appear on camera.

A final segment investigates the problem of Chinese “squatters” who have set up a vegetable patch on public land on an isolated stretch of riverbank in Kyoto.

For now, a fan upload of the video of the entire program can be viewed on DailyMotion…

Rest at https://globalvoices.org/2018/10/10/japanese-television-program-turns-migrant-raids-and-deportations-into-entertainment/

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

COMMENT: Debito.org has focussed on this kind of programming before. Consider this segment from a larger archive of broadcast media bashing NJ as terrorists and criminals, a phenomenon that gained political traction as former Tokyo Gov. Ishihara fanned the flames of xenophobia starting from around 2000. Not to mention the racist and propagandistic “Gaijin Hanzai” magazine (2007) that also seemed to be made with the cooperation of the Japanese authorities, More on this issue in general in Chapter 7 of book “Embedded Racism“.

Debito.org Reader JDG began discussing this issue on a blog post elsewhere, and sent a link that is already dead. Even the Asahi had something to say about it:

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

フジ「タイキョの瞬間！」に批判　「外国人差別を助長」
朝日新聞　2018年10月9日, courtesy of NH
https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASLB965QCLB9UCVL033.html

フジテレビ系で６日夜に放送された「タイキョの瞬間！密着２４時」に、反発の声が上がっている。外国人問題に取り組む弁護士らが「人種や国籍等を理由とする差別、偏見を助長しかねない」とする意見書をフジに送ったほか、ネット上でも番組の姿勢を問題視する声が出ている。

タイキョの瞬間！は、午後７～９時放送の単発番組で、副題は「出て行ってもらいます！」。ナレーションによると「法を無視するやつらを追跡する緊迫のリアルドキュメント」で、テーマは強制退去。不法占拠や家賃滞納の現場を紹介する中で、外国人の不法就労なども取り上げた。

技能実習生として来日した後に逃亡したベトナム人女性が、不法就労をしたとして東京入国管理局に摘発される様子のほか、同局の収容施設を「約９０通りの料理を用意できる」「刑務所とは異なり、食事と夜間以外は自由に行動できる」などと紹介する場面などを放送した。「取材協力　東京入国管理局」と明示され、東京入管のツイッターも放送前に「ぜひご覧下さい！」と番組をＰＲしていた。

弁護士の有志２５人は９日、フジに送った意見書で、技能実習制度の問題点や、収容施設の医療体制の不十分さ、自殺者が出ていることに番組が一切触れなかったことなどを指摘。「外国人の人権への配慮が明らかに欠如する一方、入管に批判なく追従し、主張を代弁しただけの、公平性を著しく欠いた番組」だと批判した。ネットでも「入管のプロパガンダ番組だ」などの声が上がっている。

フジテレビ企業広報室は取材に対し９日、「この番組では、さまざまな退去の瞬間にスポットを当て、その様子を放送いたしました。東京入国管理局が、不法滞在・不法就労の外国人を摘発するシーンもございましたが、取材に基づいた事実を放送しており、決して外国人を差別する意図はございません。番組に対して、いただいたご意見は真摯（しんし）に受け止め、今後の番組制作に生かして参りたいと考えています」と答えた。
ENDS

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

In the end, will there be any retractions, apologies for stereotyping, or even acknowledgments and caveats that NJ do good things in Japan too? As book “Embedded Racism” points out in Ch. 7, not likely. After all, NJ have so little right-of-reply in Japan’s media that bashing and blaming NJ for just about anything has long been normalized in Japan’s media. It’s simply part of standard operating practice — at the level of entertainment. Even a sport. It’s a foxhunt for gaijin. Dr. Debito Arudou

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Farrah on Hamamatsu’s city-sponsored “Gaijin Day” event: Problematic wording and execution, esp. given the history of Hamamatsu, and who attended.

Posted on September 3, 2018September 5, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I didn’t want to bring this up until after the event was over, but check out this poster for “Gaijin Day”, sponsored by enough people (including the City of Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture) to make it normal and unproblematized.

Source: https://www.hamamatsucastle.com/がいじんの日-the-gaijin-day-2018/ (bigger scanned reproduction below)

Some people did see a problem, and one, Farrah, reported what happened there to Debito.org. My comment follows hers.

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

From: Farrah
Subject: Comments – Gaijin Festival
Date: September 2, 2018
To: debito@debito.org

In late-August, an ALT friend of mine from Kansai told me about this event that was happening in Hamamatsu, called, “Gaijin Day”. Amused and slightly offended by the wording, she was actually interested in coming all the way down to my neck of the woods to attend it. The flyer for the event went viral in many expat groups on social media, and posts were flooded with comments about the title of the event. I figured that the organizers chose to call this event “Gaijin Day” to get lots of attention, and they did.

At first I thought that it would merely be a spectacle of foreigners flying into Japan to perform. But when I looked at the list, it was a bunch of people who were sansei/yonsei, Japanese people of mixed-heritage who lived in the Tokai region. I was immediately offended by the name of the event at that point. This is my fifth year living in Hamamatsu, and I’ve done extensive ethnographic research on Brazilian and Peruvian immigrant communities since November of last year. I know that referring to such an established part of the Japanese diaspora as merely “gaijin” was inaccurate and disrespectful. The worst part of all was that the Hamamatsu City Government and HICE Center (Hamamatsu Foundation for International Communication and Exchange) were the main sponsors for the event.

Hamamatsu has the highest immigrant population in Japan (22,260 immigrant residents as of July 2017), with the highest Brazilian population in the entire country. Actually, the population was almost double in Japan before 2007, but the Japanese government offered cash payments to nikkeijin to leave Japan permanently to reduce the immigrant population. From 2009-2010, they were offered around ¥300,000 per worker and ¥200,000 per dependent willing to leave Japan. About 20,000 nikkeijin took the offer, with the amount of Brazilian and Peruvian immigrants shrinking by more than 87,000 combined. The permanent leave requirement was reduced to three years, with many former residents coming back for employment in Hamamatsu and the Tokai region. This change in the permanent leave policy may be in response to the fact that Japan’s population is declining (with the elderly population increasing), leaving the country dependent on immigrant workers.

“To serve as a viable solution for Japan’s aging, immigrants would need to make up at least 10 percent of the overall population by some estimates—an unfeasibly large number by most accounts given the strong preference that remains for ethnic and cultural homogeneity and the public backlash that would likely ensue.” (Council of Europe)

This city should be an example of what living in a diverse and multicultural society would look like for the rest of Japan. However, there is little intercultural inclusion or integration between these communities. Most of these immigrants are not ALTs or eikaiwa teachers. They are Brazilian, Peruvian, Filipino, Indonesian, and Chinese people with mixed Japanese heritage. Many of them work in factories for car/train parts and in tea-picking farms. To call these long-term residents with Japanese grandparents (at least) “gaijin” is incredibly disturbing.

When I would read comments that supported the idea of referring to the performers as “gaijin”, I realized that majority of these people, Japanese and non-Japanese, were unaware about the legacy and the history of immigrant Japanese communities. Many of these people were born and raised in Japan, and many of them speak Japanese. I teach at a public high school with a lot of students from these communities, and majority of them speak Japanese as native speakers and have never went to their parents’/grandparents’ “home” countries. Their main cultural identity and mentality is Japanese, and yet they’re labeled as “gaijin” simply because they have a multicultural and multiethnic background. Why does having another culture to be proud of cancel their eligibility to be “Japanese”?

When I shared the flyer with my own comments on Facebook, I received over 100 responses from friends and acquaintances alike. I noticed that the non-Japanese people who disagreed with the idea of sansei/yonsei being labeled as “gaijin” as harmful were white Americans, Canadians, and Australians. They’re not minorities in their own countries, and in the end, they can always be reassured that they belong to their home countries without such backlash. They are completely desensitized and inexperienced with the concept of carrying a politicized multicultural identity because they never had to experience it in their home countries. I am first-generation American, and my parents are also immigrants. I have more personal experience being a minority in my own home country. I am constantly questioned about my identity by white Americans (and even by Japanese people at times), despite the fact that I was born and raised in the US and speak in English as a native speaker. When you’re a person of color or a minority in the place where you were born and raised, you face lots of scrutiny and oppression on your identity.

After holding many interviews with families and talking to my students about these issues in my research (as well as casual conversations), I have learned that being labeled as a “gaijin” as a mixed-race Japanese resident in Japan can be harmful to their self-image and identity. Majority of them have told me that even in Brazil and Peru, locals perceive them as “Japanese”, so they feel that they cannot fit into either country. The US may have their problems with racism, prejudice, and discrimination, but at least there are many support systems and articles out there that can reassure that minorities do belong. Japan does not have the same kind of representation or support for sansei/yonsei members in their society.

I actually attended the “Gaijin Day” event later on. It was located next to Hamamatsu Station, so it was inevitable to attend it anyways. As I thought, the vendors were all Brazilian and Peruvian, and they spoke to me in Japanese with little hesitation. There were also cell phone companies targeting Brazilian and Peruvian residents, holding up signs in Japanese, Portuguese, and English. Two individuals hosted the event: A full-Japanese radio host from Hamamatsu, and a Brazilian-Japanese performer who lived in Nagoya. Majority of the people in the audience were also Brazilian, but did not live in Hamamatsu. Some of what the hosts said irked me at times. “Today, we are all gaijin!” “Why do you have all these signs in Japanese? The Brazilians can’t read them!” I felt that the way the event was commenced also re-enforced stereotypes and constantly misused/over-used the term, “gaijin”. Most of my Filipino, Brazilian, and Peruvian friends refused to attend because of the naming of the event. “If I go there, I’m saying it’s okay to call me ‘gaijin’ even though I pay the same taxes and have a Japanese last name.”

The event was coordinated by two Brazilian men in their 40s, who came to Japan later in their adulthood. I tried to politely ask them about why they decided to call this event, “Gaijin Day”, but they immediately asked me about my heritage and said that it was not an issue to them because they identify themselves as “gaijin”. My yonsei and Japanese friends also received the same harsh responses when they tried to discuss the issue over the phone; it was as if the decision to label their community as “gaijin” was an autocratic decision with the concept of the sansei/yonsei population as a monolith. There was not a survey available to express my opinion at the event, either.

While I do understand that some residents from these communities, especially nikkei residents, mainly identify as “gaijin”, many of them also refuse to adhere to the label, especially newer generations of yonsei residents in Japan. Unlike the organizers of this event, many of them were born and raised in Japan, and plan to live here for the rest of their life. And yet, they are being labeled as “gaijin” by other people, not by choice. The idea behind language reclamation (taking back a slur/derogatory term and using it positively) does not function with this event because there is little to reclaim. The idea that mixed-race sansei/yonsei are legitimate Japanese people isn’t even established in the mainstream, and it’s under the assumption that every single person in the diaspora views themselves as non-Japanese, which is far from the truth.

Here is the main problem: when you decide to publicize a huge event that profits off of how diverse and multicultural your city is, the last thing you should do is use language that excludes the community that makes it special. Brazilian and Peruvian residents are already discriminated against a lot by Japanese locals in Hamamatsu. Japanese peers, teachers, and authority figures constantly tell them that they are “gaijin”. The reason why some older Brazilian and Peruvian residents especially have a hard time learning Japanese is because they are not really given much government support, and because the Japanese community does not welcome them as equals. The city government only recently created programs to help mixed-race residents learn Japanese a few years ago.

Imagine being a yonsei child who was born and raised in Japan, mainly speaks Japanese, and attends a Japanese public school (where students might call you “gaijin” if you can’t pass as Japanese or if you have a non-Japanese name). You come to a huge event that refers to you and everyone in your community as a “gaijin”. How are you supposed to feel?

Some may argue that this is a sign of progress; you’re supporting local businesses and performers who are sansei/yonsei. However, I see it as very regressive and problematic to a huge degree. They are remotely far from being “gaijin”, and you’re promoting the multicultural communities here at their own expense by reminding them that they’re not fully Japanese. They are a legitimate part of the Japanese diaspora and Japan itself. I think the Japanese diaspora seems to be the only one in the world where many people claim that possessing any other heritage/culture automatically makes you not Japanese at all.

On the signs of the event, the slogan is, “The Gaijin Day: We live in Japan together!”

Yes, you can live in Japan together, but you will always be separate. You will always be classed as non-Japanese. Having any heritage or culture mixed in will cancel out your Japanese identity. That’s the message that you are sending to the mixed-race residents here, especially to the younger generations. And that’s a very toxic message to send. Farrah.

Sources:

http://www.hi-hice.jp/index.php
https://rm.coe.int/city-of-hamamatsu-intercultural-profile/168076dee5

ENDS

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COMMENT FROM DEBITO: First, it is disappointing that the site of Gaijin no Hi is Hamamatsu. Given Hamamatsu’s special history with NJ residents (particularly its very progressive Hamamatsu Sengen of 2001), using exclusionary language such as “Gaijin” (given its history as an epithet as well; see below) feels truly, as Farrah put it, regressive.

Have they also learned nothing from the Toyoda Sengen of 2004 and Yokkaichi Sengen of 2006? (I guess not; but surely the Japanese officials behind this weren’t similarly bribed to leave Japan in 2009?!)

Second, about that word Gaijin. As I’ve argued before, it’s essentially a radicalized epithet with “othering” dynamics similar to “nigger”. My arguments for that are in my Japan Times columns here, here, and here.

Bad form, Hamamatsu. You should know better by now. And if not by now, how much will it take? That’s the power of Embedded Racism: It even overcomes history. Dr. Debito Arudou

The poster in higher resolution (click to expand):

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“Japanese Only” Osaka Nishinari-ku Izakaya Bar brags on Instagram about refusing foreign customers service for a laugh! (UPDATE: RETRACTED)

Posted on July 13, 2018July 14, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

UPDATE JULY 14, 2018: DEBITO.ORG READER MATT HAS CONTACTED ME WITH PHOTOS OFFLIST (AND BELOW IN THE COMMENTS) TO SAY THAT MARUFUKU HONTEN IN FACT IS OPEN TO NJ CUSTOMERS, AND EMPLOYEES. HE WRITES:

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

MATT: My friends and I go to Osaka Honten in Osaka all the time.

Although discrimination against Non Japanese is a very serious issue in Japan, I can

tell you that Osaka Honten has always been very welcoming to Non Japanese.

It seems that this was a case of a bad attempt at humor/overheard speech/inside joke

reported third hand by a blogger who was passing through and created a 外国人お断り

hashtag that probably (rightly so) alerted one of your readers.

[That blogger: https://www.instagram.com/miyamon1975/]

I say inside joke because most of the staff at Osaka Honten are from Korea or The Philippines,

including my good friend Leo who has been working for Marufuku for 15 years.

Marufuku Honten is one of the cheapest restaurants in Nishinari. Most of the customers are poor and working class

and cannot afford to eat at more expensive restaurants in Osaka.

I hope you will issue a retraction as soon as possible.

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

I HEREBY RETRACT THIS BLOG ENTRY, LEAVING THE ORIGINAL TEXT UP WITH STRIKETHROUGHS. GO HAVE A MEAL AT THIS ESTABLISHMENT. DEBITO

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

Original text:

Hi Blog. Here’s what you get when you allow business establishments legally to refuse service to Non-Japanese, as Japan does. Eventually it becomes so normalized (after all, it’s been more than twenty years since Japan signed the UN Convention on Racial Discrimination, and we still have no law against racial discrimination) that people no longer even bother to feel any form of guilt or shame about it.

Here’s an example where exclusionism becomes a selling point for an Osaka tachigui bar — gleefully bragging about it on Instagram with “gaikokujin okotowari” hashtags — where the proprietor even mentions how he elicited big laughs from other customers by refusing foreigners!

~~Clearly a nice place, publicly denigrating paying NJ customers at their own expense. Contact details below.~~ Dr. Debito Arudou

//////////////////////////////
From: PC
~~Subject: Owner brags about refusing foreigners on Instagram~~
Date: July 12, 2018
To: debito@debito.org

Hello Dr. Debito.

I have recently come across these posts (screenshots attached) on instagram of an izakaya owner (I presume) joking about refusing foreigners and even going as far as stating “This drinking establishment is cheap for the sake of Japanese people!” or something along those lines (maybe you can translate better) and even using #外国人お断りin the tags. The store is located in Osaka and is called ホルモンマルフク. Regards, PC
//////////////////////////////

Name: Marufuku Honten (Izakaya bar selling Horumon, or fried offal)

Address: 1-6-16 Taishi Nishinari-ku Osaka 557-0002
557-0002 大阪府大阪市西成区太子 1-6-16
Phone: 050-5890-9648 or 06-6641-8848
https://tabelog.com/en/osaka/A2701/A270206/27042773/dtlphotolst/4/2/?smp=s
https://oosaka-marufuku.jimdo.com

ENDS

================================
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JT and Nikkei: Japan to offer longer stays for “Trainees”, but with contract lengths that void qualifying for Permanent Residency

Posted on June 3, 2018June 3, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As is within character since the early 1990s, Japan wants NJ workers to make up for labor shortages in Japan’s workforce, but remains unwilling to allow NJ migrant workers to become immigrants: to access the benefits of their labors and years of investment in Japan’s economy and society by allowing them to live in Japan.

No, once again, Japan would rather leach off the best years of NJs’ productive lives and then send them home. Except now GOJ policy explicitly wants them to stick around and be exploited ever longer (without their families, and with a built-in contract cut-off before they can qualify for Permanent Residency), again under the guise of the deadly “Trainee” slave-wage labor program. Witness the JT article below. Dr. Debito Arudou

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

Japan looks to offer longer stays for technical interns, with caveats it hopes will limit immigration debate
The Japan Times, April 12, 2018 (excerpt). Courtesy of lots of people.
Full article at https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/12/national/sidestepping-wider-immigration-debate-japan-eyes-longer-stays-technical-interns/

Japan is weighing the creation of a new status of residence that would allow technical interns from abroad to stay longer in the country, as part of efforts to tackle severe labor shortages, sources said Wednesday.

But interns’ families would not be allowed to enter Japan — a provision meant to prevent the creation of the new status from leading to discussions on the sensitive issue of immigration, the sources said.

The status would allow those who have completed a five-year technical intern training program and meet certain requirements to stay and work for up to five additional years, the sources said. […]

With the technical intern training program intended to transfer skills abroad, interns currently must return to their home countries after a five-year stay. The new residency status would allow interns to stay in Japan to work for a maximum of five more years. The government plans to set requirements to obtain the status, including industry-specific ones, the sources said.

But according to a Nikkei business daily report [see below], trainees will still have to return to their home after their programs end, and then apply for the new residence status that would allow them to work again in Japan for a further five years.

This is apparently aimed at keeping trainees and interns from gaining eligibility to apply for permanent residency, for which one of the prerequisites is to be living in Japan for 10 years or more.

Those who have already completed the trainee program and returned to their home countries can also apply for the new status of residence, the report said.

The report also said that trainees with the new work permit would be able to gain highly-skilled professional status if they pass an examination, which would enable them to bring their families to Japan and to renew their visas.

The new work permit would be given to those working in nursing, agriculture and construction — sectors where labor shortages are most severely felt, the sources said.

Labor shortages are already severe, especially in the service sector. In 2017, there were 150 job openings for every 100 workers — the largest gap in over four decades.

The number of foreign workers has been on the rise in recent years, hitting an all-time high of approximately 1.28 million as of last October. Of that total, the number of technical interns stood at around 250,000, according to government data.

The technical intern program, which was formally created in 1990 for the purpose of transferring skills in the industrial, agricultural and fisheries sectors to developing economies, has become an essential part of Japan’s labor force amid the nation’s demographic woes.

Abe has officially declared that his administration will never adopt “an immigration policy” to make up for the continuing acute labor shortage, despite a rapidly thinning workforce.

The program was designed to support foreign nationals in their acquisition of technical skills, but has been criticized as a cover to exploit cheap labor from abroad. Many cases have been reported of trainees being subjected to illegally long work hours and physical abuse from employers.

In March, it was revealed that a Vietnamese man who came to Japan under the program was allegedly forced to take part in decontamination work in areas hit by the 2011 nuclear disaster. The Justice Ministry has begun investigating the case.

To eliminate violations by companies employing vocational trainees, a new law came into effect in November obliging employers to secure accreditation for their training programs. Under the law, employers found to have physically abused the trainees are subject to imprisonment of up to 10 years or a fine of up to ¥3 million. Other moves, such as denying compensation claims or confiscating passports, are regarded as violation of the Labor Standards Law and are also subject to punishment.

ENDS

外国人、技能実習後も５年就労可能に　本格拡大にカジ
日本経済新聞　2018/4/11, courtesy of JM
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO29256530R10C18A4SHA000/

政府は2019年４月にも外国人労働者向けに新たな在留資格をつくる。最長５年間の技能実習を修了した外国人に、さらに最長で５年間、就労できる資格を与える。試験に合格すれば、家族を招いたり、より長く国内で働いたりできる資格に移行できる。５年間が過ぎれば帰国してしまう人材を就労資格で残し、人手不足に対処する。外国人労働の本格拡大にカジを切る。

政府は単純労働者の受け入れを原則、認めていない。一方で働きながら技能を身につける技能実習の範囲拡大や期間延長で事実上、単純労働者の受け皿をつくってきた。幅広く就労の在留資格を与える制度の導入は大きな政策の転換点になる。

政府は今秋の臨時国会にも入国管理法改正案を提出し、来年４月にも新制度を始める方針だ。

新設する資格は「特定技能（仮称）」。17年10月末で25万人いる技能実習生に、さらに最長５年間、就労の道を開く。技能実習は農業や介護などが対象。新設する資格とあわせれば、通算で最長10年間、国内で働き続けることができる。

新資格で就労すれば技能実習より待遇がよくなるため、技能実習から移行を希望する外国人は多いとみられる。政府は少なくとも年間数万人は外国人労働者が増えるとみている。農業、介護、建設など人手不足の業界を対象にする。

そもそも技能実習は学んだ技術を母国に伝えることが前提。経験を積んだ人材も実習後に国外に退去しなければならない。長く働きたい外国人や、実習で経験を積んだ外国人を育てた国内の雇用主からは、改善を求める声があった。

技能実習制度とその本来の目的は維持するため、新資格は一定期間、母国に帰って再来日した後に与える。外国人の永住権取得の要件の一つに「引き続き10年以上の在留」がある。いったん帰国してもらうため、技能実習と新資格で通算10年を過ごしても、直ちに永住権取得の要件にはあたらないようになる。

外国人労働者をさらに増やすため、実習修了者と同程度の技能を持つ人にも新資格を付与する方針だ。既に実習を終えて帰国した人も対象になる見通しで、経験豊かな労働者を確保できる。

新資格の保有者は、より専門性が高い在留資格に変更できるようにする。専門技能を問う試験に合格すれば、海外の家族の受け入れや、在留期間の更新ができる既存の資格に切り替えられる。

国内では25年度に介護職員が約38万人不足する見込み。農業人口はこの10年で約４割減り、人手不足が深刻だ。技能実習生の多くが新資格に移行すれば、長期間、国内労働力に定着させることができる。アジア各国の賃金上昇で外国人労働力の獲得は難しくなっているが、人材獲得競争にもプラスに働くと見ている。

日本の労働力人口は約6600万人。17年10月末時点の外国人労働者数は技能実習生の増加などがけん引し、127万人と過去最高を更新した。労働力の50人に１人は外国人が担う状況だが、政府はさらに増やす方針だ。

ends

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Sapporo Consadole player and former England Team soccer striker Jay Bothroyd refused entry to Hokkaido Classic golf course for being “not Japanese”

Posted on May 30, 2018May 30, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here is some foreshadowing. Famous football player Jay Bothroyd, who played for the English national team, and now plays for Sapporo Consadole, has faced a “Japanese Only” golf course in Hokkaido: a famous one called the Hokkaido Classic. (The very course was even designed by a foreigner!)

This exclusionism is somewhat old hat for people who have been following the Otaru Onsens Case and the other “Japanese Only” places in Hokkaido and nationwide for all these decades. But when it starts happening to famous people (such as those playing for local Japanese teams), you know the bigots have lost their common sense from a public relations point of view.

Bring on the 2020 Olympics! There will be lots more “foreign” athletes to target then! Not to mention their supporters. Dr. Debito Arudou

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

Former England striker turned away from golf club in Japan ‘because he is foreign’

FORMER England and Cardiff footballer Jay Bothroyd has claimed he was turned away from a golf course in Japan, where he is now playing, because he is a foreigner.
By PAUL WITHERS
Daily Express (UK) Wed, May 30, 2018
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/967171/england-football-player-jay-bothroyd-cardiff-japan-golf-course-racism-twitter

Jay Bothroyd claimed he was turned away from the golf course for being a foreigner.

The 36-year-old Arsenal academy graduate, who made his only appearance for England in 2010, joined J1 League club Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo last July.

But the striker was left stunned after he was refused entry to his local golf course on the northernmost of Japan’s major islands – the Hokkaido Classic – which was designed by golf legend and 17 time major tournament winner Jack Nicklaus.

The exclusive par-72 course charges £338 for a weekend round of golf between June and July, with its fees website page stating that non-Japanese players must be accompanied by a club member.

But Mr Bothroyd, who has also played in Italy and Thailand, took to social media to question if it would be deemed racism in the UK or US.

He tweeted: “Today, I wanted to play golf, and when I went to Hokkaido Classic Golf Club, I was told that foreigners refused.

“If this were British or American, wouldn’t it be seen as racism? Do you have any recommendations for a good golf course?”

(Courtesy of SendaiBen. Note different ending in original Japanese: “Fukuzatsu na kimochi desu”, or “It’s a complicated feeling.”)

A British man in his 30s has also claimed he is sometimes declined entry to some places in Mr Bothroyd’s adopted city of Hokkaido.

He said: “I was once declined by a hotel in Hokkaido. Foreigners couldn’t stay there.”

A survey by the Justice Ministry in March revealed a worrying number of foreigners who are refused entry to venues in Japan, even though some are even able to speak the language.

The golf course’s fees page says non-Japanese players must be accompanied by a club member

It found that 247 out of 4,252 foreigners are “sometimes” refused entry to shops and restaurants due to their nationality, while 18 said they were “frequently” refused entry.

In addition, 347 anti-immigration rallies took place in 2013, growing to 378 in 2014, while Brazilian journalist Ana Bortz successfully sued a store in Hamamatsu after the owner tried to eject her.

In May 2016, Japan passed the Hate Speech Law, aimed at curbing racial discrimination to fight the growing problem.

When Tokyo hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020, Japan is expected to welcome more than 40 million tourists, with organisers hoping to eradicate the problem in time for the global showpiece.

ENDS
=========================
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“Japanese Only” sign on Izakaya Bar “100” (Momosaku 百作) in Asakusa, Tokyo

Posted on May 23, 2018May 30, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Japan’s sometimes inhospitable hospitality industry has yet another example of exclusionism. Will we legally have this stopped by the 2020 Olympics, or will Japan as a society allow these people to be an embarrassment? Dr. Debito Arudou

//////////////////////////////////////////
From: KD
Subject: Japanese Only sign Asakusa
Date: April 20, 2018
To: Debito Arudou
Hi Debito,

I spotted a Japanese only sign near our Air BNB in Asakusa.

[Japanese version: None of our staff at this establishment speak foreign languages, so we refuse entry to all people from overseas (kaigai no kata)].

I took it down and they put a new one up the next day.

Details:
Name: 100 (izakaya) (Momosaku 百作)
Address: 4 Chome-7-12 Asakusa, Taitō-ku, Tōkyō-to 111-0032
http://tinyurl.com/yb9uv3tz

Picture of sign and front attached.

I was wondering what I could write in Japanese as a review on Google Maps to make potential visitors aware that the izakaya has a racially discriminatory policy. Sincerely, KD

===================================
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“Japanese Only” diving and hiking tour company in Tokashikimura, Okinawa: “Begin Diving Buddies”

Posted on May 2, 2018May 30, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I found some time, so here is a little something for this week:

In addition to the hundreds of “Japanese Only” businesses found on the Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments (the fieldwork for book “Embedded Racism“), here is an Okinawan diving and hiking tourist agency called “Begin Diving Buddies” on a remote southern island called Tokashiki (35 mins by boat from Naha, Okinawa Prefecture) that refuses all “foreign” divers or hikers.

Their excuse: “safety reason and regulation” (or more simply in the Japanese, just “safety” (anzenjou), since there are NO regulations which blanket refuse foreigners in specific for wanting to ~~swim~~ dive or walk in the mountains).

“Dear foreign customer, we don’t give you service due to safety reason and regulation.
We are appreciated your understanding.”
（申し訳ありません。　安全上の理由により，外国の方はお受けしておりません）

Here’s a screen capture and text, courtesy of Steve and other Debito.org Readers:

About Diving: “Gaijin Refused” http://archive.is/kUTlD
Even just Walking: “Gaijin Refused” http://archive.is/rk6Gw
(Look at the photos, not dangerous hiking, simple relaxed walking.)
The smiling race-excluder: Mr. Ken’ichi Konishi http://archive.is/STvQx

Begin Diving Buddies’ contact details are:

☆ 住所：〒901-3501 沖縄県島尻郡渡嘉敷村字渡嘉敷1918-1
☆ 電話：０９８－８９６－４１１４
☆ 携帯：０９０－３２７２－３９３９
☆ ＦＡＸ：０９８－８９６－４１１５
☆ ｍａｉｌ： tokashiki@begin.jp

http://www.begin.jp/aisatu.php

Feel free to give them a piece of your mind. You can also also let officialdom know as well. Here is Tokashiki-mura’s official website, and Okinawa’s official tourism writeup on the place. Dr. Debito Arudou

Mainichi: Zainichi Korean’s hate speech lawsuit ends in her favor. Bravo. But Mainichi plays word games, mistranslates “racial discrimination” (jinshu sabetsu) into “ethnic discrimination” in English!

Posted on April 20, 2018April 20, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Let me turn the keyboard over to JK for some update and analysis:

////////////////////////////
JK: Hi Debito: Here’s a follow-up article by Mainichi on the Lee Sin Hae Case, which I originally submitted to Debito.org in late 2016:

Korean resident of Japan’s legal battle for dignity ends in her favor but problems remain
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180320/p2a/00m/0na/003000c
March 20, 2018 (Mainichi Japan)

OSAKA — A Korean resident of Japan whose damages lawsuit against an anti-Korean hate group and its former chairman ended last year with the top court ruling in her favor told the Mainichi Shimbun in an interview, “The ruling doesn’t mean we’ve crossed the finish line. It means we’ve just started on our way toward ridding the world of discrimination.”

Freelance writer Lee Sin Hae, 46, filed a lawsuit with the Osaka District Court in August 2014 against [officially-acknowledged hate group] “Zainichi tokken o yurusanai shimin no kai” (“Citizens’ group that does not forgive special rights for Korean residents of Japan,” or “Zaitokukai”) and its then chairman, Makoto Sakurai, demanding 5.5 million yen in compensation. Lee alleged that the group defamed her by calling her “an old Korean hag” during rallies in the Sannomiya district of Kobe and “a lawless Korean” on Twitter.

The district court ruled in September 2016 that Zaitokukai had made the statements with the intent to incite and intensify discrimination against Korean residents of Japan, and ordered the group to pay Lee 770,000 yen in damages.

According to Lee’s attorney, in June 2017, the Osaka High Court became the first court to recognize that a plaintiff had been subjected to “composite discrimination” — in Lee’s case, ethnic and gender discrimination [emphasis added]. However, the high court upheld the lower court’s compensation amount of 770,000 yen. Zaitokukai appealed, but the Supreme Court’s Second Petty Bench turned down the appeal late last year, finalizing the Osaka High Court’s decision.

It was through her writings criticizing hate speech that Lee herself increasingly became a target of hate mongers. She looked back on her three-year legal battle, during which she suffered insomnia and sudden-onset deafness as a result of stress caused by remembering painful incidents as she collected evidence for her case. “It’s been made clear that if one singles out another as a target of hate speech, they will have to pay for it with money,” she said.

Lee is hopeful that the precedent the courts set by recognizing that she had been subjected to composite discrimination will serve as a deterrent against discrimination in the future. Yet, people continue to take part in hate speech even when their identities are made public or they are ordered to pay damages, resulting in a reality in which hate speech is still plentiful both on the streets and on the internet.

“With the lawsuit, I became keenly aware that my strength alone was very weak,” Lee said. “Society won’t change unless the central government and administrative agencies come together and pour all their efforts into ending discrimination.” What Lee demands now are effective measures that include criminal punishment.

Hiroko Kotaki, an attorney who represented Lee in the lawsuit, offered a certain measure of praise for the Osaka High Court’s ruling for its recognition of the composite discrimination to which Lee was subjected. But Kotaki pointed out that it was problematic that claims to recover damage done by hate speech directed at an indefinite number of people, such as “Korean residents of Japan,” are not possible under current laws. With that in mind, she said, “In addition to establishing new legal standards, internet service providers need to work to reinforce their self-monitoring capacity.”

When the Osaka District Court ruled in favor of Lee in September 2016, former Zaitokukai leader Sakurai released a statement through his lawyer, accusing the ruling of being “unjust, as it was based on societal prejudice toward Zaitokukai.” When the Osaka High Court upheld the lower court’s decision, he released a statement that said, “I praise the fact that the compensation amount was limited to 770,000 yen, dealing a blow to the intentions of those who hoped to politically exploit the ruling.”

Japanese original
対在特会ヘイト裁判
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20180310/k00/00m/040/095000c
李信恵さん　尊厳回復の闘い
毎日新聞2018年3月9日 20時04分(最終更新 3月9日 20時25分)

高裁判決後、支援者から花束を贈られ笑顔の李信恵さん＝大阪市北区で２０１７年６月１９日、後藤由耶撮影
「人種差別的な発言で名誉を傷つけられた」として在日朝鮮人のフリーライター、李信恵（リ・シネ）さん（４６）が「在日特権を許さない市民の会」（在特会）と同会の桜井誠前会長を訴えた損害賠償訴訟は昨年末、最高裁第２小法廷（菅野博之裁判長）が在特会側の上告を認めない決定をし、同会側に７７万円の支払いを命じた大阪高裁判決（昨年６月）が確定した。確定を受けて毎日新聞の動画インタビューに応じた李さんは「証拠集めなどのたびに被害を思い出し、ストレスから不眠や突発性難聴に苦しんだ」と３年余にわたる法廷闘争を振り返り、「この判決はゴールではない。世界から差別をなくすためのスタートだ」と決意を新たにした。

「名指しでヘイトスピーチをすれば訴えられ、お金を払わなければいけなくなることがはっきりした」。ヘイトスピーチに批判的な記事を書くうちにその標的になったという李さんは、「人種差別と女性差別との複合差別に当たる」と認定した高裁判決の“抑止力”に期待を寄せる。しかし実名が公表されても、あるいは賠償金を請求されてもやめようとしない人たちはおり、今も路上やネット上にヘイトスピーチはあふれている。

「裁判をしても、私一人の力は弱いと感じた。国や行政などが知恵を絞って全力で取り組んでくれなければ社会は変わらない」と指摘する李さんが求めるのは、刑事罰の導入も含めたより実効性のある対策だ。

訴訟で代理人を務めた上瀧浩子弁護士は、複合差別を認めた高裁判決を一定程度評価しながらも、現行法下では「在日朝鮮人」など不特定多数に向けられた場合に被害回復ができないことを問題視。その上で、「新たな法規範を設けるとともに、インターネット事業者などの自己チェック態勢をより強化していくべきだ」と訴える。

李さんは毎回の口頭弁論に朝鮮半島の民族衣装であるチマ・チョゴリ姿で臨んだ。「自分を奮い立たせ、勇気をまとう意味があった」という。母のチマ・チョゴリや、在日コリアン無年金訴訟の原告が織った西陣織なども縫い込んで、毎回違うものを仕立てた。傍聴席にもチマ・チョゴリや男性用のパジ・チョゴリ姿の人が目立った。「社会がそうさせているのかは分からないが、ヘイトスピーチをする人たちももしかしたら『被害者』かもしれない。傷つく人も、傷つける人も両方がいなくなるよう、何ができるかもっと考えていきたい」と李さんは先を見すえている。

桜井氏は２０１６年９月の大阪地裁判決時、代理人弁護士を通じて「判決は在特会側への社会的偏見に基づくもので不当」などとする談話を出した。また、昨年６月の大阪高裁判決時には代理人弁護士を通じ、「賠償金が７７万円にとどまったことは、判決の政治利用をもくろむ勢力の思惑をくじく結果となったことを評価する」とコメントしている。【後藤由耶】

大阪ヘイトスピーチ訴訟
桜井氏が神戸・三宮での街宣活動で「朝鮮人のババア」と発言したり、ツイッターで「不逞鮮人（ふていせんじん）」と書き込むなどしたりしたのは名誉毀損（きそん）に当たるとして、東大阪市在住の李さんが２０１４年に大阪地裁に提訴。地裁判決（１６年９月）は「在日朝鮮人への差別を助長、増幅させる意図があった」と認定し、在特会側に７７万円の支払いを命じた。控訴審判決は人種差別を認めた１審から踏み込み、性差別との「複合差別」も認めたが、命じた支払額自体は変わらなかった。
==================

JK COMMENTS: From the article, we learn that Lee Sin Hae’s case wasn’t finished in September 2016 — in June of 2017, the Osaka High Court upheld by the decision of the Osaka District Court to fine Mr. Sakurai ~$7200, and late last year, Mr. Sakurai and Zaitokai appealed the case, but the Second Petty Bench of the Supreme Court denied the appeal.

Now one of the things I find curious in the article is that we’re introduced to so-called “composite discrimination” (複合差別) which, in the Japanese version of the article is defined as racial discrimination (人種差別) plus “gender discrimination” (女性差別; I think ‘sexism’ would be a better choice of words).

However, in the English version, “composite discrimination” is defined as “**ethnic** and gender discrimination”.

How is it that 「民族差別」 now equates to ‘ethnic’ instead of ‘racial’? And if the intent was to convey the notion of ‘ethnic discrimination’ (whatever that is), why does the Japanese version not use 「民族差別」 instead?

The only explanation I can offer is that Mainichi is playing word games and deliberately whitewashing ‘racial discrimination’ with ‘ethnic discrimination’ in the English-language version because the latter is more palatable to the reader. What’s your take? Regards, JK

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

DEBITO COMMENTS: The mistranslation is very indicative. My take is that one of three things happened:

The mistranslation was accidental, because Japanese society is so blind to the problem of “racial discrimination” in Japan (as Debito.org has demonstrated, it’s taken decades for it to be explicitly called “jinshu sabetsu” in the Japanese) that editorial standards have reflexively reverse-engineered the language to make it “ethnic” all over again.
The mistranslation was deliberate, because Japan has no races, therefore “racial discrimination” cannot exist in Japan (after all, holds the liberal Japanese view, “Japanese and Koreans are the same race, therefore discrimination against Koreans isn’t racial; it’s ethnic“). More on that below. Or,
The mistranslation was subterfuge, because the translator at the Mainichi happened to be one of those White Samurai types, who personally doesn’t see “racism” as a problem in Japan (despite the original Japanese wording), and sneakily changed things to protect his Japan from the outside world.

Of course, this all begs the question of people in Japan still accepting the antiquated notion of “race” as an abstract, biological concept — as opposed to a socially-constructed one that differs from society to society in its definitions and enforcement, or as a performative one that is created through the process of “differentiation”, “othering”, and subordination.

So strong is this centuries-old belief that even Mali-born naturalized Japanese Dr. Oussouby Sacko, recently-elected president of Kyoto Seika University (congratulations!), made the bold statement in the New York Times that his differential treatment in Japan is not due to racism:

“Dr. Sacko, a citizen of Japan for 16 years, says he is treated differently because he does not look Japanese. But he distinguished that from racism. ‘It’s not because you’re black,’ he said.”

Sorry, that’s not now modern definitions of racism work anymore, Dr. Sacko. Differential treatment of Visible Minorities in Japan is still a racialization process. But I guess anyone can succumb to the predominant “Japan is not racist” groupthink if it is that strong.

In this light, the Mainichi can be seen as merely maintaining the narrative, reverse-engineering the censorious language into English this time. Dr. Debito Arudou

Japan Supreme Court enforces Hague Convention on Int’l Child Abductions (for Japanese claimants). Yet Sakura TV claims Hague is for “selfish White men” trying to entrap women from “uncivilized countries” as “babysitters”

Posted on March 29, 2018March 30, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. We had an important Supreme Court ruling come down earlier this month, where an international custody dispute between two Japanese divorcees living in different countries resulted in the custodial parent overseas being awarded custody of the child, as per the Hague Convention on International Child Abductions. (See Japan Times article excerpt below.)

Debito.org has commented at length on this issue (and I have even written a novel based upon true stories of Japan’s safe haven for international child abductions). Part of the issue is that due to the insanity of Japan’s Family Registry (koseki) System, after a divorce only ONE parent (as in, one family) gets total custody of the child, with no joint custody or legally-guaranteed visitation rights. This happens to EVERYONE who marries, has children, and divorces in Japan (regardless of nationality).

But what makes this Supreme Court decision somewhat inapplicable to anyone but Wajin Japanese is the fact that other custody issues under the Hague (which Japan only signed kicking and screaming, and with enough caveats to lead to probable nonenforcement), which involved NON-Japanese parents, faced a great deal of racism and propaganda, even from the Japanese government.

As evidence, consider this TV segment (with English subtitles) on Japan’s ultraconservative (PM Abe Shinzo is a frequent contributor) Sakura Channel TV network (firmly established with the “present Japan positively no matter what” NHK World network). It contains enough bald-facedly anti-foreign hypotheticals (including the requisite stereotype that foreign men are violent, and Japanese women are trying to escape DV) to inspire entire sociological articles, and the incredible claim that Japan’s court system is just appeasing White people and forcing a “selfish” alien system upon Japan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmbuabX9_S0&feature=share

The best bits were when banner commentator Takayama Masayuki claimed a) White men just marry women from “uncivilized” countries until they find better women (such as ex-girlfriends from high school) and then divorce them, capturing the former as “babysitters” for once-a-week meet-ups with their kids (which Takayama overtly claims is the “premise” of the Hague Convention in the first place); and b) (which was not translated properly in the subtitles) where Takayama at the very end cites Mori Ohgai (poet, soldier, medical doctor and translator who wrote sexualized fiction about a liaison between a Japanese man and a German woman) to say, “play around with White WOMEN and then escape back home.” (Who’s being selfish, not to mention hypocritical, now?)

Take yet another plunge into this racialized sexpit of debate, where the racism doesn’t even bother to embed itself. Dr. Debito Arudou

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

Supreme Court breaks new ground, ruling in favor of U.S.-based Japanese father in international custody battle
BY TOMOHIRO OSAKI, THE JAPAN TIMES, MAR 15, 2018, Courtesy of lots of people.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/03/15/national/crime-legal/supreme-court-breaks-new-ground-ruling-favor-u-s-based-japanese-father-international-custody-battle/

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in favor of a U.S.-based Japanese father seeking to reunite with his teenage son, who was taken by his estranged wife to Japan in 2016, concluding that the wife’s dogged refusal to abide by an earlier court order mandating the minor’s repatriation amounts to her “illegally confining” him.

The ruling is believed to be the first by the Supreme Court on cases where return orders by courts have been refused. It is likely to send a strong message regarding domestic legislation that is often slammed as impotent on cross-border child abductions, despite Japan’s commitments under the Hague Convention, following mounting criticism that return orders issued by courts have been ignored.

The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Nagoya High Court.

This latest case involved a formerly U.S.-based Japanese couple whose marital relationship began to deteriorate in 2008. According to the ruling, the wife unilaterally took away one of her children, then aged 11, in January 2016 and brought him to Japan where the two have since lived together.

Upon a complaint by the husband, a Tokyo court issued in September the same year a “return order” for the child under the Hague Convention, but the wife didn’t comply. When a court-appointed officer intervened to recover the child the following year the wife “refused to unlock the door,” prompting the officer to enter her residence via a second-story window, the ruling said. The mother then put up a fierce fight to retain the child, who also articulated his wish to stay in Japan.

On Thursday the top court overturned a Nagoya High Court ruling that acknowledged the child’s desire to stay in Japan. The latest ruling judged the minor was “in a difficult position to make a multifaceted, objective judgment about whether to remain under control of his mother,” citing his “heavy reliance” on her and the “undue psychological influence” she was likely exerting upon him in his life in Japan. The apparent lack of his free will, the ruling said, meant the mother’s attempt to keep the child equated to detention…

Rest of the article at https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/03/15/national/crime-legal/supreme-court-breaks-new-ground-ruling-favor-u-s-based-japanese-father-international-custody-battle/

ENDS
===================================

Kyoto City Govt. subway advert has Visible Minority as poster girl for free AIDS/STDs testing. Wrong on many levels, especially statistically.

Posted on March 14, 2018March 14, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s a flashback to a time (dating from the mid-1980s, see here and here, for example) when people were saying that “foreigners have AIDS”. I was there; I remember it well.

The Kyoto Government is offering free AIDS and STD testing. Good. But check out what image they’re using for the face of sexually-transmitted diseases:

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

From: XY
Subject: Embedded Racism, AIDS, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Date: March 8, 2018
To: debito@debito.org
Hello Debito,

Please see the attached photo, snapped on a Kyoto metro yesterday afternoon. The only non-Japanese face visible in the metro car (other than mine) is on an advert for AIDS and STD testing by Kyoto City Government.

The poster seems to imply the foreign as the source of danger, illness, social decay. The (dyed? or at least not black) permed, and slightly disheveled hair accord with the stereotype of the western woman of lax morality.

I wonder whether they used a stock image or hired a model and whether the model was aware or consented to the use of her image in this context? While technically she is contributing to a good cause – increasing awareness of AIDS, STDS, and of a useful public health service, she most likely did not realize that her image also contributes to the construction and maintenance of negative bias against non-Japanese women.

I also wonder about the designers. Who decided to use a non-Japanese model and what was their rationale (or rationalization)? Japan as a multi-ethnic society, where non-Japanese can be employed for health service publicity? Or the purely functional message that the service itself is available for both J and NJ? How does it relate to the actual epidemiology of AIDS and other STDs in Japan? Does the poster reflect any reality in the situation or is it a complete misrepresentation of the epidemiology?

Cheers and keep up the good work. Sincerely, XY

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

COMMENT: Now, some might argue (and believe me, pedants, naysayers, and White Samurai will) that this is merely an IStock photo and that there was no association meant. But that’s not how advertising works. (Why add an image of a person at all if that were true?) Others might say that she’s representing a medical professional pleased to see people coming in for testing. But there is no context grounding that, either. (No clear nurse’s uniform, nor a background that is clearly a hospital. It looks more like a government front desk area to me; if you look closely at the poster, that’s in fact where the testing is happening, not at a hospital; she’s a patient, not a government representative.)

Again, why are we targeting a Visible-Minority demographic with this ad? As XY says, that’s the embedded racism of this campaign.

My suspicion is that they are targeting Japan’s sex workers, and a frequent association is that any foreigner imported for this task has diseases. This poster merely fortifies that.

And, to answer XY, it’s wrong. According to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, in 2015, non-Japanese people accounted for the minority of 108 (88 male; 20 female) out of 1,006 AIDS cases in Japan (and homosexual men, not women, remain the largest affected demographic). Plus don’t forget that historically, a significant number of AIDS cases in Japan were the result not of sexual contact, but of HIV-tainted blood recklessly given to hemophiliacs by the Japanese government in the late 1980s. That’s why this poster is visually misrepresenting the issue on many levels.

As XY also notes, I wonder what the model herself thinks about being associated with sexually-transmitted diseases? I wish we could ask. Dr. Debito Arudou

Bitcoin purchasing and racial profiling by Quoinex and BITPoint Japan: Hurdles for NJ customers only

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. We’ve talked before about differing standards for NJ in regards to equal treatment as consumers, customers, residents and taxpayers, equal pricing for services, and access to credit. Now here’s another report about barriers for NJ only to purchase Bitcoin, the international cryptocurrency, in Japan.

I didn’t know much about Bitcoin until recently (here’s a good primer from NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross), but now it’s become a legitimate currency, accepted by the likes of Microsoft for payment, so denial of access to it affects Japan’s NJ residents’ abilities to pay a bill easily, quickly, and without extortionate bank fees. (Especially ironic is that the pseudonym for Bitcoin’s creator is “Satoshi Nakamoto”, but never mind.)

I’ll let Debito.org Reader Shiki take the keyboard from here with his report. Dr. Debito Arudou

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

From: Shiki
Subject: Discrimination of good and services based on nationality
Date: December 2, 2017
To: debito@debito.org

Hello Dr. Debito,

Recently, because of the Bitcoin fever, I’ve been looking at bitcoin and other crypto exchanges in Japan, and signing up for almost every single one of them.

Most of them have presented no problem, they follow the law in which they have the obligation to ask for an official ID, just like PayPal does in Japan, for which I have been sending the front of my Personal Number Card (My Number Card), and then they send you a post card to your address to confirm you actually live there.

That’s what these exchanges and basically any virtual money company in Japan is required to do by law.

That’s except for 2 exchanges, Quoinex and BITPoint.

The law states that any valid official ID can be used, but these 2 exchanges only accept a Resident Card for foreigners, and Quoinex go so far as to ask for a passport to those individuals who are Japanese but are “suspected” of being foreigners from their names, etc. (basically racial profiling).

The following is the conversation I had with the support staff from Quoinex who, after more than a week after I sent all my info in, told me “My documents didn’t match”.

—————————
QUOINEX Support (QUOINEX Japan)
Nov 15, 3:08 PM JST
平素より大変お世話になっております。
QUOINEX運営事務局でございます。
このたびは、弊社に口座開設をお申込みいただき誠に有難うございます。
口座開設審査にあたり、下記項目に関しましてご返信いただきますようお願い申し上げます。
【氏名の表記につきまして】
申込時にご入力いただいた氏名と本人確認書面に記載の氏名に相違がございました。
恐れ入りますが、正確な氏名とフリガナをご教示いただきたくお願いいたします。
氏名：
フリガナ：
ご返信をいただき次第、口座開設手続きを再開させていただきます。
引き続きQUOINEXをよろしくお願い申し上げます。

—————————
Shiki
10日前
これはどういうことなのか全くわかりません。
今でももう一回確認しましたが、入力した名前と本人確認に使った書類には全く同じ名前が書いています。

—————————
QUOINEX Support
10日前
平素より大変お世話になっております。
QUOINE運営事務局でございます。
ご返信ありがとうございます。
このたびは、弊社に口座開設をお申込みいただき誠に有難うございます。
口座開設審査にあたり、下記項目に関しましてご返信いただきますようお願い申し上げます。
【国籍につきまして】
現在口座開設審査の手続きを進めており、その一環として国籍をご教示いただきたく
お願いいたします。
日本国籍でない場合は、下記の内いずれかの本人確認書面が
必要となりますのでご提出をお願いいたします。
・在留カード
・特別永住者証明書
・外国人登録証明書
日本国籍である場合は、確認の為下記の本人確認書面をご提出をお願いいたします。
・パスポート
ご返信をいただき次第、口座開設手続きを再開させていただきます。
引き続きQUOINEXをよろしくお願い申し上げます。

—————————
Shiki
10日前
申し訳ありませんが、法律上では外国人であっても個人番号カードは身分証明書になります。
法律上では在留カードの提示が必須となる場面は入国管理官や警察官に提示を命じた時のみとなります。
後、日本国籍ではパスポートのみというのは可笑しいですね。パスポートは本来誰でも持っている身分証明書のではなく、海外に行くときに使われる身分証明書のはずです。
そして、パスポート使わずQUOINEXでアカウントを開いている人知っています。
実際にあなた達のサイトでは私は出している個人カードが使えると書いております：
https://quoine.zendesk.com/hc/ja/article_attachments/115008790827/document_details.pdf
もし私の名前か顔で在留カードかパスポートのみというポリシーを取っているのであれば、それは法律上では人種差別的な行為になるます。

—————————

After this, I went to their public telegram group and posted about this, for which I received the following answer:

—————————
この度は当社の対応に気分を害されたとのこと誠に申し訳ございません。
QUOINE は犯罪収益移転防止法に則り口座開設審査を行っておりますが、仰るとおり本法律には国籍を聞くことまでは求められておりません。
ただし当社が内規として行うKYCスクリーニングのため、国籍情報を使用しております。そのため氏名等で外国籍の可能性のある方は、内部プロセスとして、上記のご案内を行っております。(実際に、外国籍で在留カード以外を提出される等の方がいるため)
金融庁登録の事業者としての責任を果たすため、上記プロセスをとっております。
ただプロセスについては改善途中でして、重ねてになりますが、今回の件について、お客様に不快な想いをさせてしまいましたこと誠に申し訳ございません。
—————————

What Quoinex basically says is that they are asking for “proof” of nationality as part of their KYC (Know Your Customer) policy, which somehow does not apply to people who are not suspected of being foreigners.

The other exchange, BITPoint, basically rejected my registration, and told me to send them both sides of the Resident Card, as the following main shows:

—————————
お客様へ
この度は、ビットポイント総合口座開設に必要な本人確認書類をアップロードしていただき、誠にありがとうございました。
さて、書類を確認させていただきましたところ、「在留カード両面」と「振込先金融機関の口座名義人（カナ）」の確認ができなかったため、
本人確認が完了しておりません。
度々申し訳ございませんが、当社では外国籍のお客様の口座開設の際には、「在留カード両面」と「振込先指定口座の口座番号および口座名義（カタカナ）」が
表示されている書類のコピーの提出をお願いしております。
大変お手数ではございますが、以下の本人確認書類アップロード用URLから、再度ご本人確認書類のご提示をお願い申し上げます。
弊社にて、お客様のご本人確認書類の確認が取れましたら総合口座の開設手続きは完了となり、お客様のご登録メールアドレスへ「総合口座開設完了のお知らせ」を送信いたします。
その後、ご登録住所へお取引に係る重要な情報を記載した『口座開設完了のお知らせ』を、簡易書留（転送不要）にて郵送いたします。
・在留カードの両面
・振込先金融機関の口座名義（カナ）が確認できる書面
（通帳の1ページ目など、ネット銀行等で通帳が発行されていない場合は、キャッシュカードやネット上で表示されてる部分をコピーの上アップロードをお願いいたします。）
本人確認書類アップロードURL
[Redacted]
本メールと行き違いで本人確認書類をご提示いただいておりました場合は、なにとぞご了承ください。
なお、このメールにお心あたりがない場合やご不明な点等がございましたら、大変お手数ですが下記カスタマーセンターまでお問い合わせくださいますようお願いいたします。
【弊社カスタマーセンター】
お問合せフォーム：https://www.bitpoint.co.jp/contact/
TEL：0120-210-040（平日9：00～17：00）
e-mail：support@bitpoint.co.jp
今後とも、ビットポイントジャパンをご愛顧賜りますよう、よろしくお願い申し上げます。
—————————
ENDS

Shiki: Let me be very clear, most exchanges do not ask for this. I registered with the major Japanese exchanges like bitFlyer and Coincheck among other minor exchanges. With all of them I used my Personal Number Card, and no one told me I had to do something different because of my face.

But like these 2 exchanges, more and more companies who like racial profiling are starting to ask for the Residence Card for extra-legal purposes, basically discriminating in the way people are able to open accounts or register to services based on their nationality unless you comply with some extra requirements.

One of the worst examples of this is AU [as did NTT and Softbank], which is starting to reject foreigners for buying phones in multiple payments, if the expiration of their current status in Japan does not exceed the payment timeframe for their phones, which is usually 2 years. This basically means that if your current stay permit is of 1 year, or your stay is about to expire in less than 2 years, you won’t be able to get a phone at the same price than Japanese people.

Let’s remember that the maximum stay period in Japan for most visas is of 5 years, and that you cannot renew your stay until 3 months prior to the expiration date of your current permit, which I would make the case that it excludes most foreigners under a non-permanent residency status.

“日本国籍をお持ちでない方で、在留期限がある方が個別信用購入あっせん契約をお申し込みされる場合、在留期限が確認できる書類および、クレジットカードが必要です。在留期限が分割支払い期間に満たない場合、個別信用購入あっせん契約をお申し込みいただけない場合がございます。”

Just like the My Number law states very clearly that it is illegal for someone who isn’t required by law to ask for your “My Number”, or taking copies of the part of your card which shows the actual number, I think we require a law to stop people who for asking for someone’s Residence Card if they aren’t legally required to do so. In some respects I would argue that the information inside the Residence Card is in many respects just as sensitive as your “My Number”, and asking for it is an invasion of privacy at best.

I’m also wondering if there is any law, even in those international agreements like the one used for the Otaru case, that makes it illegal to have different requirements based on someone’s nationality.

Sincerely, Shiki

ENDS

(Answer from Debito: There are laws protecting against unsanctioned Gaijin Card checks.)

October 2017 Lower House Election Briefing: LDP wins big again, routs Japan’s left wing, but some silver linings to be had

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As is tradition on Debito.org (see previous writings here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), after a Japanese election we analyze the results.

I waited until today, when all seats had been awarded (four were decided nearly a day after polls closed). So here goes:

OCTOBER 2017 LOWER HOUSE ELECTION RESULTS

As Japan politics watchers know, Japan is a parliamentary system where the party or coalition with the majority of seats in a legislature forms the governing Cabinet. In Japan’s case, the Lower House is the more powerful one in terms of actual policymaking (even though Japan’s Upper House is already in the hands of Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP), so this snap election, called by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo basically on a whim (there wasn’t one due for another two years), was essentially a referendum on whether Japan’s electorate wanted to continue on Abe’s course of probable Constitutional amendment and remilitarization.

The conclusion: Japan’s electorate is basically just fine with Abe’s rightist agenda.

Granted, there was a typhoon getting in the way on election day (although there is no indication that inclement weather affects leftists more than rightists). And there was no real viable opposition to Abe, either. Japan’s left is in complete disarray (given fickle Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko’s “Hope Party” offering little more than re-warmed Abe; Koike wasn’t even in Japan for the election!), with the Democratic Party of Japan completely dissolving from ruling party in 2011 into nonexistence (with right-leaning DPJers being absorbed into the Hope Party, and left-leaning DPJers forming a new “Constitutional Democratic Party” (Rikken Minshutou, or CDP) in clear opposition to Abe’s Constitutional reforms). And the DPRK repeatedly sending missiles over Japanese waters and land certainly isn’t helping the pacifist point-of-view much.

The point is that Japan’s electorate, which doesn’t generally support underdogs (Why waste your vote on a losing party?, is more the logic), went for Abe and the LDP in general out of habit, default, or tribalism.

Let’s take a look at the numbers, according to Asahi.com (Japanese; click to expand in browser):

HEADLINE RESULTS:
As you can see, the ruling LDP (in red) retained its absolute 2/3 majority beyond 310 seats in the assembly. Its coalition with Sokka Gakkai religious party Komeito (KMT) remains firmly in power, with 284 plus 29 seats for LDP and KMT respectively.

WINNERS AND LOSERS:
The LDP, as mentioned above, won big. But it wasn’t an unqualified win. It retained exactly the same number as last time. However, KMT lost five seats from the 34 it had pre-election.

However, the protest vote by people who wanted a party to keep Japan’s Constitution as it is (the CDP), won bigger, going from 15 seats from its former DPJ/DP politicians to a full 55. Message: The DPJ is dead, long live its spirit in the CDP.

The losers were just about everyone else. Koike’s Hope Party dropped from 57 to 50 seats, the far-right Japan Restoration Party (Nihon Ishin no Kai) from 14 to 11, the far-left Communist Party from 21 to 12, and the tiny socialist Social Democratic Party (Shamintou) unchanged at two seats.

The biggest losers were the party-unaffiliated politicians (mushozoku) on both sides. The ones leaning left went from 27 seats to 21, while the ones leaning right went from eleven to one! Part of this is that due to the Proportional Representation vote (which only applies to official parties), these independents had to win in single-seat constituencies. But the bigger reason seems to be that brand recognition these days sells well: Either you stampeded with the herd under the LDP’s umbrella, or you went for a party flavor du jour (which quickly soured under Koike’s Hope, but clearly flowered under the CDP).

WHAT DISTRICTS WENT FOR WHOM

One thing I love about Japanese elections (and there are quite a few things I love) is the clarity of the visuals. You can see how people voted in this map of all the single-seat constituencies in the prefectures. Red is ruling coalition, Blue opposition, and Grey independent:

Based upon this, you can see that Western Honshu essentially all went LDP/KMT, big cities Osaka and Fukuoka were solid LDP/KMT with even far-right Restoration making seats. The Kanto conurbation of Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa were somewhat mixed, but mostly Red again. And the only places there was a true mix were Hokkaido (traditionally left-leaning) and Okinawa (which elected one of everything except the CDP and KMT).

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST WITH THIS ELECTION

1) Horrible, horrible Hokkaido politician Suzuki Muneo finally lost his seat under the PR system. This isn’t the first time this former LDP ideologue has been down and out, but here’s hoping it’s his last.

2) The political dynasty of Hatoyama did not succeed in getting LDP Hatoyama Kunio’s eldest son elected this time. However, the dynasty of racist former Governor Ishihara Shintaro was maintained with the reelection of his sons. Also, the daughter of former PM Obuchi was reelected, further demonstrating the power of generational branding (seshuu seijika) in Japan.

3) Former PM Kan Naoto was reelected in Tokyo. As was firebrand Tsujimoto Kiyomi in Osaka.

FINAL CONCLUSIONS:

This has been the third time (more than that if you also add in Upper House elections) Japan’s has given a sweeping mandate to PM Abe and his Constitution-revising stance. I guess they’re pretty much okay with it. There’s still a national referendum to be run on this. But I reckon it’ll get through, especially if North Korea keeps scaring the Japanese public with missile tests. And of course, not making any blip whatsoever in the election (aside from Koike requiring new entrants to sign an oath to disenfranchise foreign resident voters) were issues of immigration and internationalization in Japan.

Comments? Dr. Debito Arudou

PS: Other writings on Japanese politics:

My Japan Times JBC column 102, Oct 31, 2016: “U.S. and Japan elections: Scary in their own ways“

My Japan Times JBC column 101: “US and Japan votes: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (Oct 3, 2016)

My Japan Times JBC column 99, “For Abe, it will always be about the Constitution”, Aug 1, 2016

My Japan Times JBC 92 Oct. 5, 2015: “Conveyor belt of death shudders back to life”, on how Abe’s new security policy will revive Prewar martial Japan

My Japan Times JBC 91 Sept 7, 2015: “Why Japan’s Right keeps leaving the Left in the dust“

My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column 88: “U.S. green-lights Japan’s march back to militarism”, on America’s historical amnesia in US-Japan Relations, June 1, 2015

My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 70, “Japan brings out big guns to sell remilitarization in U.S.”, on how an October 2013 speech in Hawaii by the Abe Administration’s Kitaoka Shin’ichi is a classic case of charm offensive by a Gaijin Handler, floating a constitutional reinterpretation to allow for a standing Japanese military before the American military. (November 7, 2013)

My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 66: “Ol’ blue eyes isn’t back: Tsurunen’s tale offers lessons in microcosm for DPJ”, Aug 5, 2013

My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 61, “Keep Abe’s hawks in check or Japan will suffer,” a recounting of how ill a rerun of an Abe Shinzou Prime Ministership portends to be for Japan as a liberal democracy. (February 4, 2013)

My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 57, “Revisionists marching Japan back to a dangerous place,” on how the Senkakus and Takeshima Disputes are more than just an official distraction for domestic problems – they are a means to stop crucial liberalizations from taking place within Japanese society. (October 2, 2012)

Japan Focus: “Japan’s Democracy at Risk: LDP’s 10 Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change” by Lawrence Repeta (UPDATED with Aso’s Nazi admiration gaffe).

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“Japanese Only” rules mutate: Hagoromo-yu, a bathhouse excluding LGBT in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, in reaction to local same-sex-partner ordinance

Posted on September 29, 2017September 29, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As Debito.org has argued for decades, if you don’t make discrimination explicitly illegal, it spreads and mutates.

Now we have a bathhouse (the most famous type of “Japanese Only” businesses in Japan) named Hagoromo-yu, in cosmopolitan Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, which has a sign up explicitly refusing custom to all LGBT customers “who don’t follow rules and morals, or don’t practice moderation” (setsudo o mamoru).

But here’s the nasty kicker (and brazen nastiness seems to be the hallmark of Japan’s excluders these days; just consider the antics of Osaka car dealer Autoplaza in the recent Yener Case). The sign even includes this iyami on the bottom, striking back against the unusual progressiveness of the local government:

“Shibuya-ku has established the ‘same-sex partners ordinance’, but we at this store will refuse service to any LGBT customers who who don’t follow rules and morals, or don’t practice moderation.”

How nice. Here’s where this place is located, for the record:

料金：入浴料 460円／サウナ使用・入浴料 1,000円
営業時間：14：00 ～深夜 1：00 (日曜日は14：00 ～深夜 24：00)
住所：東京都渋谷区本町3-24-20

Hagoromo-yu, 〒151-0071 Tokyo, Shibuya, Honmachi, ３−２４−２０　Tel. 03-3372-4118, no dedicated website.

Courtesy of TL on Sept. 4, 2017. Although this isn’t explicitly a Debito.org issue (on the treatment of International Residents and Visible Minorities in Japan), this is still an issue of minority treatment, and as such warrants a mention. Feel free to give them a piece of your mind, as “moderately” as you like. Dr. Debito Arudou

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Daily Show on overseas media interpreters’ self-censorship of Trump’s language: Japanese interpreter plays dumb, claims no way to express “grab ’em by the pu**y”

Posted on July 21, 2017July 28, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I’m trying to maintain my summer vacation (and a dry-out from the Internet for a little while), but every now and again I stumble across something interesting (what with this golden age of political comedy in the US), and here’s something indirectly Japan-related.

Trevor Noah and company on the Daily Show make an interesting case about how Trump’s language, both in terms of content and syntax, is challenging for translators in other languages to render. They make the point that the impact and nuance is often softened by translator self-censorship (or filling in the gaps with personal interpretations). I understand well, having been in their situations more than once. (And let me say here for the record: I am not a trained interpreter, and I have had numerous debates with interpreters with accuracy versus diplomatic rendering of the language. I fall on the side of total accuracy warts and all.) Worth a watch:

But at minute 4:00 of the segment, the Japanese interpreter claims that there is no accurate way to translate Trump’s infamous “grab ’em by the pu**y” remark. She even claims that there is no word “in the exact sense” for “pu**y” in Japanese.

Rubbish. I can think of quite a few words that would do the trick, in content and especially in nuance. The two easiest, of course, are om*nko or om*nta, as in “om*nta o tsukandari shite“, and in Trump’s case I would even remove their honorific prefixes.

Of course, that would require bleeping out the syllable after “man”, but it’s been done on Japanese TV before. I’ve seen it.

But I dislike it when people, especially in this case a professional interpreter, play dumb and deny. Repeating that old lie that we heard as beginning Japanese students that “there are no bad words in Japanese”.

Like it or not, “om*nta” what 45 said. Portray it accurately. Or, as the segment argued well, the awfulness of 45’s speech is bleached out simply because the interpreter is being too diplomatic, cultured, or prudish. Dr. Debito Arudou

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

Mainichi Editorial on 1-yr anniv. of Hate Speech Law: “To end hate speech, Japan must face its deep-rooted discriminatory thinking”, offers moral support but few concrete proposals

Posted on June 18, 2017August 23, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. We’ve talked before about unsophisticated columns in Japanese media regarding human rights. This one joins them. It wags a few fingers and applauds some local moves to eliminate hate speech, but it still has trouble going beyond vague urgings to actually advocate for the root solution: passing a law with criminal penalties against racial discrimination. Until this law in specific is part of the media’s steady drumbeat of finger-wagging, advocating a mere patchwork of local-level patches is again, a half-measure. Dr. Debito Arudou

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Editorial: To end hate speech, Japan must face its deep-rooted discriminatory thinking
June 8, 2017 (Mainichi Japan), courtesy of AK and JK
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170608/p2a/00m/0na/019000c

It has been a year since Japan’s anti-hate speech law took effect. And over that year, the number of demonstrations targeting specific races or ethnicities has apparently declined.

Public institutions have been doing their part. Courts have issued provisional injunctions against holding hate speech demonstrations in certain places, while police forces have been boosting supervision and control of such demonstrations, and these measures seem to be having a real impact.

Nevertheless, we still see an endless stream of hateful language in Japan, starting, but by no means ending, with “go home!” and “kick them out!”

Hate speech is a social disease. It is extremely important for the idea that hate speech is unforgiveable to permeate society as a whole.

The hate speech law commits local administrations to work with the central government on eliminating discrimination. We call on these bodies to tackle the problem proactively.

According to a recent announcement, the municipal government of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, will draw up guidelines as early as this autumn that would allow city officials to issue warnings or refuse applications to use public facilities if they suspect the applicant will engage in discriminatory speech or conduct. In other words, the guidelines set out measures to halt hate speech gatherings before they happen, and the city will call for the opinions of third-party observers to make sure the guidelines are applied fairly.

It is perfectly natural to make sure that countermeasures against hate speech demonstrations do not lead to curbs on freedom of expression, but hate speech clearly violates human rights. We would like to see local governments across the country consider hate speech regulations in line with local conditions.

While street demonstrations have declined over the past year, online hate speech appears to have been reinvigorated. Dealing with this is an urgent task.

The Osaka Municipal Government recently announced the online handles of three users confirmed to have posted hate speech videos on the internet, as well as the content of the images. The move was based on a municipal ordinance passed last July, the first of its kind in Japan.

Meanwhile, it should be remembered that even primary school children use computers and smartphones. Educating school children about online hate ought to be a national project.

There is some disturbing data on the prevalence of hate speech in Japan.

In March this year, the Justice Ministry released its first-ever survey of racial and ethnic discrimination in Japan. The survey, which was conducted late last year, covered about 4,200 medium- and long-term foreign residents of this country including Koreans. It found that some 30 percent of respondents had been the target of “discriminatory speech.” Forty percent said they had been refused a home rental contract.

Japanese people’s coexistence with foreigners and people from different cultural backgrounds is indispensable to Japan. It is a must for us to face up to the discriminatory thinking deeply rooted in our society in an effort to eradicate hate speech in Japan.
ENDS

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

PS: Compare the Mainichi with the Japan Times Editorial on the same anniversary of the Hate Speech Law. At least it’s more specific: “Local officials need to secure enough manpower and funding to effectively assist citizens suffering from hate speech and behavior. Citizens’ groups can set up funds to help victims sue for damages. Since the law covers only hate speech against foreign residents, there are calls for expanding its scope to fight offensive language against other minorities, including people with disabilities, indigenous peoples like the Ainu and descendants of historically segregated communities.”

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

Japanese version

社説
ヘイト対策法施行から１年　社会の病理を克服したか
毎日新聞2017年6月8日　東京朝刊
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20170608/ddm/005/070/094000c

「ヘイトスピーチ（憎悪表現）対策法」の施行から１年がたった。侮辱的な言葉で特定の人種や民族への差別をあおるデモは、減少傾向にあるという。

裁判所が特定の地域でのデモ実施を禁じる仮処分決定を出したり、警察が取り締まりを強化したりするなど、公的機関の対応が一定の抑止効果を生んでいるのは確かだろう。

それでも、「帰れ」「たたき出せ」といった乱暴な言葉を使うヘイトスピーチはなお後を絶たない。

ヘイトスピーチは社会の病理だ。それを許さない当たり前の社会規範が浸透することが大切である。

地方自治体は、国とともに差別解消に必要な措置を講じる責務を対策法で課せられている。積極的な対応が求められる。

川崎市は、施設の利用申請者が差別的な言動を行う可能性がある場合、警告や利用不許可の措置が取れるように、今秋にもガイドラインを作成し公表する予定だ。事前規制につながる内容のため、市は第三者の意見を求め公平な運用を目指す。

「表現の自由」に留意することは当然だが、ヘイトスピーチは明確な人権侵害だ。各自治体は地域の実態に沿った規制策を検討してほしい。

街頭デモが減少する一方で、インターネット空間でのヘイトスピーチは、むしろ活性化しているように見える。その対策は喫緊の課題だ。

大阪市はこのほど、ヘイトスピーチと認定したネット上の動画３件の内容や投稿者名（ユーザー名）を公表した。昨年７月、全国で初めて制定した条例に基づく措置という。

小学生でもパソコンやスマートフォンを利用する。教育現場での啓発に国全体で取り組むべきだろう。

残念なデータがある。

法務省は３月、在日韓国・朝鮮人を含む約４２００人の中長期滞在外国人を対象にした差別に関する調査結果を公表した。昨年末に初めて行われたものだ。

３割の人が差別的発言を「受けた」とし、４割の人がアパートなどの入居を「断られた」と回答した。

外国人や文化が異なる人との共生は、日本社会にとって欠かせない。社会に根を張る差別意識と向き合うことが必要だ。それをヘイトスピーチの根絶につなげたい。

ENDS

Denver Post columnist Terri Frei fired after racist tweet re Japanese driver’s Indy 500 win (contrast with how J media treated Nigerian-Japanese HS baseball player Okoye Rui)

Posted on June 12, 2017June 17, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I thought it prudent to archive here on Debito.org another case of how other societies deal with discrimination. We keep on hearing that, “Well, people discriminate all over the world, and it’s just as bad in [insert country, usually the US] as it is in Japan. So do something about racism in your own country before you lecture Japan.” Okay, but here’s yet another example of what American society, for example, often does when somebody says something racist. There are social repercussions that deter both the current and future racists. In the case mentioned below, the racist got fired. Not ignored, defended (including being defended by foreign media in Japan), given a venue (or his own political party; see here too) to spout and normalize even more racism, or even further elected to office, as can happen in Japan.

For your consideration, and for the record. Dr. Debito Arudou

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

Denver Post columnist fired after ‘disrespectful’ tweet about Japanese driver’s Indianapolis 500 victory
By Scott Allen and Cindy Boren
Washington Post, May 30, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/05/29/denver-post-sportswriter-issues-apology-after-facing-backlash-for-indy-500-tweet/

Terry Frei, a columnist who has been named Colorado’s sportswriter of the year four times, is out of a job after tweeting that he was “very uncomfortable” with Japanese driver Takuma Sato winning the Indianapolis 500 on the day before Memorial Day.

Denver Post publisher Mac Tully and editor Lee Ann Colacioppo apologized Monday for a “disrespectful and unacceptable tweet” as they announced that Frei is no longer an employee of the newspaper because of the social media comment that sparked intense backlash.

“We apologize for the disrespectful and unacceptable tweet that was sent by one of our reporters,” the statement reads. “Terry Frei is no longer an employee of The Denver Post. It’s our policy not to comment further on personnel issues. The tweet doesn’t represent what we believe nor what we stand for. We hope you will accept our profound apologies.”

The Denver Post’s statement on Terry Frei https://t.co/HPYG08FpCJ pic.twitter.com/PnN0tXO2oL

— The Denver Post (@denverpost) May 29, 2017

Frei apologized for the tweet he put up shortly after Sato’s historic win. He later deleted it.

“Nothing specifically personal, but I am very uncomfortable with a Japanese driver winning the Indianapolis 500 during Memorial Day weekend,” Frei tweeted after Sato became the first Japanese driver to win the prestigious race.

“I apologize,” Frei tweeted hours later. The Denver Post tweeted an immediate apology Sunday night and indicated that Frei’s tweet “does not reflect the standards and values of our organization.”

I apologize.

— Terry Frei (@TFrei) May 29, 2017

Frei later tweeted a lengthier apology, which he deleted and replaced with a slightly revised version to remove the title of one of his books. “I made a stupid reference, during an emotional weekend,” wrote Frei, who said his father was a World War II veteran.

Frei also apologized to Sato, who has had no public reaction to Frei’s comment.

Here’s the full text of Frei’s apology:

I fouled up. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said when I said it. I should have known better and I regret it. I in no way meant to represent my employer and I apologized to The Denver Post.

On Sunday, I was going down to Fort Logan National Cemetery to place flowers on the grave of and to salute my father, Jerry Frei, who spent the four-year gap between his sophomore and junior seasons at Wisconsin flying the F-5 unarmed version of the one-man P-38 fighter plane in the 26th Photo Squadron. (And I did make that visit.) He flew alone, or with a partner in a second plane, over Japanese targets in advance of the bombing runs. When Blake Olson of Channel 9 asked him about being unarmed, he laughed and said, ‘I had a pistol.’ He flew 67 missions, crossing the 300 combat hours threshold, and earned the World War II Air Medal three times. I have written much other material about American athletes in World War II. I researched and wrote quite graphically about the deaths of my father’s teammates, Dave Schreiner and Bob Baumann, in the Battle of Okinawa. I have the picture wallet containing photos of his family and girlfriend that Schreiner was carrying when he was killed. That is part of my perspective.

I am sorry, I made a mistake, and I understand 72 years have passed since the end of World War II and I do regret people with whom I probably am very closely aligned with politically and philosophically have been so offended. To those people, I apologize. (In fact, the assumptions about my political leanings have been quite inaccurate.) I apologize to Takuma Sato. I made a stupid reference, during an emotional weekend, to one of the nations that we fought in World War II — and, in this case, the specific one my father fought against. Again, I will say I’m sorry, I know better, and I’m angry at myself because there was no constructive purpose in saying it and I should not have said it, especially because The Denver Post has been dragged into this.

ENDS

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

Contrast this reaction with the kind of treatment Japanese media gave a Japanese high school baseball player Okoye Rui nearly two years ago. Okoye, who just happens to have Japanese-Nigerian roots, brought forth reactions from the Japanese press that portrayed him as an “animal” with “wild instincts” on the “savannah”, and more. Yes, there were criticisms, as noted in Huffpost Japan, but nobody was fired or in any way clearly sanctioned for saying this about a schoolboy! Where’s the deterrent? — DDA.

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

Properly formatted article at http://www.huffingtonpost.jp/2015/08/14/okoe-rui-hochi-report_n_7986326.html

夏の全国高校野球選手権大会に出場している関東第一高校（東東京代表）のオコエ瑠偉選手。ナイジェリア出身の父を持つオコエ選手を、アフリカの動物にたとえたような表現で伝えたスポーツ新聞の記事に批判が相次いでいる。

問題となったのは、8月12日付「スポーツ報知」の記事。11日の高岡商戦で3安打4打点、49年ぶりとなる1イニング2三塁打の活躍を、アフリカの動物にたとえた表現が複数箇所に見られた。

巨人の今秋ドラフト上位候補に浮上した、ナイジェリア人の父を持つ関東第一のオコエ瑠偉外野手（３年）が、野性味を全開させた。初回に一塁強襲安打を俊足で二塁打にすると、３回には４９年ぶり２人目の大会タイとなる１イニング２三塁打。４打数３安打４打点に、守っては悪送球で“サク越え”。規格外の身体能力で聖地を沸かせ、チームを５年ぶりの１６強入りに導いた。

味方まで獲物のように追いかけた。３回先頭で右中間三塁打を放つと、打者一巡。５点リードのなお２死満塁で再び、右中間を破った。「前が詰まっていたので、（一塁走者の）阿部を確認しながら行った」。言葉とは裏腹に、リードをとった一塁走者が三塁に到達する前に、二塁を蹴った。

真夏の甲子園が、サバンナと化した。オコエは本能をむき出しにして、黒土を駆け回った。初回先頭。痛烈な打球が一塁手を強襲すると、目を見開き、走路を膨らませた。

ヤクルト・小川シニアディレクターは「本能を思い切り出す野獣のようだ」。ロッテ・諸積スカウトは「ストライドが長い。ヒョウみたい」。スカウト陣からは野性的な賛辞が続出した。

「ここで高得点をつけると、満足する自分が出てきてしまう」。飢えたオコエが、浜風をワイルドに切り裂く。

この記事に、Twitterのユーザーから批判が相次いだ。

ハフポスト日本版は、8月14日午前、報知新聞東京本社に取材を申し入れた。同社は申し入れ後にインターネット上の記事を削除した。14日午後3時時点でまだ同社からの回答は得られていない。

【UPDATE】2015/08/14 16:03
報知新聞社企画本部は、ハフポスト日本版の取材に対し「記事へのご批判があった事実を真摯に受け止め、今後の報道に生かしたいと考えます」とコメントした。

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

Asahi: Joe Kurosu MD on ineffectually low doses of medicine for NJ patients and bureaucratic intransigence

Posted on May 12, 2017May 12, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. In our previous blog entry, Debito.org Reader StrepThroat brought up the issue of Japanese medical prescription doses being too low to be effectual for some larger patients, particularly larger NJ patients used to larger doses overseas. Some respondents recommended taking double the dose and going to the doctor again for refill of the prescription, while others self-medicated with overseas supplements, and still others mentioned falling through the system entirely (particularly when it came to painkillers).

Joe Kurosu MD, who runs a clinic in Shimokitazawa, adds to this discussion in a January 2010 series of opinion pieces in the Asahi Shinbun, by saying:

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

Asahi: “For reasons that are unclear, however, the indicated maximum dose is often significantly lower than that which is standard in other parts of the world. Difference in physical frame and incidents of side effects are some of the purported reasons, but a scientifically convincing basis is lacking.

“A significant number of resident foreign nationals currently receive health care through the Japanese national health insurance system, but are ill-served because of these dosage standards.

“The maximum daily doses indicated on package inserts of standard medications for high blood pressure, diabetes and depression, for example, are one-quarter to one-half of the standard doses in other countries for the identical drug. […]

“In any case, if the government requires foreign nationals to join the [National Health Insurance] system, it must be willing to provide services appropriate to that population. If this is not possible, then buying in the system should be voluntary […] I urge the government and relevant authorities to return autonomy to the physicians so the medications can be prescribed appropriately for the patient, whether or foreign or Japanese, based on science and clinical judgment, rather than [mechanically applying the dosage levels indicated on the package inserts].”
//////////////////////////////////////////

Here are scans of Dr. Kurosu’s articles in English and Japanese, courtesy of Dr. Kurosu himself (pctclinic.com) and RJ.

PDF versions here (click on link):
Kurosu2
KurosuArticleJP

There was another question as to whether Japanese medical testers screen for Japanese as an ethnicity (or “race”) when it comes to clinical trials. Well, yes they do — as demonstrated here in Hawaii when I saw an ad in our campus newspaper back in 2012 calling for “Japanese” people to volunteer for a series of clinical trials “to help Japanese people”, sponsored by Covance. I inquired (as a Japanese citizen), but was told that they were only interested in “ethnic Japanese” (including those who didn’t have Japanese citizenship, but had “Japanese blood”). Oh well. Missed out on my body mass.

Many thanks to everyone for helping make Debito.org a valuable resource and forum. Dr. Debito Arudou

=============================
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Japan Times JBC column 107: “Time to act on insights from landmark survey of Japan’s foreign residents” Apr 26, 2017

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. My next Japan Times Just Be Cause column has just come out. Here’s the opening:

===================================
TIME TO ACT ON INSIGHTS FROM LANDMARK SURVEY OF JAPAN’S FOREIGN RESIDENTS

The Japan Times, JUST BE CAUSE Column 107, Thursday April 27, 2017, by Debito Arudou

As promised, in March the Justice Ministry released the results of a survey on Japan’s foreign residents (gaikokujin juumin chousa), conducted last year (see “Government, Survey Thyself,” JBC Mar. 5). Compiled by the “Center for Human Rights Education and Training” public-interest foundation (www.jinken.or.jp), it surveyed the types and degrees of discrimination that foreigners face here. (The report in Japanese is at http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001221782.pdf.)

And as promised, here’s JBC’s synopsis of those results:

The report opens with a statement of purpose, talking about the pressures to “live together” (kyousei) with foreigners due to internationalization and globalization, not to mention the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Record numbers of foreigners are crossing Japan’s borders, bringing with them different languages and customs, and “so-called” hate speech demos are also causing “numerous human rights problems.” So to lay the groundwork for human rights protections for foreigners, this survey would grasp the issues directly facing foreigners “staying” (zairyuu) in Japan…
===================================

Read the rest in the Japan Times at http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/04/26/issues/time-act-insights-landmark-survey-japans-foreign-residents/.

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

Fukushima Pref Police HQ online poster asking for public vigilantism against “illegal foreign workers, overstayers”

Posted on April 23, 2017April 24, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Check this notice out, from the Fukushima Prefectural Police HQ:

Courtesy http://www.police.pref.fukushima.jp/i/onegai/jyouhou/gaijin.html
(Love how the link is simply “gaijin.html”. Nice non-racist computer programmers you got there.)

It reads:

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

PLEASE COOPERATE IN INVESTIGATIONS OF CRIME BY FOREIGNERS COMING TO JAPAN.

Nationwide, there are many cases of things like theft and heinous crimes by foreign muggers coming to Japan. In Fukushima Prefecture as well, the following have occurred:

Widespread cases of burglaries targeting [including grammatical error of wo tou wo] precious metal shops.
Burglaries at pachinko parlors using body-sensitive machines (taikanki) [whatever those are].
Cases of auto break-ins.

ILLUSTRATIONS: WHAT IS THIS PERSON UP TO?

Illustration caption one: Skulking around vending machines.
Illustration caption two: Looking for anti-theft devices.
Illustration caption three: Peeping around other people’s cars.

If you see or hear about a suspicious person such as this, contact your nearest police station or police box, or call 110 if an emergency.

PLEASE COOPERATE IN UNCOVERING FOREIGN ILLEGAL OVERSTAYS AND ILLEGAL WORKERS.

Illegal entrance to the country of course applies to foreigners who enter the country legally and stay beyond their legal residency period, and if they work under the wrong visa laws.

Employers who also employ foreigners illegally are punishable under the laws. We ask that employers who employ foreigners follow the laws strictly.

PLEASE CONTACT YOUR NEAREST POLICE BOX OR STATION IF YOU DISCOVER ANY FOREIGNER ENTERING THE COUNTRY OR WORKING ILLEGALLY.

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

As submitter XY says, “Not only are they perpetuating the stereotype of NJ being criminals, they’re basically asking the public to act as vigilante immigration officers.”

And there’s a bit more. Look at the tab for the website above all this:

「ヤミ金融業者に注意！！福島警察本部」, or “Beware of Black Market Financiers!” What’s this got to do with “gaijin”? Oh, I guess if falls under the “Anti Group-Crimes Policy Section” (soshiki hanzai taisaku ka, see very top of poster), which, according to the National Police Agency, foreigners are allegedly more likely to commit even in “group-oriented Japanese society”. So I guess the gaijin are somehow also involved in Black Finance as well.

COMMENTS: Well, let’s put this into context with all the other police posters we’ve been cataloging here at Debito.org for many years. We’ve had the local police claiming that many crimes have been committed by foreigners in their area (while we’ve found that at in at least one case, despite police claims of “many cases”, crimes committed by foreigners were actually ZERO), and once again demonstrating how enlisting the public in racial profiling is their modus operandi.

In Fukushima Prefecture itself, according to the prefectural government, crime has been going steadily down without fail since 2002 (with no mention of foreign crime in the stats; you can bet that it would have been mentioned if it was significant). Foreign crime in Fukushima doesn’t even make the top 80% of all foreign crime committed by prefecture in 2011, the year everything went pear-shaped, according to the Ministry of Justice (see page 58). In the general NPA foreign crime report dated April 2015, Fukushima is only mentioned twice (talking about two individual crimes as case studies illustrative of “what foreign criminals do”), without overall crime breakdown by prefecture. And after a fairly exhaustive search, I can’t find ANY recent official stats on foreign crime in Fukushima, either in terms of numbers or rate of change. So I think this is probably just another example of the Japanese police manufacturing a fictitious foreign crime wave.

Another comment I’d like to make is about the irony here. Fukushima has grumbled about how its exiled citizens are being treated as radioactively contaminated pariahs across the country and refused service. How sad that, despite this experience, the Fukushima Police haven’t learned that you shouldn’t target people this way. Oh, but then again, they’re only talking about foreigners, and they don’t count: foreigners shouldn’t be here in our peaceful society anyway if they’re just going to commit crime (or are, incorrectly, rumored to commit crime). And here is just another example to see how racism is embedded in Japan all over again. Dr. Debito Arudou

————————–

NHK repeatedly racially profiles prototypical criminal (the only NJ person in a crowd) on TV program Close-Up Gendai, Apr 5, 2017

Posted on April 7, 2017April 7, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Debito.org Reader JF has this to report:

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

Date: April 5, 2017
From: JF
Re: Close Up Gendai 4/5 – Bad stereotyping
Hi Debito,

Just watched today’s Close Up Gendai on NHK, [“Can smartphones steal fingerprints?　The over-transceiving society has arrived“]. Topic was how biometric data from pictures and security cameras can be used and abused.

While the experts were taking, during the entire program, they kept on showing relevant clips in the background. One of the clips shows how a face recognition system picks a criminal from a group of faces in a public place. Sure enough, among the group of Asian faces, there is one Western-looking foreigner, who happens to be “blacklisted”….

Please see attached picture taken from my TV. As reinforcement of the image linking foreigners to crime, I counted our “blacklisted” gaikokujin friend reappearing on continuous loop 6x, but I may have missed some as I just skimmed it. One in the beginning, two more in-between and the rest in the last 5 minutes when they had the discussion in the studio, including one at the very end.

What does this, on a subconscious level, suggest to the Japanese audience? Not sure if you know somebody at NHK, they should be more sensitive about these things!

When they briefly explained the face recognition system it also picked Japanese faces, but the clip that kept on running in the background only showed the foreigner being selected every single time.
Regards, JF

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

Here’s a link to the program (which even includes the foreign blacklisted person in its signature image:
http://www.nhk.or.jp/gendai/articles/3955/

View the entire program at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx43rQql6-8

COMMENT: It’s an interesting program in terms of content and execution, but how far the mighty have fallen. Close-Up Gendai was one of those programs you could count on for at least trying to strike a reasonable balance. Clearly not anymore. Especially after the purges of the show to reflect NHK’s hostile takeover by political leaders who explicitly (as a matter of officially-stated policy) can only act as the government’s mouthpiece.

Okay then, if that’s the way you want it. Here again we have more evidence of latent racial profiling as probable representations of government policy — NJ are more likely to be criminals (if not terrorists — watch from minute 18:30), all over again. Beware of them in a crowd! Dr. Debito Arudou

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

Mainichi: 80% believed fake rumors of crime by foreigners in Japan after quake: poll

Posted on March 17, 2017July 24, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. One thing we do here at Debito.org is track and quantify social damage done when media portrays people negatively. We’ve already talked at length about the fabricated foreign crime wave by the NPA since 2000 as a means of justifying police anti-crime budgets (see also book “Embedded Racism“, Ch. 7), and how flawed and loaded government surveys indicate that the Japanese public believes (moreover are encouraged to believe) that foreigners don’t deserve the same human rights as Japanese humans. Well, here’s another survey, done by a university professor in Sendai, that indicates how unchecked rumors about foreign crime in times of panic (particularly in the wake of the Fukushima Disasters) result in widespread (and unfounded) denigration of foreigners. To the tune of around 80% of survey respondents believing the worst about their NJ neighbors, regardless of the truth. SITYS. It’s the “blame game” all over again, except that only in rare cases does the government actually step in to right things before, during, or afterwards.

As Submitter JK notes: “Of interest is Professor Kwak’s statement that “False rumors commonly surface in the event of a major earthquake, and it is no easy task to erase them. Rather, each person needs to acquire the ability to judge them”. Given the result of his survey in Shinjuku-ku, it’s obvious that people lack the critical reasoning skills needed to separate fact from fiction (especially when disaster strikes), so this leads to me believe that trying to erase false rumors post-ex-facto is a fool’s errand — the ‘rumor’ that *needs* to be spread is that foreigners, specifically Chinese, Koreans and people from Southeast Asia are *NOT* looters, thieves, damagers of corpses (whatever that is), or rapists. In other words, what needs to happen to get the headline to read “Only 20% believed fake rumors of crime by foreigners in Japan after quake”?”

Quite. Once the damage is done, it’s done. Social media needs to be carefully monitored in times of public panic, especially in Japanese society, with a long history of blaming foreigners for whatever, whenever disaster strikes, sometimes with lethal results. Dr. Debito Arudou

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

80% believed fake rumors of crime by foreigners in Japan after quake: poll
March 13, 2017 (Mainichi Japan), courtesy of JK
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170313/p2a/00m/0na/010000c#csidxd470bc93df5ac05aa89c441e75c013e

SENDAI — Fake rumors of rampant crime by foreigners in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami six years ago were believed by over 80 percent of respondents here in a recent survey of people who said they had heard them, it has been learned.

Tohoku Gakuin University professor Kwak Kihwan, who specializes in co-existing society studies, conducted a survey on the rumors in September and October last year. He said the results show that a particular mindset can easily spread in an emergency, and is calling for people to choose their information carefully.

Kwak posted the survey to about 2,100 people of Japanese nationality between the ages of 20 and 69 living in the three Sendai wards of Aoba, Miyagino and Wakabayashi, which suffered extensive damage in the quake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. Responses were received from 770 people, or 36.7 percent of the target group.

A total of 51.6 percent of respondents said they had heard rumors of crime by foreigners in the disaster areas. Of these, 86.2 percent responded that they had either “largely” or “somewhat” believed the rumors. When asked what crimes had been rumored, with multiple answers permitted, “looting and theft” took the top spot at 97 percent, followed by “damage to corpses” (24.4 percent), and “rape and assault” (19.1 percent). When asked who they thought had committed the crimes, again with multiple answers permitted, 63 percent said “Chinese,” 24.9 percent said “Koreans,” and 22.7 percent answered “people from Southeast Asia.”

Television footage taken in the wake of the disasters showed Japanese residents cooperating in an orderly fashion.

“It was probably convenient to have rumors that it was foreigners who were committing crimes so as not to conflict with the image that Japanese people act in an orderly way,” Kwak said. He added, “There also may have been people who spread rumors about crimes not out of malice but because they were worried about those around them. You can’t simply dismiss it as exclusivism. It’s a difficult issue.”

To provide a basis for comparison, Kwak conducted a similar survey in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward targeting 700 people, and received responses from 174 of them (a response rate of 24.9 percent). Just 70 respondents said they had heard rumors of crimes by foreigners. Of these, 60 people, or 85.7 percent, said they had believed the rumors — a result similar to that seen in the survey in Sendai.

“False rumors commonly surface in the event of a major earthquake, and it is no easy task to erase them. Rather, each person needs to acquire the ability to judge them,” Kwak said.

Miyagi Prefectural Police statistics show that of the 3,899 people that police exposed in connection with criminal offenses in the prefecture in 2011, the year of the Great East Japan Earthquake, a total of 57 (1.5 percent), were foreigners either visiting or residing permanently in Japan. The figure dropped to 53 (1.3 percent) in 2012, and rose to 67 (1.9 percent) in 2013 — indicating there was not a great deal of variation.

At the time of the disaster, prefectural police distributed fliers to evacuation shelters warning residents to be on their guard against rumors. Online, police stated that there had been four serious offences between March 12 and 21, 2011, not significantly different from the seven cases recorded during the same period the previous year.

Satoshi Konno of the prefectural police safety department commented, “During disasters, we want people to confirm information provided by news organizations and government organizations and act appropriately.”

False rumors have been seen following major disasters in the past. When the Great Kanto Earthquake struck in 1923, a false rumor that Koreans has been poisoning wells spread. Police and residents formed vigilante groups and Koreans and Chinese were killed in various areas.

Recently false rumors have spread on the internet. In the latest survey, respondents were asked where they had heard the rumors. The top answer, at 68 percent, was “from family members and locals,” followed by “on the internet,” at 42.9 percent.

The prevalence of smartphones following the disaster has provided more opportunities for people to share information through social networking services (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter. In the wake of the Kumamoto quakes in April last year, police arrested a man on suspicion of fraudulent obstruction of business over a fake photo and tweet indicating that a lion had escaped from Kumamoto City Zoological and Botanical Gardens.

Kwak commented, “With the Kumamoto quakes, we saw fake rumors that had been posted on Twitter being dispelled by other posts. SNS can be effective if not used in the wrong way. Ways of handling the situation should be incorporated into disaster education programs.”

ENDS
Japanese version

震災後のデマ「信じた」８割超す　東北学院大、仙台市民調査
毎日新聞2017年3月13日　東京朝刊
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20170313/ddm/004/040/009000c

東日本大震災から６年。発生後に被災地で流れた「外国人犯罪が横行している」とのデマについて東北学院大の郭基煥教授が仙台市民に調査したところ、８割以上がデマを信じていたとする結果が出た。郭教授は「非常時の特殊な心理は容易に拡散する」と情報を冷静に選択するよう呼びかけている。【高橋昌紀、本橋敦子】

「外国人犯罪」のうわさ
共生社会論を専攻する郭教授は昨年９～１０月、仙台市で震災の被害が大きかった青葉、宮城野、若林の３区に住む日本国籍の２０～６９歳、計２１００人を対象に郵送で調査した。７７０人から回答を得た（回収率３６・７％）。

「被災地における外国人による犯罪のうわさを聞いた」と答えた人は５１・６％だった。そのうち８６・２％が「とても信じた」「やや信じた」と答えた。うわさを聞いた犯罪の種類（複数回答）は「略奪、窃盗」９７・０％、「遺体損壊」２４・４％、「強姦（ごうかん）、暴行」１９・１％だった。「誰がしたと信じたか」（複数回答）を尋ねたところ「中国系」（６３・０％）、「朝鮮・韓国系」（２４・９％）、「東南アジア系」（２２・７％）だった。

震災後、街で整然と行動する人々の様子がテレビで報道された。郭教授は「『日本人は秩序正しく行動する』とのイメージに矛盾しないためにも、『犯罪を犯すのは外国人』とする流言は好都合だったのではないか。また、悪意ではなく周囲の人たちの身の安全を心配して、犯罪が起きているとのうわさを流してしまう人もいたのではないか。単純に排他主義と片付けることはできない。難しい問題だ」と分析する。

情報見極める必要
郭教授は比較のため東京都新宿区の７００人にも同様の調査をした。回答者は１７４人（回収率２４・９％）で、外国人犯罪のうわさを聞いた人は７０人にとどまったが、そのうちうわさを信じた人は８５・７％（６０人）と仙台市と同様の傾向が見られた。

郭教授は「震災にデマは付き物だ。それを打ち消すのは容易ではなく、一人一人が判断する能力を身につける必要がある」と呼びかける。

宮城県警の統計によると、大震災が発生した２０１１年、県内で刑法犯罪で摘発された３８９９人のうち、来日・永住の外国人は１・５％（５７人）。前後の年も１０年１・３％（５９人）、１２年１・３％（５３人）、１３年は１・９％（６７人）と割合に大きな変動はなかった。県警は震災当時、流言への注意を呼びかけるチラシを避難所に配布。ウェブサイトでも「２０１１年３月１２～２１日の重要犯罪は４件で、前年同期の７件と比べて多くない」などと呼びかけた。県警生活安全企画課の金野聡課長補佐は「災害のときは報道機関や公的機関などの情報を確認して正しく行動してほしい」と呼びかける。

ＳＮＳで拡散、対処法教育を
大きな災害が起きるたびに悪質なデマが広がり、深刻な被害が出ることもある。１９２３年の関東大震災では「朝鮮人が井戸に毒を投げ込んだ」などのデマが流布された。警察のほか、地元住民による自警団が組織され、各地で朝鮮半島出身者や中国人らへの虐殺事件が起きた。

近年はインターネットによってデマが広がるケースもある。今回の調査でも、うわさの情報源は「家族や地元住民」による口コミの６８・０％に続いて、「インターネット」が４２・９％だった。さらに震災後にスマートフォンが急速に普及したことで、ツイッターやフェイスブックといったソーシャル・ネットワーキング・サービス（ＳＮＳ）を通じた発信の機会が増えている。昨年４月の熊本地震では、熊本市動植物園からライオンが逃げ出したとのうその情報と画像をツイッターで投稿した男が、偽計業務妨害容疑で熊本県警に逮捕された。

郭教授は「熊本地震ではツイッターに投稿されたデマを、別の投稿が打ち消す現象がみられた。使い方を間違えなければＳＮＳは有効だ。対処方法を災害教育のプログラムに組み込むべきだ」と提言する。
ENDS

Ueno Chizuko, fabled feminist Sociology Prof. Emeritus at Tokyo U, argues in newspaper column that Japan will never accept foreigners, and Japanese should just decline into poverty together. Geriatrically rigid rigor.

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. On Japan’s National Foundation Day, a time where Japan’s patriots often come out and make statements on what it means to be a “Japanese”, fabled feminist Sociology Professor at Tokyo University Ueno Chizuko wrote something for the Chuunichi Shinbun. As the headline proclaims, “Let’s become equally poor together”.

Here’s a bit more about her in an interview with the Japan Times (2006).

As TG, the person who tipped me off to this article writes, “Chizuko Ueno, Japan’s most famous academic feminist, says there is no chance of reversing the decline in the birthrate; that at the same time Japanese society is inherently incapable of inter-cultural understanding; that therefore she opposes any move to liberalize immigration policy; and that the Japanese people should accept that they are going to gradually decline into poverty over the years to come.

“Hmm. I wonder what Hidenori Sakanaka, Arudou Debito and other FB friends think about this. She is a gadfly who likes to provoke, and you could read this as an attempt at satirical pessimism possibly. Or has she just lost the plot?”

Provoke indeed. It’s caused a stir on Japanese debate fora (it took more time than usual to find where this article appeared — people were too busy debating this on online fora to even disclose that). And on FB, where I was fortunately tagged, we had some interesting comments:

AB: “I read this yesterday and wondered about 平等に貧しくなろう。She also talks about a soft crash landing, if I recall correctly. Resigned pessimism of the wartime 「まだ焼き出されていないのか」type was my interpretation, but I don’t suppose I’m right.”

CD: >こういう「もう経済成長しなくていい」「一緒に衰退していこう」みたいなことを言う似非リベジジババ結構いるんだけど「アンタの人生の終焉に国を巻き込むな」と言いたい。老いて衰退してくのはアンタ自身だ、若い子には「アンタらにはない」可能性がある。世の中の若いヒト全てに対して失礼だ。
“Boom. Couldn’t say it better myself in either language. The myopic narcissistic “L’etat, c’est moi” conflation of self and cultural space in this woman’s train of thought are simply staggering in someone who dares to parade her ideas in the media as a purported “public intellectual”.”

CD(2): “Note that while I am suspicious of her psychological motivations for framing the situation thusly, that does NOT mean that I don’t think it may very well go down the way she lays it out. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people this age and older whose symbolic immortality is so tied up with the idea of “Japan for Japanese only and only the kind of Japan I’ve known” that they would rather “die than switch”, so to speak. Young people had better light a political fire under their butts here, or the whole shebang will slide down in a long, slow geriatric national/cultural kamikaze dive. The event horizon for this is coming up fast.”

EF: “Setting aside the point about having children, many of our students counter her comments regarding the inability of Japanese to gain multi-cultural understandings.”

GH: “I still remember her ‘feminist’ paper given years ago at SOAS, it was premised on two points: western feminism was not a perfect fit to Japan (fair enough, other non-white feminists make similar points), but then everything she said about being a feminist in Japan seemed to contradict her own very existence as a single female academic: it seemed to be about being a better housewife or being happy with different work conditions because of the fragility of the female body (menstrual leave days for example). It only made some sense to me years later, when I saw her speak at a big feminist history conference in Tokyo: her position is against the old hardcore Marxist feminist ideology of the generation just before her (and dating back to before the war). So she’s fighting an ideological battle that pushes her to say the most incredibly bizarre things sometimes: we are not all equal, but equivalent, this was her mantra. Of course equivalences can be very arbitrary…”

And GH is where I came in:

DEBITO: I very much agree with [GH’s] insight, and I think it sheds light into the mentality behind this article. I have often noticed that feminism in Japan is not “equality between the sexes” but “separate but equal” status between the sexes, inherently accepting that inequality is inevitable due to purported physical and emotional differences between men and women. Some things are “women’s work”, for example, and some things are men’s, and you’d better respect that order or else woe betide you for intruding.

Once you accept this kind of natural status quo, it becomes just as easy to accept that there should be “separate for foreigners in Japan” too, however “a foreigner” is defined. The problem is that most people accept without much question the “necessarily separate but unequal” mantra as well, since foreigners are not Japanese, by definition, and Japanese are told on a daily basis (no exaggeration) about the inherent differences between them. And therein lies the slow-drip mindset that over the years will eventually affect even the most intellectually-rigorous, as they get older and fossilized in their beliefs.

You even find it in many very long-term foreigners in Japan, who will even argue that they deserve their own unequal status. Rigor becomes rigid.

So to me, Ueno’s pontificating on the natural order of separation is a natural outcome of living in a society as hierarchical and segregated as Japan’s. I think with this article, she’d have a more comfortable cup of tea with the likes of Sankei columnist Sono Ayako, who on National Foundation Day exactly two years ago expressly praised South African Apartheid and advocated a similar system for Japan’s foreigners. –Dr. Debito Arudou

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

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Problematic Fukuoka Pref. Police sign warning against “Foreign Travelers in Rental Cars”

Posted on January 22, 2017January 23, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

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Hi Blog. Following the “foreign driver” stickers put on cars to stigmatize the NJ tourists (and NJ residents renting cars) in Okinawa and Hokkaido, now we have the Fukuoka Prefectural Police taking it upon themselves to associate bad driving with foreigners. Based upon one cited accident (Japanese drivers, after all, never have accidents, right?), the police put up a multilingual sign to caution everyone, and apparently teach NJ how to drive all over again. How presumptuous. Let’s see what submitter XY has to say:

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

Date: August 22, 2016
From: XY

Hi Dr. Debito,
I am a long-time reader – and very occasional commenter – on your blog. However, this Obon I encountered a sign at a rental car office at Fukuoka Airport that was hard to ignore. The sign is attached.

The multilingual translations of everything BUT the warning up top [which specifically mentions “foreign tourists driving rental cars” (gaikokujin ryokousha no unten suru renta-ka-)] seem quite disengenuous to me, almost as if the intention of the author was to create a literal honne/tatemae on the page:

Tatemae: we want everyone to be safe on the road so we have put these reminders out for everyone’s good, even our foreign guests.

Honne: beware, there are dangerous foreigners on the roads of Kyushu. We are doing our omotenashi to remind them of the “common sense” of driving as you can see below, but you need to be extra alert because there is only so much we can do to control their foreign ways of driving

Not the best vibe to be giving off exactly 4 years before the Tokyo Olympics if you ask me.

By the way, a very cursory web search brought up this article, which I am pretty sure reports on the same accident that the poster describes:
http://qbiz.jp/sp/article/84684/1/

I cannot read to the end without an account, but my initial thoughts are:

– There are assumptions galore. The article mentions police making a poster to warn people of the “prohibited” act of dozing off behind the wheel, imploring them to take rests, etc. Incredibly, it implies that these practices are not common sense for people who are not experienced driving in Japan. This argument might hold a sliver of credibility if there was testimony from the driver proving that one of these factors was a cause of his accident. But the article gives no such proof.

– The article offers many statistics to show that the number of foreigners renting cars has indeed increased. Unfortunately, it does not bother to provide statistics proving that this has resulted in an increase in accidents (above and beyond the normal expected increase with more drivers on the road). Even if they did provide evidence showing an increase in accidents, they would still need to go a step further to show how this is directly related to foreign drivers and not something else (the rapid aging of licensed Japanese drivers, perhaps??).

When you take away the need to consider your foreign audience — this article being designed for domestic consumption only — it seems to me that this is another classic case of the Japanese authorities using foreigners as a punching bag for societal angst.

Cheers, XY

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

Other progress in 2016: Actions against wasabi bombs in sushi for NJ customers, conductor officially chided for apologizing re “many foreign passengers” crowding trains

Posted on January 3, 2017January 12, 2017 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog, and welcome to 2017. And to start this year (which I am not at all optimistic about), let’s try to talk about two bright sides to 2016.

First up, this piece of good news that shows that targeting of foreign passengers (on an airport train, no less) is officially not cool — either from the passengers’ point of view or from the train company’s:

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

Train conductor warned after apologizing for crowding due to ‘many foreign passengers’
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161011/p2a/00m/0na/003000c
October 11, 2016 (Mainichi Japan), courtesy of JK

OSAKA — A Nankai Electric Railway Co. conductor was dealt a verbal warning after apologizing to Japanese passengers for crowding on a train heading to Kansai International Airport with a large number of foreigners, it has been learned.

The company said the male conductor, who is in his 40s, made the announcement on an express train bound for Kansai International Airport at around 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 10, a public holiday, after the train left Tengachaya Station.

“Today there are many foreign passengers aboard and it is very crowded, so we are inconveniencing Japanese passengers,” the conductor was quoted as stating in the announcement.

After the train arrived at Kansai-Airport Station, a Japanese woman questioned a station attendant about the announcement, asking whether it was within the bounds of company rules.

When questioned by the company, the conductor was quoted as replying, “I heard a male Japanese passenger at Namba Station yelling, ‘All these foreigners are a nuisance,’ so I made the announcement to avert trouble. I had no intention of discriminating.”

The company says it has received complaints in the past about the large pieces of luggage carried by foreign visitors, but the announcement made by the conductor was the first of its kind.

“Whether people are Japanese or non-Japanese, the fact remains that they are our passengers. Language that sets them apart is inappropriate,” a company representative said.

Japanese version:

車掌「多くの外国人で、ご不便を」
毎日新聞2016年10月11日 00時06分(最終更新 10月11日 12時32分)
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20161011/k00/00m/040/058000c

車内アナウンスして口頭注意　「差別の意図ない」と釈明
南海電鉄の４０代男性車掌が１０日、車内で「本日は多数の外国人のお客さまが乗車されており、大変混雑しておりますので、日本人のお客さまにはご不便をおかけしております」という内容のアナウンスを行い、口頭注意を受けていたことが同社への取材で分かった。

車掌は同社の聞き取りに「難波駅で車内の日本人男性客が『外国人が多くて邪魔』という内容を大声で叫んだのを聞き、トラブルを避けるために放送した。差別の意図はない」と説明したという。同社によると、これまでにも、車内の外国人観光客の大きな荷物に対する苦情が他の乗客から寄せられたことはあったが、この車掌が同様のアナウンスをしたのは今回が初めてという。

同社は「日本人でも外国人でも、お客さまに変わりはない。区別するような言葉はふさわしくない」としている。【井川加菜美】
ENDS
///////////////////////////////////////////////

Next up an article from the Grauniad, which coupled the above story with another one about some sushi itamae-san who took it upon themselves to wasabi-bomb some NJ sushi. Full article follows below, but pertinent excerpt:

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

The incident follows an accusation by South Korean tourists that a sushi restaurant in Osaka deliberately smeared their orders with eye-watering quantities of wasabi, a pungent condiment that should be used sparingly.

The restaurant chain Ichibazushi apologised but denied accusations of racism, saying its chefs had decided to use excessive amounts of wasabi after other foreign diners had previously requested larger dollops for added piquancy.

“Because many of our overseas customers frequently order extra amounts of pickled ginger and wasabi, we gave them more without checking first,” the chain’s management said. “The result was unpleasant for some guests who aren’t fans of wasabi.”

It was not clear how many such incidents – labelled “wasabi terrorism” on social media – had occurred, but some disgruntled diners posted photos of sushi containing twice as much wasabi as usual.

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

Again, the fact that this incident made news, and (Japanese) social media thought this was worth criticizing is a good thing. The restaurant acknowledged and apologized.

There is lots to bellyache about when it comes to how NJ are seen and treated in Japan, but when people (especially Japanese people, who are often not all that quick to leap to the defense of NJ, since what happens to NJ does not affect them) stand up against this, this is progress. Credit where credit is due. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

Full Grauniad article:
//////////////////////////////////////

Japanese train conductor blames foreign tourists for overcrowding
Rail company reprimands conductor who made announcement blaming foreigners for inconveniencing Japanese passengers
Justin McCurry in Tokyo Tuesday 11 October 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/11/japanese-train-conductor-blames-foreign-tourists-for-overcrowding

A railway company in Japan has reprimanded a conductor who blamed the large number of foreign tourists on a crowded train for inconveniencing Japanese passengers.

The outburst will have done little to help Japan’s attempts to become a more welcoming destination for foreign visitors as it prepares to host the 2019 rugby World Cup and the Tokyo Olympics a year later.

Japan’s successful pitch for the 2020 Games made much of the country’s reputation for omotenashi– traditional hospitality and service.

But there was precious little omotenashi on display when the conductor addressed passengers on a Nankai Electric Railway express train bound for Kansai international airport near Osaka on Monday morning.

“There are many foreign passengers on board today … this has caused serious congestion and is causing inconvenience to Japanese passengers,” said the conductor, a man in his 40s.

A Japanese passenger reported the incident to a station attendant at the airport, questioning whether the conductor’s wording was acceptable.

The conductor, who has not been named, later defended his choice of words: “I heard a male Japanese passenger at [another station] yelling: ‘All these foreigners are a nuisance,’” the Mainichi Shimbun quoted him as saying.

“I made the announcement to avert trouble and had no intention of discriminating [against foreign passengers],” he said.

A Nankai Electric spokesman told the newspaper that the firm had previously received complaints about foreign visitors with large suitcases, but added: “Whether people are Japanese or non-Japanese, the fact remains that they are our passengers. Language that sets them apart [from other passengers] is inappropriate.”

Whether or not the incidents resulted from misunderstandings, the potential for friction between visitors and local people is likely to increase as Japan gains popularity as a tourist destination.

A record 2.05 million people visited the country in August, according to the Japan Tourism Agency, including 677,000 from China, 458,900 from South Korea and 333,200 from Taiwan.

Japan’s government hopes to double the number of foreign visitors to 40 million in 2020, and expects a tourism windfall of 8tn yen (£63bn).
ENDS
=====================================

MOJ Bureau of Human Rights Survey of NJ Residents and discrimination (J&E full text)

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

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

From: XY
Subject: MOJ NJ Survey
Date: November 14, 2016
To: debito@debito.org

Dear Debito,

I am XY, a long year NJ resident. First I want to thank you for the great work you do to enhance human rights in Japan. I learned most of the discrepancies between law and practice (especially Hotels *cough*) from your blog. Great work.

Now to the actual reason of my mail. I have recently read on debito.org about that human rights survey the ministry of justice is conducting right now, and today I got the survey documents in Japanese and English. In your blog you ask for scans of these documents to check the nature of this survey. Here they are (downloadable PDFs):

外国人人権アンケート（Cover Letter）
外国人人権アンケート（英語）
外国人人権アンケート（日本語）

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

COMMENT FROM DEBITO:

Debito.org has focused on the GOJ’s biased surveys regarding human rights and NJ in the past, and found the science to be very bad. This poor science has even been found in surveys of NJ residents at the national (here, here, and here) and local levels (Tokyo and Urayasu, for example). It’s amazing how quickly common human decency and equal treatment evaporates from Japan’s social science just as soon as “foreigners” are brought into the equation.

So that’s why I approached these new surveys for “Foreigners Living in Japan” (as opposed to “Non-Citizen Residents of Japan”) from the Ministry of Justice Human of Human Rights (BOHR), Center for Human Rights Education and Training, with some trepidation. Especially given the BOHR’s longstanding record of unhelpfulness and abdication of responsibility (see also book “Embedded Racism“, pp. 224-231). But let’s take a look at it and assess. Here is a sampling of pages from the English version in jpg format (the full text in Japanese and English is at the above pdf links).

First, two pages from the statement of purpose from the Cover Letter, so you get the tone:

Next, here’s the odd very first question. It inquires whether the foreigner being surveyed actually interacts with Japanese, or lives as a hikikomori hermit inside a terrarium. (It’s a bit hard to envision this kind of question coming from other governments. In a question about discrimination towards NJ, why is this the first question? Is it a means to discount future responses with, “Well, it’s the foreigner’s own fault he’s discriminated against — he should get out more”?). Anyway:

Skipping down to the next section, we see that they get to the discrimination issues (housing first, and that’s a major one) pretty systematically, and with the possibility of open-ended answers. Good.

Same with discrimination in employment:

And then discrimination in access to services and in daily interactions:

And then we get to a decent list of miscellany. Note that there is no mention of any discrimination by officialdom, such as police harassment, racial profiling, or Gaijin Card Instant Checkpoints on the street or in hotels. (Naturally: The BOHR is part of the Ministry of Justice, as are the Japanese police forces — and their bunker mentalities are but an inevitable part of managing Japan’s security and erstwhile “world’s safest society” against outside threats). According to this list, discrimination only seems to happen because of nasty “Japanese people” as individuals, not because of something more systemic and embedded, such as Japan’s laws, enforcement of laws, or judiciary.

Then we get to issues of hate speech:

Then we get to the subject of what to do about it. The survey starts off with the typical boilerplate about “cultural differences” (the regular way of blaming foreigners for “being different”, thereby deserving differential treatment), but then by item 6 we get a mention of a law against preventing “discrimination against foreigners” (as opposed to racial discrimination, which is what it is). So at least a legislative solution is mentioned as an option. Good.

The rest talks about what measures the surveyed person has taken against discrimination using existing GOJ structures (the BOHR). Then it concludes some background about the surveyed person’s age, nationality, visa status, home language, etc. (which is where that funny first question about “how much contact do you have with Japanese?” should have come; putting it first is, again, indicative.)

CONCLUSION: In terms of a survey, this is an earnest attempt to get an official handle on the shape and scope of discriminatory activities in Japan, and even mentions the establishment of anti-discrimination laws as an option. Good. It also includes the first real national-level question about discrimination in housing in Japan, which hitherto has never been surveyed beyond the local level. I will be very interested to see the results.

That said, the survey still has the shortcoming of the GOJ not accepting any culpability for discrimination as created and promoted by officials, including Japan’s police forces, laws, law enforcement, or legislative or judicial processes. It still seems to want to portray discrimination as something that misinformed or malicious individuals do toward “foreigners”, without getting to the root of the problem: That the real issue is racial discrimination embedded within Japan’s very identity as a nation-state (as I uncover and outline in book “Embedded Racism”). Here’s hoping that research helps inform their next survey (as my research informed the Cabinet’s previously biased survey questions back in 2012 (page down)). Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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

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Onur on Fukuoka hotel check-ins in: Police creating unlawful “foreign passport check” signs in the name of (and without the knowledge of) local govt. authorities!

Posted on November 20, 2016February 23, 2019 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Onur, our local watchdog on Japan’s hotel policies towards “foreign guests”, has submitted another report, this time on hotels in Fukuoka. The last case he submitted exposed how police in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, were deliberately lying about the law to create notices requiring the racial profiling of all “foreigners” at hotel check ins. Now in Fukuoka the same thing is happening, only worse: Fukuoka Prefectural Police are creating erroneous signs in the name of local government authorities without the knowledge of those local authorities!

This is odious. Given the recent Debito.org report about racist check-ins at Sakura Hotel in Jimbocho, Tokyo (done according to the hotel itself “to provide safety for our guests“, whatever that means), and the fact that I uncovered this unlawful practice more than ten years ago in my Japan Times columns (“Creating laws out of thin air,” Zeit Gist, March 8, 2005; “Ministry missive wrecks reception,” ZG, Oct. 18, 2005, and “Japan’s hostile hosteling industry,” JBC, July 6, 2010), it seems the problem is nationwide and systemic. Our police forces continue to enlist the public in their racial profiling of “foreigners” (whether or not they are tourists or residents of Japan), whether or not the law or the local authorities permit them to. (It doesn’t.)

Read on for Onur’s latest. Well done. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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

Date: Nov. 17, 2016
From: Onur
Hello Dr. Debito,

I am Onur, who sent the poster that Ibaraki Police distributed to the Hotels. I had a similar experience in Fukuoka. I stayed in S.B Hotel Hamanomachi. I saw the attached poster on the reception desk. I asked permission and took a photo it. It clearly says that they ask every foreigner to present his/her passport.

20161030_175006b

However, I just wrote my Japanese address to guest registration form during check-in and the reception did not ask me to show a passport or a card. The check-in was smooth.

Later I stayed in Hotel New Gaea Hakata-Eki Minami. The reception asked my passport. I said I don’t carry it. Then they asked my residence card. I don’t have to show it but I showed my residence card to reassure them. Then the receptionist took my card and went to another room without saying anything. I was shocked. I asked what are you doing? He said he is copying my residence card. I said no. According to the law as I am a foreigner with an address in Japan, no copying is necessary. Then the receptionist was shocked when I said no. He did not say anything and gave my card back to me.

I decided to solve this problem by contacting the people in charge. At the bottom of the poster, it is written “Health Center in Fukuoka Prefecture and Fukuoka Prefectural Police”. Therefore, first, I went to Central Health Center (中央保健所) in Fukuoka City. I talked with the person in charge for the hotels. He was very friendly and helpful. I showed the poster in the first hotel and told the incident in the second hotel. He said that even though the poster says “Health Center in Fukuoka Prefecture” at the bottom of the poster, the poster is not prepared by the health center and he has never seen this poster before. He said the information in the poster is definitely wrong and the poster may have been prepared by the hotel. He said they will contact to those two hotels and warn them.

Then I went to Fukuoka Prefectural Police Headquarters. I showed the poster and asked to talk with the officer in charge. As the prefectural headquarters is very big, it took a long time to find out the officer in charge. Three officers came. They were friendly and willing to solve the problem. First I showed the poster. They accepted that the police printed the poster and distributed to the all hotels in Fukuoka prefecture. I showed the official announcement of the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry at https://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/content/000062471.pdf and said that their poster is clearly different. They were very surprised. It seems that they did not know the details of the hotel law and regulations well. They could not understand what is wrong in their poster. I gave a long speech about the law and the guidelines of the ministry. They finally understood the problem and apologized. They said they will check it in detail and fix the poster.

A few days later I got a phone call from the police. They apologized again. They said they will print a new poster, but it may take a long time to replace all the posters in the prefecture. They said they will ask the hotels to check only the residence card without copying it to verify the address, if the foreigner guest says he has an address in Japan. I said it is wrong again. I said “I called the ministry and they told me that there is no need to check the residence card or passport if a foreigner says he is living in Japan and writes the Japanese address to check-in form. Please call the ministry for the details and follow their guidelines exactly”. Later the Central Health Center in Fukuoka called me. They said they talked with those two hotels and also the police headquarters and warned them about following the rules. They said please call us if you experience such a problem again.

In short, if you experience such a problem in a hotel, I think the best way to solve is to contact the local Health Center, which is the local authority over the hotels, and also the police headquarters if they are involved.

Best Regards,
Onur
ENDS

===========

Mainichi Editorial: Cultivating ‘Japan fans’ key to attracting repeat foreign visitors. Good luck with that without an anti racial discrimination law

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

JK: Hi Debito: The GOJ wants foreign visitors spend a couple trillion yen the year the Olympics comes to town, so why not strike while the iron is hot and use this as leverage against xenophobic establishments by calling them out on their behavior (i.e. “there’s this shop down the way that excludes anyone foreign-looking — surely that reflects poorly on Japan and hurts the government’s numbers.”)?

Debito: Agreed. And that’s the big blind spot in this editorial. It talks about the shortcomings of tourism policy focusing only on infrastructure and profit, but neglects to mention the issues of how a police force dedicated to racial profiling (especially at hotels), or how being refused service somewhere just because the proprietor has a “thing” about foreigners (and can get away with it because Japan has no law against racial discrimination), can really ruin a visit. “Cultivating Japan fans” is one way of putting it, “stopping xenophobes” is another. And that should be part of formal GOJ policy as well. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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Editorial: Cultivating ‘Japan fans’ key to attracting repeat foreign visitors
November 1, 2016 (Mainichi Japan)
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161101/p2a/00m/0na/016000c

In just 10 months, the number of foreign visitors to Japan has already smashed through the 20 million mark for the year, surpassing the previous annual record of about 19.74 million arrivals set in 2015.

The first time foreign visitors topped 10 million was in 2013. At the time, the government set a target of “20 million people by 2020,” but visitor numbers expanded far faster than expected. Now the government is shooting for 40 million in 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

The wave of people coming to see Japan is a welcome development on many fronts, especially as our country’s population ages and begins to decline, particularly in the countryside. There are, of course, direct and obvious economic benefits from so many visitors shopping, eating and filling Japan’s hotel rooms. However, the tourism boom has also made companies and regional communities more outward-looking in their thinking, and that’s deeply significant.

However, while 20 million visitors is nothing to sneeze at, it doesn’t come anywhere close to the world champion of foreign tourism, France, which attracted more than 80 million visitors in 2014. And France isn’t the only country beating Japan by a wide margin. To put it another way, Japan has a lot of tourism growth potential.

What’s important is to avoid viewing visitors to our shores as mere consumers.

The government has declared it wants to see foreign visitors drop 8 trillion yen in Japan in 2020. There’s nothing wrong with setting a numerical target in and of itself, but focusing solely on visitor spending could lead to a nasty trip-up.

This is, simply put, because conditions can change. A rising yen may make Japan a less attractive destination, while economic events abroad could also bring down visitor numbers. And those considering visiting Japan to shop for Japanese products may think twice if they find they can buy the same stuff online.

If a small town in regional Japan brought in a big-box retail outlet to attract foreign shoppers, it may see a short-term rise in visitors from abroad. However, most of the benefits might end up in the pockets of the retailer and the companies supplying it … and not the host community.

The conclusion that sparkly tourist-oriented facilities are needed to bring in visitors is wrong. There are attractions and ways to welcome foreign tourists that are close to hand and just waiting to be uncovered. Take farm stays, for example. Visitors don’t just stay the night and chow down on fresh produce; they help harvest it as well. Then there are tours of recycling centers that get visitors to think about how to tackle environmental issues. These sorts of “hands-on” experiences are likely to have a good chance of attracting more people back to Japan for repeat visits.

Also, while earthquakes are a major risk in Japan, disaster prevention can also become a resource for attracting visitors. For example, the Tokyo Fire Department has facilities called Life Safety Learning centers where visitors can feel what it’s like to be in an earthquake, among other hands-on activities. These centers have never been marketed outside Japan, and yet they are seeing more foreign visitors.

If Japan spends all its time chasing visitor numbers and tourist spending figures, it will eventually hit a wall. It should instead introduce people to the many faces of Japan, give them the chance to actually do things with Japanese people, and generally provide a diverse and substantive experience, looking to cultivate long-term “Japan fans.”

Original Japanese
訪日客２千万人　息の長いファン作りを
毎日新聞2016年11月1日　東京朝刊
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20161101/ddm/005/070/169000c

今年、日本を訪れた外国人旅行者が２０００万人を突破した。昨年は１年間で過去最多となる１９７４万人を記録したが、今年は１０カ月で２０００万人に達した。

訪日外国人数が初めて１０００万の大台に乗ったのは２０１３年のことだ。当時は「２０年に２０００万人」の達成を目指していた。外国人の日本訪問は予想以上の速さで増加し、政府は今や、「２０年に４０００万人」を目標としている。

国内の人口が減少に転じ、特に地方の過疎、高齢化が進む中、世界から人がやって来ることは多くの意味で歓迎できる。買い物や宿泊といった直接的な経済効果はもちろんだが、企業や地域社会が、外向きの思考へ意識転換するきっかけを得る意義は大きい。

ただ、２０００万人を突破したとはいえ、世界には年間８０００万人超（１４年）のフランスを筆頭に、外国人客の受け入れ数で日本をしのぐ国が少なくない。まだまだ成長の潜在性があるということだ。

重要なのは、訪日客を単に外から来る消費者と見ないことだろう。

政府は２０年に訪日客の消費額を８兆円とする目標を掲げる。目標設定自体、悪いことではないが、消費額ばかりにこだわると足をすくわれかねない。

訪日に不利な円高や、海外の経済情勢の悪化などに左右される恐れがあるからだ。さらに、インターネットなどで簡単に日本製品が買えるようになれば、「わざわざ日本まで行かなくても」となるかもしれない。

例えば地方の町が外国人客を増やそうと量販店を誘致したとする。一時的な集客効果があるかもしれないが、恩恵を受けるのは主に量販店やそこで売られる製品の企業であって、地元の経済では必ずしもない。

では、観光の目玉となる施設が不可欠かというと、それも違う。魅力や招致の手法は案外身近に埋もれているものである。

農家に泊まって、土地の食を味わうだけでなく収穫など農作業を体験する企画や、ごみのリサイクル施設を訪れ環境問題を考えるツアーなど、体験型の観光は、今後リピーターの訪日客を増やすうえで可能性がありそうだ。

地震は日本にとってリスクでも、防災は観光資源に変わり得る。地震の揺れなどを体験できる東京消防庁の災害教育施設には、海外向けの宣伝をしているわけでもないのに、外国人の来館が増えている。

数字を追うばかりでは無理が来る。世界の人々が日本のさまざまな顔を発見したり、日本人と共に何かを体験したりするような多様な品ぞろえで、息の長いファン作りにチャレンジしたい。

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

Mainichi Editorial: Japan needs effective hate speech law to stamp out racist marches

Posted on October 26, 2016October 26, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. To cap off this month of discussion on Debito.org about Japan’s new hate speech laws, check out what the Mainichi (clearly a supporter, given their generous coverage of the issue, particularly regarding enforcement) said about a bill at the national level back in April. It passed in June. This article offers a good accounting of just how much work went into getting the local governments to take a stand on the issue, and how grassroots movements do indeed influence national policy in Japan. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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

Editorial: Japan needs effective hate speech law to stamp out racist marches
April 11, 2016 (Mainichi Japan), courtesy of JK
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160411/p2a/00m/0na/022000c

A bill intended to put a stop to hate speech campaigns directed at people of particular races or ethnicities looks set to be deliberated by the Diet during the current session.

Hate speech, with its heavy doses of terms like “Kill them!” and “Get out of Japan,” is abusive and libelous, and can stir up racist sentiments. It is, in short, an offense against basic human rights, and it cannot be tolerated. Nevertheless, there is presently nothing stopping the groups that promote this violent rhetoric from spreading their toxic message.

There were 1,152 confirmed cases of hate speech across the country during the 3 1/2 years ending in September 2015, according to the recently released results of the Justice Ministry’s first-ever investigation into the problem in Japan. That is nearly one incident a day, and it is an absolute embarrassment for a democratic nation such as ours.

The opposition-sponsored anti-racism bill was followed by one with the backing of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito. The ruling and opposition parties should put their heads together to get a law passed halting hate speech as soon as possible.

Hate speech marches through areas of Tokyo and Osaka that are home to many Korean residents of Japan have been intensifying in recent years, and have been spreading all over the country. Under current law, authorities have only been able to restrict hate speech actions when the perpetrators have committed an illegal act. The Justice Ministry officially labeled hate speech a human rights violation only in December of last year, and warned a former hate group leader to stop the organization’s activities. Although this is certainly a positive step, a warning has no legal power.

Behind the relatively tame official response to such racist polemics is the fact that hate speech is not in itself illegal. The government, meanwhile, has approached the problem by carefully balancing the principle of freedom of expression with direct regulation.

In 2014, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination advised the Japanese government to take resolute action against hate speech, and to enact anti-hate speech legislation.

There are also strong domestic calls for a government response to hate speech. In January of this year, the city of Osaka enacted the country’s first anti-hate speech ordinance. In addition, more than 300 local government assemblies across Japan have adopted a written statement calling on the central government to take appropriate legal action against hate speech, while staying within the Constitutional right to freedom of expression. In these acts, we can see a definite fear that Japan will lose the trust of the international community if hate groups continue to peddle their poisonous polemics unhindered.

Hate speech doesn’t just damage the dignity of the individual. It can also create a deep well of dread in those subjected to it, including children. Freedom of expression is a very important right — but hate speech is an obvious abuse of that right.

The LDP-Komeito bill defines hate speech as unjust discrimination. The bill differs greatly from the opposition’s version, which seeks to regulate a wider range of discriminatory acts and calls for the outright ban on hate speech. Neither bill, however, lists a punishment for hate speech violations.

To the contrary, we believe that Japan needs a law that clearly defines hate speech, preventing broad interpretations that could be warped into threats to the freedom of expression. The law should also include provisions that will have some practical effect, such as giving authorities the power to deny hate groups the use of public facilities and roads for demonstrations.

It’s time for a show of political strength.
ENDS

Japanese version

社説
ヘイトスピーチ　根絶へ政治の意思示せ
毎日新聞2016年4月10日　東京朝刊
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20160410/ddm/005/070/030000c

特定の人種や民族に対する差別的言動を街頭で繰り返す「ヘイトスピーチ」を止めようとする法案が、今国会で審議される見通しになった。

ヘイトスピーチは、「殺せ」「出て行け」といった乱暴な言葉で罵倒や中傷し、差別感情をあおり立てる。人権侵害であり、到底許されないが、ヘイトスピーチを繰り広げる団体の活動は抑え込めていない。

法務省が初めて行った実態調査では、昨年９月までの３年半で全国で１１５２件のヘイトスピーチが確認された。１日１件に近い数字で、民主主義の国として恥ずべきことだ。

民主党（現民進党）などが国会に提出した人種差別撤廃施策推進法案に続き、自民、公明両党はヘイトスピーチ解消に向け法案を出した。ヘイトスピーチを止めるため、与野党で法制化の協議を急ぐべきだ。

東京や大阪など在日韓国・朝鮮人が多く住む地域でヘイトスピーチと呼ばれるデモが数年前から激化し、全国に広がった。

捜査当局などは、現行法の範囲で違法行為があれば取り締まってきたが、ヘイトスピーチは沈静化していない。法務省がヘイトスピーチを人権侵害と位置づけ、団体の元代表にやめるよう勧告したのは昨年１２月だ。それでも強制力はない。

厳格な対応ができない背景には、現行の法制度では、ヘイトスピーチそのものを違法行為と認定できないことがある。一方、政府は、「表現の自由」との兼ね合いで直接的な法規制に慎重な姿勢を示してきた。

国連人種差別撤廃委員会は２０１４年、日本政府に対し、ヘイトスピーチ問題に毅然（きぜん）と対処し、法律で規制するよう勧告した。

国内からも政府の対応を促す声が強い。大阪市は今年１月、ヘイトスピーチの抑止を目指す全国初の条例を成立させた。国に対し、表現の自由に配慮しながらも、法規制など適切なヘイトスピーチ対策を求める意見書を採択する地方議会は３００を超えた。国際社会の信頼を失いかねないとの危機感がそこにはある。

ヘイトスピーチは、個人の尊厳を大きく侵害するだけではない。子供などは強い恐怖感を抱く。表現の自由は大切な権利だが、ヘイトスピーチは明らかな権利の乱用だ。

与党案は、ヘイトスピーチを不当な差別と位置づけた。より広範な差別を規制対象とし、「禁止」を明確にした野党案と開きはあるが、罰則を伴わない点は共通する。拡大解釈で表現の自由が脅かされることのないようヘイトスピーチの定義を明確にしたうえで、道路でのデモや公共施設の使用を止められるような実効性のある法律にすべきではないか。政治の強い意思を示すべきだ。
ENDS

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

Mainichi: Court orders anti-Korean group to compensate woman over hate speech

Posted on October 18, 2016April 20, 2018 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. The third in a series (the first two are here and here) about developments after Japan’s first hate speech was passed earlier this year. Critics (naturally) decried it as a means to stifle freedom of speech, but I took exception to that, saying that it was a step in the right direction, at least. This series of articles in the Mainichi Shinbun seem to bear that out, talking about the positive effects of the law, where once-daily hate rallies are down, xenophobic language is softened and made less normalized, administrative organs now have means of enforcement, and even court cases are ruling in favor of targeted victims. Good. For example, this next case ruling against officially-certified hate group Zaitokukai, which even cites the UN CERD! Bravo. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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Court orders anti-Korean group to compensate woman over hate speech
September 28, 2016 (Mainichi Japan)

http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160928/p2a/00m/0na/003000c
Courtesy of JK

OSAKA — The Osaka District Court on Sept. 27 ordered a citizens’ group that holds hate speech rallies targeting Korean residents in Japan to pay 770,000 yen in compensation to a Korean woman over defamation carried out by the group and its former chairman.

Freelance writer Lee Sin Hae, 45, filed the lawsuit against “Zainichi Tokken o Yurusanai Shimin no Kai” (literally, “citizens’ group that does not forgive special rights for Korean residents of Japan,” or “Zaitokukai”) and its former chairman Makoto Sakurai, 44, demanding 5.5 million yen in compensation for defamation by fueling discrimination against Korean residents through hate speech campaigns.

According to the ruling, after Lee contributed an article criticizing hate speech to an online news site, Sakurai called her “an old Korean hag” at rallies his group organized in Kobe’s Sannomiya district and targeted her on Twitter using a discriminatory word for a Korean person sometime between 2013 and 2014 when he was the head of the group.

Presiding Judge Tamami Masumori acknowledged that some of the things Sakurai had said and tweeted invaded her personal rights and concluded such actions constituted insults banned under the U.N. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

At the same time, Lee’s claim of emotional distress caused by the spread of information posted online was denied.

Zaitokukai released a comment, saying the ruling was “one-sided and unjust.” Both the plaintiff and defendant are considering filing an appeal.

UPDATE: The case was appealed. And Lee won again in 2018.

ENDS

Japanese version
ヘイトスピーチ訴訟
「人種差別」認定　大阪地裁、在特会に賠償命令
毎日新聞2016年9月28日　東京朝刊
「人種差別」認定　大阪地裁、在特会に賠償命令
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20160928/ddm/041/040/183000c

インターネット上などの民族差別的なヘイトスピーチで名誉を傷付けられたとして、在日朝鮮人の女性が「在日特権を許さない市民の会（在特会）」と元会長の桜井誠氏（４４）に５５０万円の賠償を求めた訴訟の判決が２７日、大阪地裁であった。増森珠美裁判長は一部について「在日朝鮮人への差別を助長、増幅させる意図があった」と認定し、在特会側に７７万円の支払いを命じた。双方とも控訴を検討している。

原告はフリーライターの李信恵（リシネ）さん（４５）。判決によると、李さんはネットニュース上でヘイトスピーチについて批判的な記事を書いた。桜井氏は在特会の会長だった２０１３〜１４年、神戸・三宮での街宣活動で「朝鮮人のババア」と発言したり、ツイッターで「鮮人記者」などと書き込んだりした。

増森裁判長は桜井氏の一部の発言や記述について、「人格権を違法に侵害するもの」と指摘。人種差別の撤廃を求める人種差別撤廃条約の趣旨に反した侮辱行為と結論付けた。

一方、李さんはネット情報の拡散被害による精神的苦痛なども訴えたが、判決はこうしたネット被害には踏み込まなかった。在特会側は代理人弁護士を通じ、「判決は一方的で不当」などとする談話を出した。【向畑泰司】
ENDS

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

Mainichi: Effect of new anti-hate speech law spreads to executive, judicial branches

Posted on October 14, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

When Japan’s first actual law against hate speech was passed in January this year, critics (naturally) decried it as a means to stifle freedom of speech. I took exception to that, saying that it was a step in the right direction, at least. Recent articles in the Mainichi Shinbun seem to bear that out. Here is is the second of three (the first is here), talking about the positive effects of the law, where once-daily hate rallies are down, xenophobic language is softened and made less normalized, administrative organs now have means of enforcement, and even court cases are ruling in favor of targeted victims. Good. Read on. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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Effect of new anti-hate speech law spreads to executive, judicial branches

June 6, 2016 (Mainichi Japan)
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160606/p2a/00m/0na/012000c

Bulletin boards at the Ministry of Justice in Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki district are filled with 49 posters calling against hate speech campaigns, in this picture taken on June 3, 2016. The anti-hate speech law went into force that day. (Mainichi)

A new law aimed at eliminating hate speech campaigns, which instigate rejection of specific racial or ethnic groups from local communities, came into force on June 3. While the legislation has proven effective in some parts of the country, such as in Kawasaki where the court handed down a provisional injunction banning a hate speech rally in an area home to many Korean residents, there remain challenges that need to be addressed.

【Related】NPA to crack down on hate speech demonstrators through existing legislation
【Related】Court bans planned anti-Korean hate speech rally in Kawasaki
On June 5, a hate speech demonstration in Kawasaki was called off after participants were surrounded by hundreds of citizens protesting against the rally and police urged them to discontinue the event. The organizers terminated the rally after demonstrators paraded only about 10 meters down the road, in what was going to be the country’s first such demonstration since the anti-hate speech law came into effect.

The incident came three days after the Kawasaki branch of the Yokohama District Court issued a provisional injunction prohibiting a hate speech demonstration within a 500-meter radius of the office of a social welfare organization supporting Korean residents in the city. The decision forced organizers of the June 5 rally to change their plans, including the location for the event.

In October 2013, the Kyoto District Court handed down a ruling banning the Zaitokukai (Citizens against the special privileges of Korean residents in Japan) from staging hate speech demonstrations near the then Kyoto No. 1 Korean Elementary School and ordered the group to pay compensation. The ruling accused those demonstrations of “racial discrimination” in light of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The ruling was later finalized by the Supreme Court.

The June 2 provisional injunction issued by the Yokohama District Court’s Kawasaki branch also quoted the same international treaty, as well as the anti-hate speech law that had just been enacted in May. The ruling called hate speech rallies “illegal actions that infringe upon the personal rights for leading a peaceful life” and pointed out that grossly illegal hate speech campaigns, such as repeating loud chants with bullhorns, lie “outside the bounds of freedom of assembly and freedom of expression guaranteed under the Constitution.”

“The ruling conveys the court’s indignation over hate speech,” said a senior official at the Ministry of Justice about the provisional injunction going as far as to ban a planned hate speech demonstration in advance. The ministry was behind the submission of the anti-hate speech bill to the Diet.

Signs of change are also emerging in police responses over the issue. In step with the anti-hate speech law coming into effect, the National Police Agency issued a notice to prefectural police departments across the country asking them to strictly respond to hate speech demonstrations by making full use of existing legislation such as that against defamation and contempt.

Because the anti-hate speech legislation does not have any punitive provision or clause prohibiting such activities, it is impossible to crack down on hate speech with the law alone. It is said the use of roads for any demonstration must be granted in principle. Nonetheless, hundreds of riot police and other officers from Kanagawa Prefectural Police were mobilized at the site of the June 5 rally to prepare for any emergencies.

Yasuko Morooka, a lawyer who authored a book titled “Hate Speech towa nanika” (What is hate speech?), hails the anti-hate speech legislation, saying, “The law provides support for courts, local bodies and police in making a decision on their strict responses to hate speech.”

The new law, however, has its own limits. In order to provide relief to victims who suffered damage from hate speech, they still need to prove in detail violations of their personal rights and defamation, just as they needed to before the law came into effect. The June 2 provisional injunction banning a hate speech rally became viable as there existed crystal-clear damage in Kawasaki, where the organizers of the planned rally had repeatedly staged similar demonstrations on about a dozen occasions.

A senior Justice Ministry official said, “The court decision could be different if the expression used in the announcement for a hate speech demonstration was different. I’m not sure if the courts would issue a similar provisional injunction in other cases.”

ENDS

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Original Japanese:
クローズアップ２０１６
ヘイトスピーチ　新法効果、行政・司法に
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20160606/ddm/003/040/070000c
毎日新聞2016年6月6日　東京朝刊

特定の人種や民族を地域社会から排斥することを扇動するヘイトスピーチの解消をうたった対策法が３日、施行された。ヘイトスピーチを伴う街宣活動（ヘイトデモ）について、川崎市内の在日コリアン集住地域での実施を禁じる司法判断が出るなど早くも新法の波及効果が出ているが、なお課題も残る。

厳しい対応、後押し
対策法施行後、最初とみられるヘイトデモが５日に予定されていた川崎市。主催者側は道路で行進しようとしたが、デモに反対する数百人の市民らが取り囲むなど騒然とした雰囲気に包まれ、約１０メートル進んだところで警察の説得を受け入れて中止となった。

今回のデモを巡っては、横浜地裁川崎支部が２日、在日コリアンが多いエリアにある事務所から半径５００メートル以内での実施を禁じる仮処分を決定。主催者側は場所などの計画の変更を迫られた。

こうした司法判断の先例としては、京都朝鮮初級学校（京都市）前での街宣活動を巡る京都地裁判決（２０１３年１０月）がある。国連の人種差別撤廃条約を根拠に街宣を「人種差別」と指摘し、周辺での街宣禁止と損害賠償を「在日特権を許さない市民の会」側に命じた（最高裁で確定）。

２日の仮処分決定の特徴は、同条約に加えて先月成立したばかりの対策法を引用した点にある。対策法が定義するヘイトスピーチを「平穏に生活する人格権に対する違法な侵害行為」ととらえた上で、拡声機を使って大音量で繰り返すなどヘイトデモの違法性が著しいケースは「憲法が定める集会や表現の自由の保障の範囲外」と指摘した。デモを事前に差し止めるという踏み込んだ判断に、法務省のある幹部は「ヘイトスピーチに対する裁判所の憤りを感じる」との感想を漏らした。

警察の対応にも変化の兆しがみられる。警察庁は施行に合わせて、（名誉毀損（きそん）罪や侮辱罪などの）現行法を駆使してヘイトデモに厳しく対処するよう各都道府県警に通達。対策法は禁止や罰則がない「理念法」で、ヘイトスピーチ自体を取り締まることはできない。デモの前提となる道路使用も原則許可しなければならないとされる。それでも、５日の現場には、神奈川県警の機動隊員など数百人を動員し、不測の事態に備えた。

「ヘイト・スピーチとは何か」の著書がある師岡康子弁護士は対策法の意義について「裁判所や自治体、警察がヘイトスピーチに厳格に対処する判断の後押しになってきている」と語る。

もちろん、効果には限界もある。ヘイトスピーチの被害救済についても、被害者側が人格権侵害や名誉毀損などを具体的に証明する必要があるという状況は施行前と変わらない。２日の仮処分決定は、主催者側が過去十数回、市内で同種デモを繰り返しており、被害が明白だったことが差し止めを可能とした。

法務省幹部は「例えば、デモを呼びかける告知の表現が一つ違えば司法判断は変わりうる。他のケースで差し止めが認められるかは分からない」と言う。【鈴木一生、川上晃弘】

各自治体、試行錯誤　努力義務に温度差
法務省が３月公表した実態調査（２０１２年４月〜１５年９月）によると、ヘイトデモの発生のピークは１３、１４年だが、「沈静化したとは言えない状況」にある。こうした中、スタートした対策法は国にヘイトスピーチ解消の責務を、自治体には努力義務を課しているが、その「努力」には温度差がある。

５日に中止となった川崎市内のデモでは、市は事前に、主催者側が集合場所として申請した公園２カ所の使用を許可しなかった。対策法が定義する「差別的言動」に当たると判断したためだ。市人権・男女共同参画室は「難しい判断だった。新法なしに不許可は出せなかった」。仮処分決定と同様、市が対策法の趣旨を最大限生かそうとしたことがうかがえる。

逆に、名古屋市では先月２９日、同市中区の公園を出発点にヘイトデモが行われた。「（利用申請の）書類に不備がない」ことが許可の理由だった。河村たかし市長は翌日の記者会見で「何をしてもいいというわけではないが、表現の自由も大事」と述べた。

独自の取り組みを進める自治体もある。大阪市では７月１日、ヘイトスピーチ抑止に向けた全国初の条例が施行される。市に被害の申し立てがあれば、国際法学者や弁護士らでつくる審査会が「ヘイトスピーチに該当するか」を調査。答申を受けた市長が「該当する」と判断した場合、その内容と団体・個人名を市のホームページで公表する。ネット上の差別的な書き込みも施行日以降に残っていれば対象になる。吉村洋文市長は「法律は（被害者救済のための）具体的な措置がなく不十分。市条例には盛り込まれており、抑止になる」と強調する。【太田圭介、三上剛輝、岡崎大輔】

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Mainichi: After Osaka hate speech ordinance adopted, daily xenophobic marches decrease, hateful language softened

Posted on October 6, 2016October 8, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. When Japan’s first actual law against hate speech was passed in January this year, critics (naturally) decried it as a means to stifle freedom of speech. I took exception to that, saying that it was a step in the right direction, at least. Recent articles in the Mainichi Shinbun seem to bear that out. Here is one of three, talking about the positive effects of the law, where once-daily hate rallies are down, xenophobic language is softened and made less normalized, administrative organs now have means of enforcement, and even court cases are ruling in favor of targeted victims. Good. Read on. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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

From: JK
Hi Debito. Have a look here:

1 month after anti-hate speech law adopted, marches down, language softened
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160724/p2a/00m/0na/003000c

“The thinking of those putting out hate speech and the (essential) content of what they say may not change, but at least on the surface we can see the effects of the countermeasures. It seems (for example) that the organizers are not allowing demonstrators who often say extremist things to have bullhorns.”

“Preventing hate marches through the law thus depends not on cracking down on such actions, but on government policies that put a stop to discrimination.”

Seems like the law is doing a decent job of treating the symptoms, but is obviously unable to deal with the underlying problem due to the absence of an anti-racial discrimination law on the books.

In other news, the German Justice Minister wants harsher action against hate speech online:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/07/19/german-justice-minister-harsher-action-hate-speech/

Regards, JK

Full article:

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

1 month after anti-hate speech law adopted, marches down, language softened
July 24, 2016 (Mainichi Japan)
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160724/p2a/00m/0na/003000c

A protest banner reading “sever Japan and South Korean relations” and a counter “anti-racism” protest’s banner written in English are seen in Chuo Ward, Tokyo, on June 19, 2016. (Photo credit: Mainichi)

One month after a new anti-hate speech law was put into effect, and following the introduction of the nation’s first local anti-hate speech ordinance in the city of Osaka on July 1, the Mainichi Shimbun investigated how much effect these new measures have had in putting an end to hate-speech protests.

A citizen’s group that accuses the Osaka ordinance of “discriminating against Japanese” and was planning a demonstration in front of the Osaka Municipal Office on July 12 listed the following among its notices for its demonstrators: “Please don’t use placards with extreme content,” and “No flags with swastikas or other things that will invite misunderstanding.”

The demonstration was canceled due to rain, so what exactly was meant by “extreme content” is unknown, but it seems likely the group was trying to limit language that insults and rejects ethnic Koreans in Japan.

Mun Gong Hwi, an ethnic Korean, is head of the secretariat of “Hate Speech o Yurusanai! Osaka no Kai” (don’t allow hate speech! Osaka group), which has applied based on the Osaka ordinance for recognition as a target of hate speech. Mun says, “In a street demonstration by a hate group in April, there was a moment when one participant started to use blatantly offensive language to attack Koreans, and the organizers hurried to stop them. The number of hate demonstrations has also fallen greatly since around the time of the ordinance taking effect.”

Under the Osaka ordinance, if the mayor authorizes it, individuals or groups that have conducted hateful behavior toward others can have their names publicized, but so far this aspect of the ordinance has not been used. Mun adds, “The drop in (hate) demonstrations may just be because they are watching to see how things develop.”

In Ginza, Tokyo, where since around last year there has been a marked increase in hate demonstrations, there have also been changes since the new legal measures. During a demonstration on June 19, instead of banners insulting Koreans, protesters carried banners calling for severing relations between Japan and South Korea, apparently having chosen to avoid ethnically-charged language and instead place emphasis on their political argument.

Masayuki Watanabe, associate professor at Daito Bunka University, who has been urging Ginza commerce and industry associations and the ward assembly to take action against hate speech, says, “The thinking of those putting out hate speech and the (essential) content of what they say may not change, but at least on the surface we can see the effects of the countermeasures. It seems (for example) that the organizers are not allowing demonstrators who often say extremist things to have bullhorns.”

The response of police and the government administrations to hate marches has also changed. On June 5, just after the execution of the new law, the Kawasaki Municipal Government refused to give permission for a park to be used for a protest targeting the social welfare corporation “Seikyu-sha,” which gives support to the many ethnic Koreans living in the city’s Sakuramoto district. Additionally, the Kawasaki branch of the Yokohama District Court called the hate speech demonstrations “an illegal violation of human rights” and prohibited them from being held near the Seikyu-sha building.

Kanagawa Prefectural Police gave permission for the demonstration to be held in a different street location, but protesters staged a sit-in. The police urged the organizers to call off the demonstration for safety reasons, and it was canceled.

Tomohito Miura, the head of Seikyu-sha’s secretariat, says, “Before the anti-hate speech law was created, the police wouldn’t even tell us the routes planned for the demonstrations, and it was we who were treated like an illegal group. The police wouldn’t protect us from hate demonstrations in our neighborhoods, and government services would say, ‘There is only so much we can do under the current law.’ We were on the receiving end of these three layers of damage.” He was complimentary, however, toward the efforts of government organs, the judiciary, police and citizens since the passage of the law, saying, “It is a definite step forward that we were able to stop the demonstration.”

While vulgar insults from these hate marches may be disappearing from the streets, the question remains whether the new law will be effective in combatting discrimination. In deference to the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech, the law does not forbid anything or include any punishments, but it makes it the national government’s responsibility to set up help for victims of hate speech and to work to educate and provide awareness to the public to stop the speech from occurring. It also calls on municipal governments to work toward these goals. Preventing hate marches through the law thus depends not on cracking down on such actions, but on government policies that put a stop to discrimination.

The Ministry of Justice’s Human Rights Bureau dispatched employees not only for the planned Kawasaki demonstration, but also for ones in the cities of Fukuoka and Osaka after the new law went into effect. Using tools such as videos and posters, they are trying to educate people about hate speech. However, the bureau emphasizes, “The law does not involve applying any kind of legal effect when there is a case of hate speech.”

Following the implementation of the new law, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology instructed prefectural boards of education to take “appropriate responses.” When asked what kind of education is an appropriate response to the law, the ministry’s Social Education Division said, “Efforts that are adapted to the circumstances, such as whether there are many foreigners in an area, are needed. However, we mustn’t stir up settled problems through this education.” While there is some truth to what the division says, it does seem they are still trying to find their footing on how to proceed.

Will other parts of Japan do the same as the Osaka Municipal Government and establish local ordinances against hate speech? When asked about specific future policies on hate speech, the human rights and gender-equality section of the Kawasaki Municipal Government was tight-lipped, saying its policy was being carried out “at the discretion of the mayor.” When pressed, a representative said, “Regarding things like refusing permission to allow use of the park (for the hate demonstration), I hear there is a movement to sue the municipal government for discriminating against Japanese people. We don’t want to reveal our plans.” Apparently, like the demonstrators, the government side is watching to see what the other does.

If another hate demonstration is planned in Kawasaki, will the citizens have no choice but to stage a sit-in and wait for police intervention? Miura says, “The fact that police gave permission for the June demonstration to be held in the street shows the current limits (of the law). We can’t ask the police and government services to do everything. Next time, we will have to stop the demonstration in a different way. The work to overcome the limits of the law has just begun.”

Not limited to just fighting against hate speech, Miura says Seikyu-sha will work with the municipal government to advance effective ordinances and guidelines that promote the coexistence of different cultures.

Regarding the city of Osaka, which has its own anti-hate ordinance, Mun says, “We don’t yet know the extent of the effects of the anti-hate law or the ordinance. This is why we want to use the ordinance as much as possible and discover exactly what it can do and what it can’t. Based on that, if necessary, we want to pursue revision of the ordinance to restrict hate speech itself.” This position of wanting to observe what happens and then compensate for any deficiencies in the anti-hate legislation is one shared by Miura and the others at Seikyu-sha.

Always accompanying the hostile feelings of the hate demonstrations is the shadow of war. The targeting of the Sakuramoto area was triggered by a protest in September last year by elderly ethnic Koreans against the bills for the new security laws. Wearing traditional Korean garb, the protesters were based out of the “Fureai-kan,” a facility managed by Seikyu-sha.

“The hate demonstration was clearly in revenge for that,” says Miura.

One of the participants in the anti-security laws protest, first-generation Korean immigrant Kim Bang Ja, 85, is also a student of literacy at the Fureai-kan. She was about 5 when she came to Japan, following her father who worked in a coal mine in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Busy with looking after her younger sister and doing household chores, she says she was only able to go to school for about one year. When the anti-hate law was passed in May this year, she was sitting as an observer in the Diet. She wrote her impressions about the law in a composition in her literacy class.

After describing how she disliked being insulted with foul language, she wrote, “Let’s stop doing that kind of thing and get along.” Although overall the writing was inconsistent, for this part alone it was particularly large and strong.

“My hand was shaking because I was writing in ink,” says Kim, adding, “If people talk they can come to an understanding. We have to get along with each other and not hate others.”

Will these words get through to those who participate in the hate demonstrations? The first step to realizing the ideals put forward in the anti-hate law is surely having communication between the two sides.

ENDS
Japanese version:
==============================
特集ワイド
ヘイト対策法施行１カ月の現場を見る　差別許さぬ包囲網　デモ隊は規制警戒、侮蔑・排外的表現控え
毎日新聞2016年7月15日　東京夕刊
http://mainichi.jp/articles/20160715/dde/012/040/015000c

６月１９日、銀座で行われたデモでは、「日韓断交」という標語が目立った。手前の沿道からは市民が「反レイシズム」と英語で書かれたプラカードを掲げ抗議した＝東京都中央区で２０１６年６月１９日、井田純撮影

特定の人種や民族に対しての差別的な言動解消を目指すヘイトスピーチ対策法施行から１カ月が過ぎた。１日には大阪市で全国初のヘイトスピーチ抑止条例が施行された。法律や条例といった規制で、差別はどこまでなくなるのか。ヘイトデモの現場を歩きながら考えた。【井田純】

「過激な内容のプラカードはご遠慮ください」「ハーケンクロイツ（ナチス・ドイツが用いたシンボルマーク）など、誤解を招くような旗は禁止」

大阪市ヘイトスピーチ抑止条例は「日本人差別法だ」と主張する市民団体が１２日に市役所前で予定していた街頭宣伝活動の案内文には、こんな注意事項があった。活動は雨で中止になったため、「過激な内容」が何を意味するかは分からないが、在日コリアンを侮辱したり、排斥したりといった言動は控えようという姿勢がうかがえる。

「４月に市中心部で行われたヘイトグループの街宣で、参加者の一人が『朝鮮人が』と露骨な表現で攻撃を始めると主催者があわてて制止する場面があった。デモの回数も条例施行前後からめっきり減っています」

こう話すのは、抑止条例に基づき被害申し立てを行った「ヘイトスピーチを許さない！大阪の会」の事務局長で在日コリアンの文公輝（ムンゴンフィ）さんだ。条例は市長が認定すればヘイト行為をした個人名や団体名などが公表されるが、まだその条例適用事例はない。「デモが減ったのも、ただ単に様子を見ているだけかもしれません」

昨年あたりから、ヘイトデモが目立つようになった東京・銀座でも、変化が見られる。先月１９日に行われたデモでは、在日コリアン罵倒のプラカードでなく、複数の「日韓断交」ののぼりが目立った。民族を排斥する表現を避けて、政治的主張に力点を置いたものと見られる。

銀座の商店会や区議にヘイト対策を働きかけている渡辺雅之・大東文化大准教授は「ヘイト側の考え方、中身は変わらないかもしれないが、少なくとも表面的には対策法の影響がうかがえる。主催者も、特に過激な発言が多い参加者には拡声機を持たせないようにしているようだ」と分析する。

警察や行政の対応も変わった。対策法施行直後の６月５日、在日コリアンが多く住む川崎市・桜本地区で、彼らの支援を続ける社会福祉法人「青丘社」をターゲットにしたヘイトデモ計画に対し、市は同所近くの公園利用の不許可を決定。横浜地裁川崎支部はヘイトデモを「人格権に対する違法な侵害行為」と認定し、法人近くでのデモを禁止した。神奈川県警は市内の別の地区で道路使用を許可したが、抗議する市民が座り込みを行い、安全上の理由から中止するよう県警が主催者に働きかけ、デモは中止になった。

「対策法ができる前は、警察からデモコースも教えてもらえず、こちらが不法集団のように扱われてきた。自分たちの生活圏で行われるヘイトスピーチ、人権被害から守ってくれない警察、『現行法でできることに限界がある』という行政。この『三重の被害』を受けてきたんです」。青丘社の三浦知人事務局長はこう振り返りながらも、法施行後の行政、司法、警察、市民による手探りの努力について「結果としてデモを阻止できたのは、確実な一歩です」と評価した。

口汚い罵倒は街頭から消えつつある。法で差別解消が実現されるのだろうか。

行政の限界、市民が埋める取り組み
対策法は、憲法が保障する「表現の自由」を尊重し、禁止規定や罰則のない理念法だ。運用については、相談体制整備や教育、啓発活動を国の責務とし、自治体にも同様の努力を求めている。抑止効果は、行為への取り締まりではなく、差別をなくす行政の政策にかかっているのだ。

法務省人権擁護局は、川崎のほか施行後に行われた福岡、大阪でのヘイトデモの現場周辺にも職員を派遣。映像やポスターなどを使った啓発活動を実施している。だが「具体的にヘイトスピーチにあたる行為があった場合、それに対して何らかの法律効果を生じさせる、という構成の法律ではない」と強調する。

対策法施行を受け、都道府県の教育委員会に「適切な対応」を求める通達を出した文部科学省。同省社会教育課に、どんな啓発教育が適切なのか聞くと、「外国人が多い地域かどうかなど、事情に応じた取り組みが必要。教育を通じて『寝た子を起こす』ことになってもいけない」との回答。一理あるが、まだ手探りの感は否めない。

大阪市のような条例制定の動きが、各地に広まっていくのだろうか。川崎市の人権・男女共同参画室に今後の具体的な施策を尋ねると、「市長判断で行われていることなので」と口が重い。食い下がると、「公園使用不許可などに関して、日本人を差別した、と市を相手取った訴訟を起こす動きもあると聞く。手の内を明かすようなことは……」と警戒心をあらわにした。相手の出方をうかがっているのは行政も同じようだ。

川崎市で再びヘイトデモが計画されたら、また、市民が道路に座り込み、県警の仲介を待つしかないのだろうか。前出の三浦さんは「６月のデモで、警察が道路使用を許可したことが今の限界を示している。何でも警察や行政に求めることはできない。今度は別の形で止めなければ。限界を埋める作業は始まったばかり」と話す。ヘイトスピーチ規制に限らず、多文化共生に向けた条例やガイドラインなど実効性のある取り組みを行政と連携しながら模索するという。

一方、独自に条例を持つ大阪市の今後について文さんは「どこまでが対策法の効果か、条例の影響かまだ分からない。だからこそ、我々は条例をできるだけ活用し、具体的にどんな効力を持つのか、どういう点で無力なのかを見極めていきたい。その上で、必要ならヘイトスピーチ自体を規制する条例改正も求めたい」と語る。実例を見ながら、対策法の不十分な領域を補っていこうという方向性は三浦さんたちと共通する。

在日１世「なかよくしよう」
ヘイトデモが起きる敵対感情には、戦争の影がつきまとう。桜本地区が標的になったのは、青丘社が運営する「ふれあい館」を活動拠点とする在日コリアンの高齢者が昨年９月、安全保障関連法案反対デモをチマ・チョゴリ姿で行ったのがきっかけだ。「ヘイトデモは明らかにその仕返しだった」と三浦さんは言う。

安保法案反対デモに参加した一人で、在日コリアン１世の金芳子（キムバンジャ）さん（８５）は、ふれあい館の識字学級に通う生徒でもある。山口県の炭鉱労働者だった父を追って日本に渡ったのは５歳のころ。妹の子守りや家事で忙しく、学校には１年程度しか通えなかったという。対策法が成立した５月、国会で傍聴した時の思いを教室で書いた作文を見せてくれた。

汚い言葉でののしられるのは嫌だという気持ちの後に、「もうそろそろそんなことはやめにして、なかよくしましょうよ」とある。不ぞろいの文字は、ここだけひときわ大きく力強い。「墨で書いたから手が震えたよ」と恥ずかしがりながら、金さんは言った。「やっぱし人間は話せばわかる。人を憎まないで仲ようするしかない」

ヘイトデモに加わった人たちに、この言葉が届く日が来ると信じたい。対策法の理念を現実にしていく過程はきっと対話から始まる。
ENDS
///////////////////////////////////

Nikkei: Japan begins clearing path for foreign workers. Really? Let’s analyze the proposals.

Posted on August 22, 2016August 24, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. The Economist (London) recently has had a couple of articles on immigration to and even naturalization into Japan (here and here), so it looks like PM Abe’s alleged pushes to liberalize Japan’s NJ labor market (despite these other countering trends here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) are gaining traction in the overseas media. Let’s take a representative sample of the narrative being spun by the Japanese media for overseas consumption (in this case the Nikkei, Japan’s WSJ, which recently published an incorrect article about NJ issues and refused to acknowledge its mistake), and see how it holds up to scrutiny. Original article text in bold italic, my comments interspliced in this regular text:

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

Japan begins clearing path for foreign workers

Nikkei Asian Review, August 11, 2016, Courtesy of JK
http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/Japan-begins-clearing-path-for-foreign-workers

TOKYO — The Japanese government is set to take steps to smooth the way for foreigners to enter and thrive in the domestic labor market, with the reforms targeting hospitalization, taxes and residency requirements.

The economic growth strategy devised by the central government in June highlights the need to aggressively attract foreign talent. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and others are hearing opinions from companies worldwide regarding bringing information technology specialists into Japan.

COMMENT: This focus on “foreign talent” is basically policy wonk speak for “we’re not importing unskilled labor”. Even though we are. And have been doing so through a government-sponsored NJ slave labor program (this is not an exaggeration) for more than a quarter century. And if we talk about this push for “specialists”, they’ve already tried that with the “Points System” visa regime, and, as we predicted, it failed miserably. Understandably. Read on to see why it’s going to fail again.

The trade ministry aims to amend related legislation and tax rules during the regular Diet session in 2017.

English-friendly hospitals

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare seeks to allay concerns among foreigners living in Japan about going to hospitals. Only about 20 hospitals nationwide are equipped to handle emergency cases involving foreigners. The goal is to double that number by March and raise it to 100 before the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

COMMENT: Nice, but up to 100 in four years? That’s helpful for the tourists coming for the Olympics, but that’s not exactly a huge help for NJ who actually live in Japan, moreover outside of the Kantou conurb (where I anticipate the majority of these hospitals will be situated). Moreover, 100 hospitals in a country where there are apparently, as of 1990, “8,700 general hospitals, and 1,000 comprehensive hospitals with a total capacity of 1.5 million beds” is minuscule (a little over one percent) and presumably not well spread out.

Given that the problem is not a matter of providing medical treatment in English (if a patient is, for example, unconscious or unresponsive, language is not an issue) but rather hospitals actually ACCEPTING or TREATING NJ patients (a big problem for Japanese patients too), merely ameliorating a language barrier (assuming all NJ speak English, too) is more of a salve than an actual cure of the larger problem.

The government will help cover costs arising from hiring interpreters and offering documents in English. Multilingual versions of questionnaires and hospital signs cost an average of 3 million yen ($29,619), according to estimates, and the government generally will pay half the expense. For medical interpreters and similar services, the state will subsidize a hospital to the tune of roughly 9 million yen.

COMMENT: Nice, but obviously porkbarrel.

Officials also seek to help foreigners on the tax front. If a foreign worker dies in Japan due to unforeseen circumstances such as an accident, the inheritance tax applies to assets held in all jurisdictions. This discourages foreign talent with sizable assets from taking management positions in Japanese companies. Many are urging reform, and METI intends to coordinate with the Finance Ministry and ruling parties to apply the inheritance tax only to Japanese assets starting in fiscal 2017.

COMMENT: Yes, that is, if you die and leave Japanese assets valued at more than US $88,000 (and there are ways of getting around this too — gifting it to your kin before you die, for example). Clearly this is a concession the rich expats hanging around Roppongi Hills have lobbied for. I doubt that this will affect most NJ residents (and not least the “foreign talent taking management positions in Japanese companies”, wherever they apparently are).

And (microaggression alert:) I love how NJ die of “accidents”, not of old age in Japan. Because implicitly they are temporary and don’t live in Japan forever, right? Nice, Nikkei.

Talent search

The government looks to ease residency requirements for guest workers. The Justice Ministry will recognize certified foreign care workers as specialists worthy of the corresponding visa status.

Japan currently admits care workers through economic partnership agreements, but those are limited to countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. The number of guest workers is expected to increase by allowing care givers who learn Japanese or professional skill sets at educational institutions to work in Japan. Necessary legislation is to be enacted during the extraordinary Diet session this fall, with the measures taking effect next fiscal year.

COMMENT: Yep, they tried that too before. Until the Indonesians and Filipinas realized they were being exploited by a revolving-door visa system that deliberately set the bar too high for passing, and decided to pass on Japan altogether. So Japan’s policymakers are moving on to the next exploitable societies: Cambodia and Vietnam. Which, note, are also not kanji-literate societies; if the GOJ really wanted to get people to pass the nurse literacy test (full of medical kanji), they would get nurses from China or Chinese-diaspora countries. The fact that they won’t speaks volumes about their true policy intentions. As does the next paragraph:

The government also seeks quick passage of legislation to add the care worker category to Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program, which provides support to developing nations.

COMMENT: Meaning they’re going to bring them in too as “Trainee” slaves exempt from Japan’s labor laws.

Researchers and other highly skilled foreign professionals likely will find it easier to obtain permanent resident status. Currently, a foreign national needs to reside in Japan for five years before gaining that status. Government agencies are debating lowering the bar to less than three years, with a decision expected this year at the earliest. South Korea allows those with PhDs in high-tech fields to apply for permanent residency after a one-year stay.

Japan also aims to cut red tape surrounding investment and establishing new enterprises in order to help foreign corporations do business. Surveys examining barriers to foreign businesses and professionals have begun, and they will inform initial reforms to be decided by year’s end at the soonest. (Nikkei)

COMMENT: These are proposals are still in the embryonic stage. When that actually happens, that will be news and we’ll talk about it then. Reporting on it now is still policy trial-ballooning on the Nikkei’s part.

FINAL COMMENT: There is nothing here that constitutes actual immigration, i.e., bringing in people and making them into Japanese citizens with equal protection guaranteed under the law. Until that happens, there is no discussion here worthy of headlining this as a “cleared path” for foreign workers. It’s merely more of the same exploitation of imported laborers in a weakened position by government design. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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Zaitokukai xenophobic hate group’s Sakurai Makoto runs for Tokyo Governorship; his electoral platform analyzed here (UPDATED: he lost badly)

Posted on July 26, 2016July 31, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As Debito.org’s second post on the upcoming July 31, 2016, Tokyo Governorship race (reasons why you should care about it are here), I just wanted to cover the candidacy of the anti-foreign vote, particularly Sakurai Makoto, “former leader” of the officially-certified xenophobic hate group Zaitokukai. Here’s his campaign poster:

(All images courtesy of MS)

While this bullying berk hasn’t a snowball’s chance of winning, thank goodness, it’s still a bellwether of Japan’s general tolerance of hate speech that a person like this would be taken seriously enough to allow a candidate who espouses hatred of whole peoples (and believe me he’s not alone, pre-hate speech law).

So let’s take a look at his party platform, since that’s what we do here (click on image to expand in browser):

Okay, deep breath. I’m only going to translate the headlines. He’s running as an “unaffiliated” (mushozoku) candidate, and his headline is putting “Japan first” and “returning Tokyo politics to Japanese nationals” (kokumin) (a riff on one of PM Abe’s previous election slogans).

Here are the seven points of his platform:

Abolishing “social welfare” (seikatsu hogo) for foreigners (even though they’re also paying for it, and it’s not as though they’re really taking advantage of the system).
Reducing the number of illegal foreign overstayers by half (even though according to the MOJ itself the number has almost always been falling since 1993).
Passing a law against hate speech against Japan/Japanese (because of course those bullying foreign minorities shouldn’t be allowed to victimize that poor disempowered Japanese majority!)
Increase taxes on facilities run by domestic minority Korean groups Souren and Mindan (because nothing spells equalized justice against minorities than targeted tax increases against them).
“Regulate” illegal gambling at [Korean] pachinko parlors (because after all, gambling is a naughty activity in Japan, except when it’s gambling on horse racing sanctioned by the JRA, or motor boating, or bicycling, or Japanese-run pachinko parlors etc.; you’d assume that if it was in fact “illegal”, it would already be “regulated”… Oh wait, this is suddenly “illegal” because it’s connected to Koreans, right?).
Suspending the building of Korean schools (because of course they’re proliferating like wildflowers across Japan).
Putting forth a more compact Tokyo 2020 Olympics (thrown in as an afterthought, because we’re not fixating on foreigners, right?).

You can read the fine print of his platform for yourself, but it all spells the need for some to launder their hatred through Japan’s electoral process. Let’s see how many votes this bully ultimately gets come August 1 (the last bully candidate we tracked here, Tamogami Toshio, finished dead last in his division). Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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

UPDATE JULY 31, 2016

According to today’s election results (Asahi.com in Japanese), turncoat opportunist (and hobnobber with xenophobes) Koike Yuriko won the Tokyo Governorship easily, receiving more than a million votes over the officially-sponsored LDP candidate, who came second. The anti-Abe candidate came in a distant third with less than half the votes of Koike.

Sakurai came an even more distant fifth, garnering only 114,171 votes, or 2.08% of all votes cast. He ranked no better than single digits in any electoral district of Tokyo-to (and in two districts less than 1%), which is good news. Even better news is that he fared much worse than extreme rightist militarist Tamogami Toshio, who got 610,865 votes in the previous 2014 Tokyo Gubernatorial Election, or 12.39% of all votes cast.

So keep wasting your group’s funds on these elections, Sakurai. It’s probably better than investing them in your hate rallies.

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

Meanwhile back in Tokyo: Gov candidate Koike Yuriko allegedly spoke at anti-foreign hate group Zaitokukai in 2010

Posted on July 19, 2016July 22, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. For those who haven’t been following Japanese politics (recently it’s been a pretty dismal science), there’s another race you might want to follow — that of the race for Tokyo Governorship on July 31, 2016. This matters, because Tokyo is 1) Japan’s largest and most cosmopolitan city, one of few with a still-growing population (as Japan’s countryside continues to depopulate and die) and even significant foreign resident enclaves; 2) a world city, cited by at least one international ranking system (Monocle, incidentally partially owned by a Japanese publisher) as the world’s “most livable city”; and 3) the city with the highest GDP (according to the Brookings Institution, even adjusted for PPP) in the world — in fact, according to the IMF, Tokyo alone is the ninth-largest economy in the world, larger even than Brazil, and easily over a third of Japan’s entire GDP (at 36%).

So who gets elected governor of this capital city area should matter to the world. And it has, at least to the world’s third-largest economy. Tokyo set the trend for electing far-right xenophobic governors by electing (several times) Ishihara “I wanted a war with China” Shintaro, who legitimized a xenophobic program within Tokyo environs to the point where bullying of foreigners became normalized throughout Japan (see also book “Embedded Racism” Ch. 7). And with that, far-right hate group Zaitokukai and similar groups became emboldened to hold anti-foreign rallies (some that advocated the “killing of all Koreans“) on a daily basis in recent years. Not to mention that Tokyo is hosting the 2020 Olympics. Given the degree of centralization of, well, everything that matters in Japan in Tokyo, as Tokyo does, so does the rest of Japan.

That’s why the Tokyo Governorship has been a controversial seat this century. First, Governor Ishihara used it as a bully pulpit to justify destabilizing the rest of Asia. Then his hand-picked successor, former Vice-Governor and investigative writer Inose Naoki resigned after a payola scandal. His successor, TV personality and pundit Masuzoe Yoichi similarly recently resigned after a payola scandal. Now the seat has become a referendum of the two leading parties, the waxing and right-shifting Liberal Democratic Party of PM Abe Shinzo, and the waning leftist Democratic Party still trying to recapture some momentum. And into the breach has dived LDP former cabinet member Koike Yuriko, who may even be a favorite to win.

But not so fast. According to Zaitokukai, Koike spoke at their organization back in 2010. Koike is known as a person who flip-flops between parties and positions often, but this is a bit too far for Debito.org’s comfort. Is this the type of person that Tokyoites want? Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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

FROM ZAITOKUKAI’S WEBSITE (Courtesy EJ):

そよ風小池百合子先生講演会
＜どうしたらいいの？尖閣、北方領土、竹島で負け続ける日本＞

今こそ、小池先生に聞いてみよう！
小池元防衛相に斬りこもう！
自民再生できるのか！

尖閣に中国が侵略して日本が普通の国になる千載一遇のチャンスがやってきました。
今こそ私達はどの政党に、どの政治家に、この日本を任せられるか知りましょう。

手きびしい質問（糾弾？）大募集
日頃、疑問に思っていること等を自民党三役に就任された小池先生にぜひぶつけてみましょう。
沢山のご質問お待ちしています。

【日時】
平成２２年１２月５日（日）１４：００～

【場所】
あうるすぽっと（有楽町線東池袋駅直結）

【講演】
講師：小池百合子　衆議院議員
演題：「日本と地球の護りかた」
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfv_mk7RCF0

【生中継】
生放送は中止となりました。
下記URL放送は在特会名古屋支部街頭活動に変更いたします
ニコニコ生放送１４：００～
http://live.nicovideo.jp/gate/lv33405203

【問い合わせ・質問宛先】
そよ風青山
yadokari26@gmail.com

【主催】
そよ風
http://www.soyokaze2009.com/

【協賛】
在日特権を許さない市民の会女性部（花紋）

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

Japan Center for Michigan Universities (Hikone, Shiga Pref.) sponsors July 23 lecture by Japan’s first Muslim lawyer Junko Hayashi, on Islam and issues faced by Muslims in Japan

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Passing this information and flyer along upon request as a matter of record. Attend the talk. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

=========================
The Japan Center for Michigan Universities (JCMU) in Hikone, Shiga Prefecture, is proud to welcome Junko Hayashi, Japan’s first female Muslim attorney, to speak about Islam and the issues faced by Muslims in Japan. In a recent court battle, Ms. Hayashi represented Japanese Muslims that were being watched by the Japanese government for no reason other than they are Muslims. The surveillance of these Japanese citizens came to light after information gathered by police was accidentally leaked on the Internet. Japanese courts ruled that there was no constitutional violation and that the threat of international terrorism outweighed any privacy right held by the plaintiffs.

Muslim culture is an important part of Michigan culture, making JCMU the ideal place to host this event. JCMU is also a place where people from many different cultures come together to learn about culture and language while exchanging ideas that make our world a better place. It is JCMU’s hope that the Islamophobia gripping much of the Western world can be avoided in Japan through education and mutual understanding.

Ms. Hayashi will present at JCMU (1435-86 Matsubara-Cho, Hikone-Shi, Shiga-Ken 522-0002) on July 23, 2016 in both English and Japanese. People interested in attending the lecture can register by email at register@jcmu.org. The English language lecture will start at 17:00, with the Japanese lecture following at 19:00. Admission is free. For further information about JCMU and its programs please see our website English website at jcmu.isp.msu.edu and our Japanese website at www.jcmu.net.
=========================

As the requester notes: “Thank you so much for helping us get the word out. With the recent terror attacks in Bangladesh I fear the worst for the rise of Islmaophobia in Japan. The Japan Times just posted an article about the Muslim surveillance case last night. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2016/07/13/issues/shadow-surveillance-looms-japans-muslims/ It would be great if we could get the Japan Times down here to hear the lecture.”

Flyer:

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

Brief comments on the July 2016 Upper House Election: The path is cleared for Japan’s Constitutional revision

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As is tradition on Debito.org, here is a comment (this time brief) on the outcome of the July 10, 2016 election in Japan for the Upper House of Parliament.

The results of the election are here in Japanese (English here), and on the surface this is what they say to me:

PM Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its allies won handily. The LDP picked up six more seats (while its joined-at-the-hip party ally Koumeitou won an extra five, as did other LDP-simpatico parties), winning the near-supermajority in the Upper House that it was shooting for (i.e., only one seat away from the 2/3 supermajority of 162 seats). The largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, lost eleven seats, and while other smaller opposition parties picked up a seat or three, that doesn’t offset the LDP’s net gain. In other words, Abe won his third election in a row solidly.

According to the electoral map on the Japanese page, the left side of Japan (north and west of Tokyo, that is) outside of big cities is essentially the LDP, the ruling party that has governed for most of Japan’s Postwar Era. The right side of Japan (north of Tokyo and up) is more mixed, but the closer you get to the Fukushima disaster areas the more likely they went for opposition or unaffiliated parties. Hokkaido (my home prefecture) went 2/3 opposition, as usual, but the biggest vote-getter was the LDP candidate.

Commentators have talked about the deception behind this election (that Abe kept the talk on economics instead of his pet project of reforming Japan’s American-written 1945 Constitution in ways that are neither Liberal nor Democratic), about how Japan’s opposition have been so disorganized that they haven’t put up much more than an “anyone-but-Abe” policy stance, and about how PM Abe probably won’t go after the Constitution for a while.

But I would disagree. What more does Abe need in terms of confirmed mandate? As I said, he’s won three elections solidly (probably better than even former PM and LDP party-leader template Koizumi did), he’s essentially gotten a supermajority in both houses of Parliament, and these wins will be seen as public affirmation that Abe’s on the right track (especially within the ranks of the LDP itself; he already regained the LDP presidency running unopposed). Abe has made it quite clear constantly since he’s been anywhere close to power that he wants a return to Japan’s past (foreigner-uninfluenced) glories. Now nothing is really stopping him, short of a national referendum.

And despite opinion polls saying that people don’t want bits or all of Japan’s Constitution changed, I don’t think the Japanese public is all that scared of that happening anymore. Not enough to vote significantly against him at election time. My take is that Japan is becoming a more geriatric society, and with that more politically conservative. That conservatism I don’t think extends to old documents seen as imposed as part of Victors’ Justice. As of this writing, I will be surprised if a) Abe doesn’t push for Constitutional revision, and b) it doesn’t succeed. Clearly the Japanese public keeps handing Abe the keys to do so. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

—————————-

Overseas online info site Traveloco.jp’s “Japanese Only” rules: “People with foreign-sounding names refused service”

Posted on July 5, 2016July 5, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here we have an online information site called Traveloco.jp, which apparently reserves its services “for Japanese Only living abroad”. This is another permutation of Japanese corporate practices erecting arbitrary firewalls between people due to their nationality, ethnicity, etc., or, in Traveloco.jp’s case, “having a name that does not appear to be Japanese”. I wonder how “Arudou Debito” would fare. And as MT says below, why can’t anyone who can read and write Japanese be allowed equal access and service? Debito.org Reader MT sends this report. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

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

Date: June 27, 2016
From: MT
Hi Debito,

I am thinking of suing traveloco.jp site because they closed and banned my account right after I informed them of my name ([MT]), which is not Japanese.

In the email below, the reason I was refused service is that “your name does not appear to be Japanese”. Our correspondence, in reverse order:

================================
From: トラベロコ <info@traveloco.jp>
To: [MT]
Date: 2016/6/27, Mon 09:14
Subject: ご登録解除のご連絡（トラベロコ）

お返事ありがとうございます。
トラベロコです。

ご登録情報を確認させて頂きましたが、
日本人の方ではないようです。 [emphasis added]

大変申し訳ございませんが、当サイトにてロコに登録していただけるのは
日本人方に限定しておりますので、外国人の方はご登録頂けません。 [emphasis added]

よくある質問＞私もロコになりたいのですが。
https://traveloco.jp/faq#faq-13

また、今回のご連絡いただいたメール内容から、社内で検討させていただき、
サイト利用規約「３条4.vi」に該当するとして、登録を解除させて頂きました。
https://traveloco.jp/pages/terms

ご了承下さい。

————————————-traveloco
トラベロコ
mail: info@traveloco.jp
URL： http://traveloco.jp/
> —– Original Message —–
> From: トラベロコ <info@traveloco.jp>
> To: [MT]
> Date: 2016/6/27, Mon 01:27
> Subject: Re: ロコ応募について
>
> お返事ありがとうございます。
> トラベロコです。
>
> ご連絡遅くなり、申し訳ございません。
>
> お問い合わせの件について、
> 具体的には、プロフィール情報のお名前欄などの項目が
> 正しく登録されておりませんので、正確にご登録
> いただいてから、ご応募頂けますでしょうか。
>
> プロフィール情報
> https://traveloco.jp/mypage/profile/
>
> Travelocoは匿名でご利用いただけるサイトになりますが、
> ロコへの登録にあたっては、最低限の個人情報を登録する
> ことは、皆様に安全にご利用頂くための必要条件とさせて
> 頂いております。
>
> なお、ロコの応募審査上、正しい情報の登録が確認できるまでは
> 一部機能は停止させていただいておりますので、ご了承下さい。
>
> どうぞよろしくお願い致します。
>
> ————————————-traveloco
> トラベロコ
> mail: info@traveloco.jp
> URL： http://traveloco.jp/
>
> 2016年6月25日 15:12 :
>> 私の説明をちゃんと詠んでください問題の原点、教えたでしょう。
>>
>> 情報の一部に不備　は、回答となってない。
>> どの部分か、正確に教えなさい。どうやってなおせるか　ということをちゃんと説明するのは、サポートの仕事でしょう？
>>
>> テンプレートの回答を出すよりちゃんとした回答を作ってください。
>>
>> 其の一　まずは、私の説明を読む。
>> その二　内容を理解する
>> その三　内容を理解した上、内容に沿って解決案を出す
>>
>> 上記が常識でしょう。
>>
>> ロコのサービスの二十％取って、こんな最悪なサポートをするつもり？冗談でしう。
>>
>> 私はナニをすればいいか、ステップバイステップで教えなさい。

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

MT: Their terms of use do not mention such a thing, nothing like “our services are meant to be used only an exclusively by persons holding a Japanese passport” or something similar, nothing. They just kick out those who has a western name, based on the NAME itself.

Terms of use of their services: (from https://traveloco.jp/pages/terms)

4. 当社は、登録申請者が、以下の各号のいずれかの事由に該当する場合は、登録および再登録を拒否することがあり、またその理由について一切開示義務を負いません。
当社に提供した登録事項の全部または一部につき虚偽、誤記または記載漏れがあった場合
未成年者、成年被後見人、被保佐人または被補助人のいずれかであり、法定代理人、後見人、保佐人または補助人の同意等を得ていなかった場合
反社会的勢力等（暴力団、暴力団員、右翼団体、反社会的勢力、その他これに準ずる者を意味します。以下同じ。）である、または資金提供その他を通じて反社会的勢力等の維持、運営もしくは経営に協力もしくは関与する等反社会的勢力等との何らかの交流もしくは関与を行っていると当社が判断した場合
登録希望者が過去当社との契約に違反した者またはその関係者であると当社が判断した場合
第10条に定める措置を受けたことがある場合
その他、当社が登録を適当でないと判断した場合

Note that there is no mention of anything that refers to this funny “Japanese only” policy though (only in the QA section: https://traveloco.jp/faq#faq-13, but this is nothing to do with legal terms, since the terms of use are not mentioning it explicitly), so I gave it a try with registering, since I had some interesting ideas for them and some services to share with those Japanese who would be interested in my country or would be coming to [my country of origin].

The whole correspondence started via their website so the first part when I was asking why I cannot register my page and services (at first, it was a technical question but they failed to reply in details, instead they sent me some template bullshit to send me off – so, understandably, I got very upset), is missing since it was not done via email but via a form on their site on my account page – and I have no access to that any more.

I would like to ask The Japan Times to track this down, and ask them publicly why are they doing this in the 21st century, where human and personal rights should be taken very seriously? Even in Aichi, Nagoya, where they are located.

I would like an official apology from the company’s main rep, Mr. SHIIYA Yutaka (椎谷豊, facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yshiiya) via Japanese mass media. And I want them to review their policies, so that everyone (regardless of race) who is capable to communicate in Japanese could use the site with no discrimination against them – especially not based on their western-like names (if it is not a “Japanese” name)!

My correspondence above with them speaks for itself. And these are young entrepreneurs, not just some old folks, but the Y-generation!!! This sentiment and notion of Japaneseness is routed very very deeply even in these young men, who are brainwashed (or getting on some nationalist waves to make big money, maybe?). They are getting their foot in the door of the start-up world.

In the meantime I am seeking legal help, because I want others to know this. This site is “only for Japanese”, the online version of “Japanese only” bars, “Japanese only” onsens, etc…

Of course, you have my permission to make a report on your own site about this. In case I sue them, I will keep you updated.

Thanks a lot, Debito, and pls keep up the good work. I have just read about your book, Embedded Racism, and will get my copy soon. Sincerely, MT

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

ENDS

CG on increased exit taxes on health insurance and residency when you change jobs and domiciles in Japan

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I just wanted to put this one out there as a general query. Anyone else experienced this and gotten an explanation why? Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

======================
June 17, 2016
From: CG
Hello Dr. Arudou:

First, I just wanted to say “Thank You” for all the writing you’ve done. I purchased your handbook a while ago and it was a big help when applying for permanent residency here (successfully!)

I was hoping to ask you a question. I’ve done a fair amount of searching online and haven’t found an answer, and the people directly involved in the issue can’t (or won’t) give a plausible answer either. Recently I switched jobs and moved to a new town here after over ten years working for the previous town’s 教育委員会 [BOE]. When I received my final paycheck, they deducted twice the normal tax amount for 社会保険 [shakai hoken; health and pension insurance] and three times the normal amount for 住民税 [juuminzei; local residency taxes]、helping themselves to an extra over ８万円 [80,000 yen]。 Have you heard of such a situation before? The fact that I can’t find any information about such a “moving tax” or get clear answers strikes me as very strange.

If you have a moment, I’d be very glad to know your thoughts. Best, CG
======================
MY THOUGHTS: Not sure. Anyone out there with this experience who figured out what was going on? Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

Shibuya Police asking local “minpaku” Airbnb renters to report their foreign lodgers “to avoid Olympic terrorism”. Comes with racialized illustrations

Posted on June 27, 2016June 27, 2016 by Debito Arudou Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Buzzfeed News’s Hatachi Kouta wrote up a report dated June 26, 2016, where he found the following Shibuya Police poster in a residential area:

*Courtesy of Hatachi Kouta of Buzzfeed.*

The poster reads:

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

WE ARE ASKING FOR INFORMATION FROM MINPAKU HOSTELERS

“Minpaku” is defined as the service of offering paid accommodation using empty rooms etc. from individual homes.

To prevent terrorism and for the success of the Olympics, we need information from everyone.

We are especially asking for information from individually-standing homes doing Minpaku.

Please call the Shibuya Police Department, Head of Crime Prevention, at 3498-0110 ext 2612.

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

That’s the literal translation of the text. Note how there is no reference whatsoever textually about foreigners. However, contextually, in the margins there are illustrations of eight racialized “foreigners” of ostensibly European, African, and Middle-Eastern extractions complete with differentiated eye color, hair color, skin color, and facial hair. Note how there is no representation of “Asian” foreigners, even though they make up the majority of Japan’s tourists. I guess they’re not the type that Shinjuku cops are looking for.

My comments about this are seasoned to the point of predictably: 1) Once again, Japan’s police are using racial profiling to determine who is a foreigner as well as a terrorist. 2) Japan’s police are rallying the public to do their bidding on unlawful activities (i.e., scaring them with the threat of terrorism into reporting their foreign lodgers to the police, which neither minpaku nor actual hotels are required to do). 3) The use and proliferation of racialized caricature seems to be normalized standard operating procedure with Japan’s police. (Why not? Nobody’s going to stop them when they keep Japan’s public constantly afraid of foreigners to the point of normalized targeting.) And 4), as I have written before, Japan is not mature enough as a society to host these international events, for the National Police Agency whips everyone up into a frenzy about foreign crime, hooliganism, and/or terrorism. And then the NPA uses the events to clamp down on civil liberties for everyone. Thus there is insufficient check and balance to keep these bunker-mentality bureaucrats from exaggerating their mandate.

The Tokyo Olympics are still more than 4 years away. Expect even more of this embedded racism to surface into full-blown state-sponsored xenophobia in the meantime. Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

PS: The Buzzfeed article in itself is interesting, as the author tries to hold the Shibuya Police accountable for their poster, and (citing inter alia his lack of membership in the Press Club) they evaded answering written questions about the poster’s contents, intent, or how it reflects police attitudes or official policy towards foreigners. (As they did with me here when they were taking urine samples for drug tests only from foreign-looking customers on the streets in Roppongi back in 2009.) According to the article, Shibuya Police also denied any ill-will towards foreigners, claiming that the foreign caricatures appeared “so foreigners can also have more relaxed stays too” (gaikokujin no katagata mo, anshin shite taizai shite itadaku shushi de, gaikokujin fuu no irasuto o mochiita mono). Oh, so being racially profiled is for NJs’ own peace of mind? Makes perfect sense — in NPA Bizzarroworld.

Read the article for yourself here.

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