My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Column 75, May 1, 2014: “Tackling Japan’s ‘Empathy Deficit’ Towards Outsiders”

Posted on April 29, 2014May 8, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

eBooks, Books, and more from ARUDOU Debito (click on icon):

UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
DEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
“LIKE” US on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/debitoorg
http://www.facebook.com/handbookimmigrants
https://www.facebook.com/JapaneseOnlyTheBook
https://www.facebook.com/BookInAppropriate
If you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:

All donations go towards website costs only. Thanks for your support!

Hi Blog. Thanks everyone for putting this in the Top Ten Trending at the JT Online once again this month! Debito

JUST BE CAUSE

==============================================
TACKLING JAPAN’S “EMPATHY DEFICIT” TOWARDS OUTSIDERS
By Dr. ARUDOU, Debito
JUST BE CAUSE COLUMN 75 FOR THE JAPAN TIMES
May 1, 2014
Courtesy http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/04/30/issues/tackling-the-empathy-deficit-toward-non-japanese/
Version with links to sources follows:

In 2006, then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama gave a speech about people’s “empathy deficit.” He described empathy as “the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us — the child who’s hungry, the steelworker who’s been laid off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town.”

“When you think like this,” he continued, “when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers — it becomes harder not to act, harder not to help.”

I agree. Enormous social problems arise when people don’t understand (or rather, don’t try to understand) what’s going on in other people’s minds. I was mindful of that during my Ph.D. fieldwork, when I interviewed dozens of “Japanese Only” businesses. I always asked for (and got, often in great detail) the reasoning behind their exclusionism. I never agreed with their stopgap solutions (shutting out people they thought were “foreign” because they didn’t look “Japanese” enough), but I gained some sympathy for what they were going through.

But sympathy is not the same as empathy, and that is one reason why discrimination against foreigners and minorities is so hard to combat in Japan. Japanese society is good at sympathy, but empathy? Less so…

Of course, Japanese people have great sympathy for human suffering worldwide. Look through the media (particularly material from human-rights NGOs) and you’ll see plenty of pictures of starving or impoverished people abroad. The government has also been extremely generous with overseas development assistance, and is one of UNICEF’s biggest donors and promoters.

But “sympathy” has for hundreds of years meant a feeling of sorrow or pity for others. That’s very different from the ability to understand and share another’s feelings — empathy, which only evolved into a widely understood concept during the 20th century. That is not to say that empathetic behavior is anything new, of course: Many societies have a long history of axioms and examples (“walk a mile in his shoes,” “do unto others,” Buddha and Christ surrendering their worldly possessions for a higher calling, etc.) encouraging altruistic behavior. In his best-seller “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” Steven Pinker devoted a whole chapter to how empathy has recently fostered human-rights revolutions worldwide.

However, there remains a marked lack of empathy in Japan towards outsiders, especially minorities and foreigners. Why? I would argue it’s because few Japanese ever leave their carefully constructed comfort zones to become minorities or foreigners themselves.

If you think about it, concerns about security, safety and comfort basically dominate all levels of Japanese existence — especially if it involves leaving the Japanese existence entirely. Even though going overseas is the only way Japanese will ever walk in the shoes of a foreigner, many still spend their short jaunts within group buses on package tours, experiencing a foreign land from a controlled environment geared to Japanese comfort levels.
SEE ENDNOTE FOR SOURCES

I do sympathize. Why would anyone pay all that money for a quickie trip and suffer the discomfort of unpredictability? Being a member of a rich, developed country with a high expectation of quality, service and social order should have taken care of all that.

Who wants to deal with all those scary foreign languages and potential criminal behaviors lurking beyond the hotel stoop, anyway? It could spoil a stress-free vacation.

But there’s a deeper disconnect going on here. I’ve written before about Japanese society’s overwhelming conceit with social power maintenance, and power plays a part in this discussion too.

You see, sympathy is in fact about power. People worthy of sorrow or pity have to appeal to people in a position to give that sympathy. Sympathizers have the power to decide to be charitable or merciful.

On the other hand, empathizers have to give up their power. They have to live situations like somebody else, feel their discomforts and disadvantages, walk in their shoes.

But we won’t. We’re rich. We’ve earned the right to stay in our own shoes.

So never mind empathy. Sympathy’s simpler, for if anyone needs our help, we’ll send money — if they’re within our ambit of concern. It’ll still have no real impact on our lives — or, more importantly, no real impact on our perceptions of their lives.

Now let’s seal off the attitudinal loop from foreigners in particular: Hey, if you don’t like living in Japan as a disadvantaged foreigner, you shouldn’t have come here in the first place. We don’t go to your country as a guest and tell you what to do in your house, do we?

And now let’s close it further with selective empathy: Ever wondered why many Japanese get so het up when their compatriots get discriminated against overseas? Such as in 1962, when Japan successfully lobbied apartheid South Africa to make Japanese into “honorary whites”? Or in 2010, when the British government threatened to put caps on special visas for Japanese (and other non-EU nationalities), and Japanese firms threatened an investment boycott? Or when even normally stoic Emperor Hirohito in 1946 expressed rare public outrage at racism towards Japanese in California?

Probably not, because one can understand the feelings of fellow Japanese in this situation. Empathy, however, generally doesn’t go outside the tribe: Japan can discriminate against foreigners, but woe betide the foreigners if they do it to Japanese!

Again, I do sympathize, since a lack of empathy is by design. The government has long portrayed foreigners as Japan’s opponents — agents of crime, terrorism, disease and land grabs.

The end result is that even the most well-intentioned people in Japan, who do protest clear examples of racial discrimination (e.g., the “Japanese only” signs at businesses, the racist street demos saying “Kill all Koreans,” the “Japanese only” banner by Urawa Reds soccer fans), use a different subtext.

They denounce racism as “Nihon no haji,” decrying the shame (haji) that xenophobia brings upon Japan on the international stage: It makes Japan, and by extension themselves as Japanese, look bad.

Shame is a very effective message — thank you for it — but the more empathetic tack would be to argue that foreigners are people too; that they live in Japan just like any Japanese; that they deserve to live in Japan as residents, patronize bathhouses and restaurants as customers, attend soccer matches as fans, like anyone else; that foreigners deserve exactly the same human rights and access to public goods as any other Japanese.

But equal treatment is rarely part of the debate. Instead people argue, “If they want to be treated the same, they should naturalize,” as if that fixes everything. Trust me, it doesn’t.

Again, empathy is key. If more people had it, they would advocate for Japanese society to “do unto foreigners,” because they would understand how foreigners feel, as Obama argued, and wouldn’t wish that treatment upon anyone.

Japan, let’s work on that empathy deficit. Less dōjō (sympathy), more kyōkan (empathy). Broaden your ambit beyond the tribe and you just might realize that power is not “zero-sum,” i.e., that giving more power to foreigners in Japan does not mean less power for you. In fact, it makes things better for everyone, as it gives more people more opportunity to fulfill their lifetime potential in society.

Now, who wouldn’t empathize with that?

===============================
Debito Arudou, who has just received his Ph.D. in International Studies from Meiji Gakuin University, is editing his dissertation on racial discrimination in Japan into a book. Your comments and story ideas: community@japantimes.co.jp
ENDS

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

ENDNOTE
I have gone through several databases, including ProQuest, and searched through the full archives of about ten academic peer-reviewed journals on tourism, and there really isn’t much related rigorous sociological/anthropological in recent years on this, it would seem. What I could track down published within the past five or so years:

From: Generalized pattern in competition among tourism destinations
Dawes, John; Romaniuk, Jenni; Mansfield, Annabel. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research3.1 (2009): 33-53.

Establishes that Japanese tourists take shorter holidays and more picky about their destinations of the four groups selected:
“This suggests Japanese tourists travel to a smaller range of destinations than USA, UK and Singaporean Tourists. This result might be due to greater loyalty to single destinations or due to taking fewer holidays overall.”

Cross-cultural tourist behaviour: a replication and extension involving Hofstede’s uncertainty avoidance dimension
Litvin, Stephen W; Crotts, John C; Hefner, Frank L. The International Journal of Tourism Research6.1 (Jan/Feb 2004): 29-37.

This one tells what we already know about Japanese avoidance of uncertainty and risk, replicates older results:
ABSTRACT: Hofstede’s five cross-cultural dimensions have been broadly applied in the literature. Money and Crotts recently applied the dimension of uncertainty avoidance to a matched sample comprised of low uncertainty avoidance German and high uncertainty avoidance Japanese tourists, finding their behaviors consistent with those behaviors predicted by Hofstede. This study both replicates and extends their research across a representative sample of first time leisure visitors to the USA representing 58 nations. It was found that visitors from high uncertainty avoidance cultures exhibited behaviors consistent with those of the Japanese in the Money and Crotts research, whereas visitors from low-uncertainty avoidance cultures behaved similarly to their German subjects. Such findings, across a broad sample population, validate the original research through a more rigorous test of its propositions, provide increased confidence regarding their generalizability, and further contribute to our understanding of the influence of national culture on tourist behavior. http://marketing-to-japan.com/the-japanese-tourist.html

ALSO
(sourced from www.visitbritain.com, date unknown)
Package tours 48.2%
Individually arranged 37.1% (increasing)
Group travel 6.2%

http://books.google.com/books?id=LC4c7i3WrPgC&pg=PA214&lpg=PA214&dq=are+japanese+tourists+more+likely+to+tour+in+groups+than+other+nationalities?&source=bl&ots=gXuRHVKInI&sig=xLud0YIHdySfGG7ue2xlItv9oms&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gGxZU47CD-Xg2QXc3IDYDA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=are%20japanese%20tourists%20more%20likely%20to%20tour%20in%20groups%20than%20other%20nationalities%3F&f=false
“In the past they liked to travel in relatively large groups, but by the mid-1990s the young were increasingly traveling in smaller groups or on their own and had come to resemble Western tourists. Individual Japanese tourists became less interested in purchasing pre-arranged tours…” (2008)

http://books.google.com/books?id=_Jz4ZJsoaMgC&pg=PA327&lpg=PA327&dq=are+japanese+tourists+more+likely+to+tour+in+groups+than+other+nationalities?&source=bl&ots=-QHjToQ_40&sig=c6H_eqttasGJvdUoq-xo_breAsk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gGxZU47CD-Xg2QXc3IDYDA&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=are%20japanese%20tourists%20more%20likely%20to%20tour%20in%20groups%20than%20other%20nationalities%3F&f=false
“Japanese tourists are the most distinctive…”
“Koreans and Japanese are the least active and reserved in social situations (probably due to their collectivistic and high-uncertainty-avoidance characteristics)… Japanese are the most adventurous in food preferences, and they plan their trips rigidly and meticulously, but choose short trips.” (1997)
endnote ends

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 30, 2014

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 30, 2014

Table of Contents:
////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) Hitler’s 125th birthday march in Tokyo Ikebukuro video: It’s only a few illogical dullards who can but question the nationality (thus loyalty) of dissenters

2) IPC: Five female Japanese students reported twice raping a Peruvian classmate in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka

3) New facial recognition systems at J border: Once again, testing out the next-gen loss of civil liberties on the “Gaijin Guinea Pigs”

4) Mainichi: Discrimination against NJ in housing rentals highlighted in Tokyo Govt survey; like “Tokyo Sharehouse” with its new Tokyo-wide system of Japanese-Only rentals?

5) “Japanese Only” exclusionary Tentake tempura restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo, allegedly due to NJ “hygiene” issues

6) Japan’s Right-wing swing taking on NJ media: Foreign correspondents ‘blindly swallowing’ anti-Japanese propaganda, writer alleges

…and finally…

7) My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 74, Apr 3, 2014: “Knowing your rights can protect against fake cops”, updating the NJ Spot ID Checkpoints issue
////////////////////////////////////////////////

By Dr. ARUDOU, Debito
Freely Forwardable

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

1) Hitler’s 125th birthday march in Tokyo Ikebukuro video: It’s only a few illogical dullards who can but question the nationality (thus loyalty) of dissenters

On Sunday, April 20, there was a march in Tokyo Ikebukuro to celebrate the 125th birthday of Hitler. Yes, you read that right. And an article came out about it in Japan Today’s Kuchikomi column:

JT: According to J-Cast News (April 23), Sunday’s demonstration was organized by an organization that calls itself the “Gokoku Shishi no Kai” (Group of Warriors Protecting the Nation). They assembled in a small park in East Ikebukuro, the location of the gallows in the former Sugamo Prison, where former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and six other Class A war criminals were executed by hanging in December 1948.

“To keep the achievements of our illustrious predecessors from going to waste, we advocate the restoration of the Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, minus participation by China and the two Koreas,” one of the organizers told the assembled demonstrators. Referring to the date as coinciding with the 125th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birthday, he also noted that “The empire of Japan and Nazi Germany have been portrayed as villains, and in Germany glorifying the Nazis will get a person jailed. We would like to re-investigate the 1993 Kono Statement and Nazi Germany as well, to rehabilitate their good acts and restore their honor.” When asked to name the Nazis’ good acts, the speaker was able to come up with the autobahn, but not much else.

COMMENT: I’m glad this was filmed (Leni Riefenstahl did a much better service portraying her Nazis!), because it reveals two things:

1) The banality of evil. “Warriors Protecting the Nation”? All we really see are a small group of dorks playing at hate speech, trying to attract attention to themselves by saying things that they know will inflame historical passions of irrationality and prejudice. It’s kinda like high-schoolers listening to heavy metal music (or, okay, I’m dating myself: gangsta rap) really, really loud to annoy their parents. But who’s listening on, on either side? There are far more cops there keeping the peace than there are demonstrators waving their flags. Considering how much bigger their last demonstration was (which also included Nazi flags), is this all they could muster for Hitler’s momentous 125th? (Link here to compare.)

2) Their inability to make a cogent argument. At minute 2:55 in the video, they face a dissenter, and the group’s counterattack is swift and hive-minded. Instead of engaging in any form of logical debate, all they do is swarm in at their critic and say over and over again, “Anta nani-jin? Nani-jin? Anta nihonjin? Chuugokujin? Kankokujin?” (What are you? Japanese? Chinese? Korean?) As if a true Japanese couldn’t possibly be dissenting. By minute 5:20, they aver that it musta been a Shina-jin (the historically-unflattering word for Chinese), as if that settles their hash.

And if you watch to the end, it all just breaks down into a group of dullards who go out for a beer afterwards. Herr ringleader is not of the mettle to lead a beer hall putsch. Clearly these dwebes have nothing better to do with their weekend.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12327

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

2) IPC: Five female Japanese students reported twice raping a Peruvian classmate in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka

Debito.org Reader IA comments: This week I read about a horrific case of ijime in Shizuoka Ken, a Peruvian girl was raped by five [female] classmates. The worst part is the authorities just bow the head and said they could only offer money nothing else. I’ll give you more details if you want. I’m trying to find the news in English or Japanese and I also sent an e-mail to the Spanish newspaper where I read about it to get more information in your language. This is awful I want to vomit. If the case was from the opposite side I’m sure the reaction could be different.

No doubt it would. I don’t know about the money part, but this apparently is the rumor circulating around the Peruvian community in Japan. Anyone else heard about this, especially in the J-media? If you haven’t, I bet you also haven’t heard about the Herculano Murder Case, either. I hope it won’t suffer the same fate. Machine-translated Spanish newspaper article from International Press on this case follows.

UPDATE APRIL 23, 2014: The Peruvian Embassy is getting involved.
UPDATE APRIL 24, 2014: The Peruvian Consul visits Fujinomiya, secures the cooperation of the authorities, but the family leaves town, having learned that the abuses allegedly took place on school grounds and were were filmed and photographed.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12313

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

3) New facial recognition systems at J border: Once again, testing out the next-gen loss of civil liberties on the “Gaijin Guinea Pigs”

Kyodo: The government plans to restart from August a test on a facial recognition system to speed up immigration checks at airports and prepare for an expected surge in visitors for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, officials said Saturday.

COMMENT: Let’s survey the narratives of justification in this article. We have the argument that it’s allegedly for a looming event (NJ swarm from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, even though it’s more than six years away!), the convenience factor (faster processing of people, this time without even registering!), and the bandwagon argument that others are implementing it (Britain and Australia, whose civil societies have had more robust debates on the issues of privacy and civil liberties). All of these arguments were made during the reinstitution of NJ fingerprinting in 2007, and that time it wasn’t for a specific event, but rather for anti-terrorism [sic] in general. And as Debito.org has argued many times before, once you get the public softened up on the idea of taking away civil liberties by testing it on one sector of the population (in this case, the Gaijin Guinea Pigs, since foreigners in every society have fewer civil and political rights), it gets expanded on the rest of the population. Let’s enter the No-Brainer Zone: I anticipate the facial recognition software will be implemented nationwide more seamlessly than any other intrusive technology yet, since it is so convenient and doesn’t require individual registry or even much hardware installation. There’s even a profit motive. Consider this:

JT Editorial: Over 100 supermarkets and convenience stores in the Tokyo metropolitan area have been recording images of shoppers’ faces as part of antishoplifting measures. Though the stores have posted signs stating cameras are in place, the stores have been sharing the biometric data of customers without their knowledge. […] The problem is the lack of checks on the system. Seemingly whoever has access to the network could classify customers according to an arbitrary criterion. But what constitutes an “unreasonable” complaint is open to question. And whether an act of shoplifting is reported to the police and whether the suspect is convicted of the crime is a matter of the law. It should not be a matter of how an employee feels about it. Unfortunately with this technology, stores are now able to put people on a blacklist for any reason whatsoever.

COMMENT FROM SJ AND PHU: What if this employee is inherently suspicious of all foreigners in general, or harbors racist feelings towards anyone who does not appear Japanese? Such an employee can end up blacklisting and tagging a foreign shopper not for anything specific that the customer has done, but rather out of the employee’s own paranoia against non-Japanese shoppers… Japan’s pronounced discrimination problem does make it hard to ignore the likelihood of abuse skewing towards minorities.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12306

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

4) Mainichi: Discrimination against NJ in housing rentals highlighted in Tokyo Govt survey; like “Tokyo Sharehouse” with its new Tokyo-wide system of Japanese-Only rentals?

Mainichi: Discrimination against foreigners in renting apartments or other residences was given as an ongoing violation of their human rights by almost half of respondents to a survey by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

COMMENT: It is indeed good to see people acknowledging that discrimination towards NJ exists. And that the most common answer by respondents chosen (since it is probably the most normalized and systemic NJ discrimination) is in residence rentals. After all, take a look at this new system of guarantor-free housing by “Tokyo Sharehouse” — which has at least fifteen “sharehouses” advertised as “Japanese Only”:

LaFelice Ikejiri (English) http://tokyosharehouse.com/eng/house/detail/1324/, (Japanese) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/1324/
Claris Sangenjaya (English) http://tokyosharehouse.com/eng/house/detail/1325/ (Japanese) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/1325/
Domondo Sangenjaya (English) http://tokyosharehouse.com/eng/house/detail/1095/, (Japanese) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/1095/
Aviril Shibuya (Japanese Only in both meanings): http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/1431/
Pleades Sakura Shin-machi (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/847/
La Vita Komazawa (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/500/
La Levre Sakura Shin-machi (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/846/
Leviair Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/506/
Flora Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/502/
La Famille (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/503/
Pechka Shimo-Kitazawa (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/507/
Amitie Naka-Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/508/
Cerisier Sakura Shin-machi (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/504/
Stella Naka-Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/501/
Solare Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/509/

Y’know, that’s funny. Why would this company go through all the trouble to put up a website in English and then use it to refuse NJ? So they’d look international? Or so they’d look exclusionary to an international audience? And you gotta love how they pretentiously put the names of the residences in faux French, yet won’t take French people…!

So, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, thanks for those surveys saying how sad it is that NJ are being discriminated against in housing. But what are they for, exactly? Mere omphaloskepsis? How about doing something to stop these bigots from discriminating?

https://www.debito.org/?p=12282

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

5) “Japanese Only” exclusionary Tentake tempura restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo, allegedly due to NJ “hygiene” issues

Another to add to the Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments. This time, a restaurant, as submitter YT notified me via email and photographs:

====================================
April 5, 2014, YT wrote:

Please would you mind helping me? Today I went to a restaurant in Asakusa with my wife and some Japanese friends. They didn’t allow us to enter, because me and my wife are not Japanese. In the entrance there is a paper that says “Japanese only” in English, and other advertisement in Japanese. My Japanese friend, entered to the restaurant and kindly asked the manager if me and my wife could enter, too. The manager said they doesn’t allow foreigners, no matter if they speak Japanese nor have been living in Japan for long.

I hope you can help me, and write some article about this discrimination. I think discrimination is one of the worst problem in our world, so we must stop it immediately. Thank you for your time!!!
====================================
Photos of sign, storefront, and shopfront noren: (NB: The Japanese below the JAPANESE ONLY text on the sign reads, “The inside of this restaurant is very small. In order to avoid accidents, we are sorry, but we refuse entry to all children below the age of 5. We ask for our customers understanding and cooperation.”)

Contact: “Ten-take” tempura restaurant, Tokyo-to Taitou-ku Asakusa 2-4-1, phone 03-3841-5519

COMMENT: I called Tentake today to confirm with the management that yes, they do have a “Japanese Only” restriction. Their reasons given: 1) Hygiene (eiseimen), which were, when asked, issues of “foreigners” not taking off their shoes when entering, 2) NJ causing problems (meiwaku) to other customers, and 3) a language barrier, as in NJ not speaking Japanese. Basic Otaru Onsen exclusionary excuses. When asked if he didn’t think these were prejudicial generalizations about all NJ, he said repeatedly that he couldn’t deal with “foreigners” (tai’ou o shi kirenai). Then he hung up.

That’s as much information as I could get out of the management regarding the reasons for the exclusionism. Readers who feel that this restaurant is behaving inappropriately for a business open to the general public are welcome to phone them at the number above, or drop by and say so directly. Douzo. ARUDOU, Debito

UPDATE APRIL 18, 2014: The sign is down and the shop is open to NJ customers again.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12256

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

6) Japan’s Right-wing swing taking on NJ media: Foreign correspondents ‘blindly swallowing’ anti-Japanese propaganda, writer alleges

As Japan’s right-wing swing begins to be noticed and acknowledged overseas (I predicted this swing would happen quite a while ago), foreign media are increasingly taking off the kid gloves, and dealing forcefully with Japan’s perpetual historical amnesia. So much so that it’s making some Japanese opinion leaders uncomfortable, and, as the article below attests, they’re pushing back against the apparent gaiatsu by claiming the foreign correspondents are succumbing to “propaganda”. Have a read.

Within, note how opportunist NJ panderer Henry Scott-Stokes is being tossed around like a ball in play as evidence of something (hey, revisionism has more credibility if someone, anyone, from the NJ side will parrot their views). Debito.org has already covered the profiteering that some NJ (particularly those who have no idea what has been written for them in Japanese) will engage in. Shame on them for becoming the monkey to the organ grinder.

As a bracing counterpose, check out this other extremely angry article by Robert Fisk in the UK Independent on the Abe Administration and Japan’s burgeoning (and hypocritical) revisionism; he’s clearly commenting outside of his comfort zone, but this is what will increasingly come out as the mask of “peaceful Western ally” that Japan’s elites have shamelessly worn for two generations continues to slip. And this generation of elites, who have never known war (and will never have to serve even if there ever is one), will continue to extol the glory of it.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12280

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

…and finally…

7) My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 74, Apr 3, 2014: “Knowing your rights can protect against fake cops”, updating the NJ Spot ID Checkpoints issue

Knowing your rights can protect against fake cops
BY DEBITO ARUDOU, SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES, APR 2, 2014

Long-time readers of The Japan Times will already be aware of some of the information in today’s column. But within is an important update, so press on.

As you no doubt know (or should know), non-Japanese residents are required to carry ID 24/7 in the form of wallet-size “gaijin cards,” nowadays known as zairyū kādo (resident cards). (People without those cards — i.e., tourists here for less than three months — must instead always carry a passport.) Don’t leave home without yours, for you could face detention and a criminal penalty if a police officer suddenly demands it.

Which they can do at any time — underscoring the weakened position of non-Japanese under domestic law and social policy. According to the former Foreign Registry Law, any public official empowered by the Ministry of Justice may demand ID from a non-Japanese person, whenever. Inevitably, this encourages racial profiling, as cops with systematic regularity target people who “look foreign” (including naturalized citizens, such as this writer) for public shakedowns that are intimidating, alienating and humiliating…

Read the rest at http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/04/02/issues/rights-can-protect-against-fake-cops/
Version with comments and links to sources at https://www.debito.org/?p=12237

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

That’s all for this month. Thanks for reading!
Dr. ARUDOU, Debito

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 30, 2014 ENDS

Hitler’s 125th birthday march in Tokyo Ikebukuro video: It’s only a few illogical dullards who can but question the nationality (thus loyalty) of dissenters

Posted on April 27, 2014April 27, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. On Sunday, April 20, there was a march in Tokyo Ikebukuro to celebrate the 125th birthday of Hitler. Yes, you read that right. And an article came out about it in Japan Today’s Kuchikomi column. Have a read and then I’ll comment:

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

Marchers in Ikebukuro fete Hitler’s 125th birthday anniversary
JAPAN TODAY KUCHIKOMI APR. 25, 2014, courtesy of BS

http://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi/view/marchers-in-ikebukuro-fete-hitlers-125th-birthday-anniversary

A group of demonstrators paraded through Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district last Sunday, criticizing China and South Korea while advocating the restoration of the “Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” proposed by Japan in the 1940s. The procession this time was different from those organized by other groups seen marching on Tokyo’s streets, as, in addition to the 16-ray rising sun flag of Japan, the participants spearheading the march openly waved the Nazi flag—an act that’s illegal in Germany.

(And gave Nazi salutes…)

The demonstration, including the flags, can be viewed in the YouTube video below.

According to J-Cast News (April 23), Sunday’s demonstration was organized by an organization that calls itself the “Gokoku Shishi no Kai” (Group of Warriors Protecting the Nation). They assembled in a small park in East Ikebukuro, the location of the gallows in the former Sugamo Prison, where former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and six other Class A war criminals were executed by hanging in December 1948.

When asked to name the Nazis’ good acts, the speaker was able to come up with the autobahn, but not much else.

Approximately 40 marchers, who also carried the flags of Tibet and the Taiwan Independence Party, chanted slogans such as “Let’s tie up with Asia, excepting ‘Shina’ (China) and ‘Chosen’ (Koreans),” “Japan should learn from the Nazis’ good points” and “Long live the Chancellor (Hitler)!”

A smaller group of counter-demonstrators also showed up and the two sides exchanged taunts, but did not exchange blows.

As the demonstration broke up, the organizer was quoted as saying that the police had requested they delay the march due to President Obama’s impending visit to Tokyo.

“But I told them, “It can only be this day (Hitler’s birthday), and kept pushing for a permit. We should all tell the police how much we appreciate their consideration.”
ENDS

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

Here’s the video from Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2jKx_J5TUw#t=615

COMMENT: I’m glad this was filmed (Leni Riefenstahl did a much better service portraying her Nazis!), because it reveals two things:

(Compare with their previous: )

2) Their inability to make a cogent argument. At minute 2:55 in the video, they face a dissenter, and the group’s counterattack is swift and hive-minded. Instead of engaging in any form of logical debate, all they do is swarm in at their critic and say over and over again, “Anta nani-jin? Nani-jin? Anta nihonjin? Chuugokujin? Kankokujin?” (What are you? Japanese? Chinese? Korean?) As if a true Japanese couldn’t possibly be dissenting. By minute 5:20, they aver that it musta been a Shina-jin (the historically-unflattering word for Chinese), as if that settles their hash.

IPC: Five female Japanese students reported twice raping a Peruvian classmate in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka

Posted on April 23, 2014April 24, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

eBooks, Books, and more from ARUDOU Debito (click on icon):

UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
DEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
“LIKE” US on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/debitoorg
http://www.facebook.com/handbookimmigrants
https://www.facebook.com/JapaneseOnlyTheBook
https://www.facebook.com/BookInAppropriate
If you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:

This money will only be used for hosting and maintenance costs. Thanks for your support!

UPDATED: THE MACHINE-TRANSLATED TEXT WAS GENDER-NEUTRAL, BUT THE SPANISH WAS GENDER-SPECIFIC, AND THIS DID NOT COME THROUGH IN ENGLISH. AMENDMENTS MADE.

Hi Blog. Received this from Debito.org Reader IA, who comments:

This week I read about a horrific case of ijime in Shizuoka Ken, a Peruvian girl was raped by five [female] classmates. The worst part is the authorities just bow the head and said they could only offer money nothing else. I’ll give you more details if you want. I’m trying to find the news in English or Japanese and I also sent an e-mail to the Spanish newspaper where I read about it to get more information in your language. This is awful I want to vomit. If the case was from the opposite side I’m sure the reaction could be different.

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

TRANSLATED BY GOOGLE TRANSLATE, ORIGINAL TEXT IN SPANISH BELOW
(Lightly edited. Amendments by Spanish readers welcome)
Five Japanese students reported for sexual offense against a Peruvian partner in Shizuoka
INTERNATIONAL PRESS 18/04/2014 | Category: Community , Shizuoka

The mother knew the facts this week and yesterday has filed a complaint with the police Fujinomiya.

Five [female] students from a school in Chugakko (junior high) Fujinomiya, Shizuoka Prefecture, have been accused by a mother of Peruvian nationality for having sexually abused her 13 year-old in a terrible case of ijime (bullying).

According knew International Press, the Peruvian girl was raped twice by her fellow [female classmates in a school music club] in a park near the school, who took her by force and using “apparatus” to abuse her.

The incident occurred in May and December 2013, but only became known this week when the girl had had enough and told her mother everything.

The Peruvian, who cares for two children alone, was presented Thursday to the 17 education authorities Township Fujinomiya to tell the tale. Immediately, she was taken to the police to file a formal complaint.

The girl had stopped going to school, begged to be taken to Peru and will djo her mother to prevent his younger brother to enter Chugakko, junior high.

EL BUKATSU (school clubs)
In May 2013, when the Peruvian was a freshman at the Chugakko, his mother complained to the teacher in charge of the music club.

At that time the teacher knew the name of at least one of which pressed harassing and beating Peru to leave the club. The girl was described as a shy and reserved person who wanted to learn to play the clarinet.

The claimed effect did not emerge and the harassment continued despite the girl stopped going to the music club and switched to the drawing club.

Although missing some days to school, she continued going until March this year when she left school entirely. This week the whole truth came out.

The school principals were newly aware of the case yesterday after the mother filed a police report. (Ipcdigital)

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

Cinco alumnas japonesas denunciadas por ultrajar sexualmente a una compañera peruana en Shizuoka
18/04/2014 | Categoría: Comunidad,Shizuoka
http://es.ipcdigital.com/2014/04/18/cinco-alumnas-japonesas-denunciadas-por-ultrajar-sexualmente-una-companera-peruana-en-shizuoka/ Courtesy of IA

La madre conoció los hechos esta semana y ayer ha presentado denuncia ante la policía de Fujinomiya.
Cinco alumnas de un colegio de chugakko (secundaria básica) de Fujinomiya, provincia de Shizuoka, han sido acusadas por una madre de nacionalidad peruana por haber ultrajado sexualmente a su hija de 13 años en un terrible caso de ijime (hostigamiento).

Según supo International Press, la niña peruana fue violada dos veces por sus compañeras del club de música en un parque ubicado cerca de la escuela al que la llevaron por la fuerza y valiéndose de “un aparato” para ultrajarla.

Los hechos ocurrieron en mayo y diciembre de 2013, pero solo se conocieron esta semana cuando la niña no soportó más y narró todo a su madre.

La peruana, quien cuida a dos hijos sola, se presentó el jueves 17 ante las autoridades educativas del Municipio de Fujinomiya para contar lo sucedido. Inmediatamente, fue conducida ante la policía para presentar una denuncia formal.

La niña había dejado de ir a la escuela, rogaba para ser llevada a Perú y le djo a su madre que impidiera que su hermano menor ingrese al chugakko, la secundaria básica.

EL BUKATSU
En mayo de 2013, cuando la peruana cursaba el primer año de chugakko, su madre presentó una queja ante la profesora encargada del club de música.

En aquella oportunidad la maestra conoció el nombre al menos de una de las hostigadora que presionaba y golpeaban a la peruana para que abandonara el club. La niña fue descrita como una persona tímida y reservada que deseaba aprender a tocar el clarinete.

El reclamó no surgió efecto y el hostigamiento continuó a pesar que la niña dejó la música y se pasó al club de dibujo.

Aunque faltaba algunos días a clases, siguió acudiendo hasta que en marzo de este año dejó la escuela totalmente. Esta semana se supo toda la verdad.

Los directores de la escuela recién se han enterado del caso ayer luego de que la madre interpuso denuncia policial. (ipcdigital)

ENDS
//////////////////////////////////////////////

UPDATE APRIL 23, 2014: PERUVIAN EMBASSY GETTING INVOLVED. MACHINE-TRANSLATED ARTICLE FOLLOWS, THEN ORIGINAL SPANISH IPC ARTICLE.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fes.ipcdigital.com%2F2014%2F04%2F21%2Fconsul-peruano-dice-que-dirigira-las-acciones-de-apoyo-la-madre-de-nina-violada-en-fujinomiya%2F&edit-text=

Peruvian Consul says that direct the actions to support the mother of girl raped in Fujinomiya
21/04/2014 | Category: Community , Shizuoka | Courtesy of IA

Consul Cardenas reported Tuesday visit the home of the Peruvian in Shizuoka.

Consul General of Peru in Tokyo, Julio Cardenas, announced today that “personally direct the actions of support” for the Peruvian mother whose daughter was raped by five classmates in the town of Fujinomiya, in the province of Kanagawa. [sic]

The consul told Cardenas Press International that “tomorrow” (Tuesday 22 April) visit the house of his compatriot to directly offer their support to the mother and daughter.

“Today I had telephone contact with the lady and I found a very acute emotional state. I offered all my solidarity and full understanding as a human being and as consul, “said Peruvian authorities.

After hearing the testimony of the mother, the consul said, “It was totally touching as a human being if I get and would have the same reaction that she (with anger and thirst for righteousness),” he said.

Asked about the number of cases of ijime (harassment) against Peruvian school coming to your office, Cárdenas, revealed that the first time you receive a letter and a formal complaint. “I have been informed that people talk, but we have not heard more so with a letter, to this day,” he said.

For Fujinomiya was revealed last Friday by International Press after the mother requested support to face the drama of her 13-year-old sexually assaulted twice between May and December 2013 by her fellow club music school .

Last Thursday police Fujinomiya accepted the case as “complaint” which may not be processed in the arrest of the attackers because they are under 13, according to Japanese authorities said the mother.

“We will call the girls and their parents, they will severely draw attention to know that fact harm. Maybe you can receive financial compensation for parents of girls. More can be done, “said the Japanese police, he told the Peruvian.

Woman reccionó with outrage at the police response because it offers a real serious case of rape has destroyed the life of his daughter solution.

The action of the school has also been disappointing. Last Friday, the Peruvian stated his case to the principal and vice-principal. They listened with bowed head, but instead of offering immediate psychological help for the girl and own shares, preferred to hide behind the police report and keep silent.

It is expected that the participation of Peruvian Consul help the Japanese authorities put real interest in such a rugged case. (Ipcdigital)
ENDS

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

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

Cónsul peruano dice que dirigirá las acciones de apoyo a la madre de niña violada en Fujinomiya
INTERNATIONAL PRESS 21/04/2014 | Categoría: Comunidad,Shizuoka |
El Cónsul Cárdenas informó que este martes visitará la casa de la peruana en Shizuoka.

http://es.ipcdigital.com/2014/04/21/consul-peruano-dice-que-dirigira-las-acciones-de-apoyo-la-madre-de-nina-violada-en-fujinomiya/

El cónsul general del Perú en Tokio, Julio Cárdenas, ha anunciado hoy que “dirigirá personalmente las acciones de apoyo” a la madre peruana cuya niña fue violada por cinco compañeras de escuela en la localidad de Fujinomiya, en la provincia de Kanagawa. [sic]

El cónsul Cárdenas dijo a International Press que “mañana mismo” (este martes 22 de abril) visitará la casa de su connacional para ofrecer directamente su respaldo a la madre y a su hija.

“Hoy he tenido contacto telefónico con la señora y la he encontrado en un estado emocional muy agudo. Le he ofrecido toda mi solidaridad y plena comprensión como ser humano y como cónsul”, declaró la autoridad peruana.

Tras escuchar el testimonio de la madre, el cónsul dijo que “ha sido totalmente conmovedor, como ser humano me pongo en su caso y tendria la misma reaccion que ella (de indignación y sed de justicia)”, comentó.

Preguntado sobre la cantidad de casos de ijime (hostigamiento) escolar contra peruanos que llegan a su oficina, Cárdenas, reveló que es la primera vez que recibe una carta y una queja formal. “He tomado conocimiento porque la gente habla, pero no hemos sabido más, así con una carta, hasta hoy”, explicó.

El caso de Fujinomiya fue revelado el pasado viernes por International Press luego que la madre solicitara apoyo para enfrentar el drama de su hija de 13 años, ultrajada sexualmente dos veces, entre mayo y diciembre de 2013 por sus compañeras del club de música de la escuela.

El jueves pasado la policía de Fujinomiya aceptó el caso como “queja”, que no podrá transformarse en la detención de las atacantes porque se trata de menores de 13 años, según dijeron las autoridades japonesas a la madre.

“Convocaremos a las niñas y a sus padres, les vamos a llamar severamente la atención para que sepan que hecho un daño. Usted puede recibir quizá una compensación económica de los padres de las niñas. Más no se puede hacer”, dijo la policía japonesa, según contó la peruana.

La mujer reccionó con indignación ante la respuesta de la policía porque no ofrece una solución real a un gravísimo caso de violación sexual que ha destruido la vida de su hija.

La acción del colegio también ha dejado mucho que desear. El viernes pasado, la peruana expuso su caso ante el director y vice-director de la escuela. Ellos escucharon con la cabeza gacha, pero en vez de ofrecer inmediata ayuda sicológica para la niña y más acciones propias, prefirieron escudarse tras la denuncia policial y mantener silencio.

Se espera que la participación del Cónsul Peruano ayude a que las autoridades japonesas pongan interés real en un caso tan escabroso. (ipcdigital)
ENDS

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

UPDATE APRIL 24, 2014, AGAIN, GOOGLE MACHINE TRANSLATED WITH CONFUSING SENTENCES LEFT INTACT AND GENDERED PRONOUNS LIGHTLY EDITED, CORRECTIONS WELCOME:

Peruvian girl family abused by her classmates by fear leaves Fujinomiya
IPC 04/24/2014 | Category: Community , Shizuoka | Courtesy of IA
It is suspected that the girl has been filmed and photographed when she was abused.

The sexual abuse that was inflicted upon a Peruvian girl (13) by five [female] Japanese classmates in the town of Fujinomiya, Shizuoka, is taking as rough road as the event itself. The girl was not abused in a nearby park as stated in the beginning but all have occurred within the school, and the facts have been filmed and photographed.

These data were revealed to International Press by the mother of the girl, who has begun to understand much more the state of terror in which she finds her daughter. [The daughter] had received threats from the aggressors if her mother and her younger brother should denounce the abuses.

The girl was told under threats have been abused more times than I said and within the school between July 2013 and March 2014, when she left school completely and asked the help of her mother.

Fear is installed in the house because of the Fujinomiya police so far has not given strong signs that they want to protect the family, and have no confidence in the school due to the bad management of the case so far.

PERUVIAN CONSUL’S VISIT TO THE POLICE AND SCHOOL

Police and school have shown only real concern of the problem on Tuesday when they saw on April 22 parked in front of their premises a car with diplomatic plates, with the consul general of Peru in Tokyo, Minister Julio Cardenas, aboard.

The head of the Central Police Station Fujinomiya assured the Peruvian Consul to give priority to the investigation and assured they would treat the case as if it were any Japanese.

That same day, following the visit of Consul Cárdenas, an agent of the police revealed that the International Press rape investigations are underway and that four of the five alleged attackers, including her parents, had passed by the police station, although all have denied the allegations.

At school, the Consul was greeted by the vice-principal, and his presence in the school caused an unusual stir. The manager promised to take action and collaborate as needed.

Just Thursday morning, the mother received a phone call from the Board of Education and school district offering psychological support for the Peruvian girl, but she has lost all confidence in them. A private psychologist in charge of treatment is small.

ONLY LIVED FOR THEM: THE MOTHER

The mother tries to get her courage to the drama that has affected their lives, and complains about not being able to support her child on time. “I am mortified and hurt, I wanted to go back in time and be there to protect her,” she confessed in tears in a meeting with CPI.

“My daughter is quite reserved. Chiquita my brothers told me it was quite coy, that anyone could take her without her claimed “he said and I was like well cared for.

“I worked until three in the afternoon to be with my children,” she said, “we live austerely, but that is to be with them.” This happened until she lost the job due to a fall in production and started to work until 5pm.

Still, every day she brought her children to school, even though the tutor asked her not to do so, and each time she would also pick them up. “I was afraid that something had happened to them. I was afraid that she would be kidnapped as read in the news in Japan or hit by a car on the streets. Everyone knows who lived for them,”s he said.

She took care of both children to the point where, her own mother once scolded, that “she was a very overprotective mom”, and asked to leave them freer to learn how to defend themselves.

That was until in March 2013, when the girl began to have changes in her character. Besides being reserved she became even more distant from her mother, became cranky, and could go days without bathing. Everyone thought it was stuff of adolescence and needed patience.

The first warning that she was victim of ijime (harassment) occurred in May 2013. A group of friends beat and demanded to leave the music club where Peruvian learned clarinet. The mother filed a complaint and then accepted for the moment her move to the drawing club.

FEAR AND OUT OF FUJINOMIYA

Since then the facts were supposedly worse without anyone noticing at school. Five Japanese girls her age molested the Peruvian in a ritual that was filmed and photographed.

The mother believes that her daughter endured all that, and in silence, for fear that these people do harm to your family. She had asked her mother not to send her younger brother to study in that school.

Now, the goal is to surround the small images that give security. Her father, who had divorced his mother for some time, has returned home to protect her. Took time off work, although it was reported yesterday that he had been fired despite having explained the situation the manager of the company.

The presence of the consul Cardenas helped decisively. After that, she had more details that will help in the police investigation. The same diplomat brought mother and daughter to Tokyo on Tuesday for a consultation with the renowned Japanese lawyer Kotaro Tanaka.

Yet fear and trauma was beyond endurance. In hours this afternoon, the mother usumió decisive action to safeguard the physical and psychological integrity of his family. She put in the car a change of clothes and left in an unknown direction from Fujinomiya out of fear. The famous Japanese safety has collapsed for them.

“We are now leaving Fujinomiya” the father said to International Press, while his former wife was driving with her two children on board. They only become increasingly requires the police. They want justice. (Luis Alvarez / ipcdigital)
ENDS

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

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Familia de la niña peruana ultrajada por sus compañeras de clase deja Fujinomiya por temor
24/04/2014 | Categoría: Comunidad,Shizuoka | Courtesy of IA
Se sospecha que la niña haya sido filmada y fotografiada cuando fue abusada.
http://es.ipcdigital.com/2014/04/24/nina-peruana-violada-por-sus-companeras-en-una-escuela-de-fujinomiya-puede-haber-sido-filmada/

El abuso sexual al que fue sometida una niña peruana (13) por cinco compañeras de clase japonesas en la localidad de Fujinomiya, en Shizuoka, está tomando un camino tan escabroso como el propio acontecimiento. La niña no fue abusada en un parque cercano como se dijo en un principio sino que todo habría ocurrido dentro de la escuela y los hechos habrían sido filmados y fotografiados.

Estos datos fueron revelados a International Press por la madre de la niña, quien ha empezado a comprender mucho más el estado de terror en que se encuentra su hija. Ella habría recibido amenazas de las agresoras contra su persona, su madre y su hermano menor en caso denunciara los abusos.

La pequeña ha contado que bajo amenazas ha sido abusada más veces de las que dijo y dentro de la escuela entre julio de 2013 y marzo de 2014, cuando abandonó la escuela totalmente y pidió el auxilio de su madre.

El miedo se ha instalado en la casa de la peruana porque hasta ahora la policía de Fujimiya no ha dado muestras contundentes de que quiere proteger a esa familia y no hay confianza en la escuela por la pésima gestión del caso hasta el momento.

LA VISITA DEL CÓNSUL A LA POLICÍA Y ESCUELA

Policía y escuela solo han mostrado preocupación real del problema el día martes 22 cuando vieron estacionarse en la puerta de sus locales un automóvil con placa diplomática con el cónsul general del Perú en Tokio, ministro Julio Cárdenas, a bordo.

El jefe de la comisaría central de Fujinomiya ha asegurado al Cónsul Peruano que dará prioridad a esta investigación y garantizó que tratarían el caso como si fuera de cualquier japonés.

Ese mismo día, tras la visita del Cónsul Cárdenas, un agente de la policía reveló a International Press que las investigaciones de la violación están en marcha y que cuatro de las cinco supuestas atacantes, incluidos sus padres, habían pasado por la delegación policial aunque todas han negado los hechos.

En la escuela, el Cónsul fue recibido por el vice-director y su presencia en el centro escolar causó un revuelo inusitado. El directivo prometió tomar acciones y colaborar en cuanto haga falta.

Recién la mañana de hoy jueves, la madre recibió una llamada telefónica de la la Junta Educativa del Municipio y de la escuela ofreciendo ayuda psicológica para la niña peruana, pero se ha perdido toda la confianza en ellos. Una psicóloga privada está encargándose del tratamiento de la pequeña.

SOLO VIVÍA PARA ELLOS: LA MADRE

La madre intenta sacar fuerzas de flaqueza ante el drama que vive y se reprocha por no haber podido apoyar a tiempo a tu niña. “Me siento mortificada y dolida. Cómo quisiera regresar en el tiempo y estar allí para protegerla”, confesó entre lágrimas en un encuentro con IPC.

“Mi niña es bastante reservada. De chiquita mis hermanos me decían que era muy calladita, que cualquiera se la podía llevar sin que ella reclamara”, dijo y así fue como la cuidó.

“Yo trabajaba hasta las tres de la tarde para estar con mis hijos. Dije, ‘vamos a vivir austeramente, pero que sea para estar con ellos’”, siguió contando la madre. Así ocurrió hasta que perdió el trabajo por una caída de la producción y empezó a trabajar hasta las 5 de la tarde.

Aún así, todos los días llevaba a sus niños a la escuela, a pesar de que la tutora de pedía que no lo hiciese, y cada vez que podía también los recogía. “Yo temía que les pasara algo. Tenía miedo que los secuestraran como se lee en las noticias de Japón o que un carro los atropellara en estas calles. Todos saben que vivía para ellos”, declaró.

La mujer cuidaba tanto de los chicos, que su propia madre le reprochó alguna vez que “era una mamá muy sobreprotectora” y le pedía que los dejara más libres para que aprendieran a defenderse.

Así fue hasta que en marzo de 2013 su niña empezó a tener cambios en su carácter. Además de reservada se volvió aún más distante de su madre, respondía de mal humor y podía pasar días sin bañarse. Todos pensaron que se trataba de cosas de la adolescencia y que necesitaba paciencia.

El primer aviso de que era víctima de ijime (hostigamiento) ocurrió en mayo de 2013. Un grupo de amigas la golpeaba y le exigía que saliera del club de música en donde la peruana aprendía clarinete. La madre presentó una queja y luego aceptó pasarla al club de dibujo.

MIEDO Y LA SALIDA DE FUJINOMIYA

Desde entonces los hechos fueron a peor sin que supuestamente nadie en la escuela lo notara. Cinco niñas japonesas de su misma edad habrían abusado sexualmente de la peruana en un ritual que era filmado y fotografiado.

La madre entiende que su niña soportó todo eso, y en silencio, por temor a que esas personas hicieran daño a su familia. Ella había pedido a su mamá que no mandara a su hermano menor a estudiar a esa escuela.

Ahora, el objetivo es rodear a la pequeña de imágenes que le den seguridad. Su padre, divorciado de su mamá hace algún tiempo, ha vuelto a casa para protegerla. Pidió permiso en el trabajo, aunque ayer fue comunicado de que había sido despedido a pesar de haber explicado su caso al gerente de la empresa.

La presencia del cónsul Cárdenas ayudó decididamente. Tras ello, la niña contó más detalles que ayudarán en la investigación policial. El mismo diplomático trajo a madre e hija el martes hasta Tokio para una consulta con el conocido abogado japonés Kotaro Tanaka.

Aún así el temor y el trauma superan lo soportable. En horas de esta tarde, la madre usumió una acción decidida para salvaguardar la integridad física y psicológica de su familia. Puso en el carro alguna muda de ropa y dejó Fujinomiya con rumbo desconocido por temor. La famosa seguridad de Japón se ha derrumbado para ellos.

“Estamos ahora mismo saliendo de Fujinomiya”, dijo el papá a International Press mientras su ex esposa iba al volante con sus dos niños abordo. Solo volverán cada vez que la policía lo requiera. Quieren justicia. (Luis Álvarez/ipcdigital)
ENDS

New facial recognition systems at J border: Once again, testing out the next-gen loss of civil liberties on the “Gaijin Guinea Pigs”

Posted on April 19, 2014April 19, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. First, take in this:

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

Face recognition system to be tested again at Japanese immigration
Kyodo News, April 19, 2014, courtesy of JK
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/kyodo-news-international/140419/face-recognition-system-be-tested-again-at-japanese-im

The government plans to restart from August a test on a facial recognition system to speed up immigration checks at airports and prepare for an expected surge in visitors for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, officials said Saturday.

The Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau will reintroduce the system on a trial basis for Japanese passengers at Haneda and Narita airports for about five weeks, after a series of errors in the first test in 2012 led the ministry to forgo its plan to adopt the system.

Facial recognition systems check passenger photos taken during inspections against data in a chip in their passports. Britain and Australia have introduced such systems.

The bureau conducted the first test on roughly 29,000 people between August and September 2012, but the system failed to recognize about 17 percent of the passengers.

A panel of experts told the Justice Ministry in May last year it should introduce the facial recognition system to increase use of automated gates to leave and enter the country, quicker than conventional immigration inspections.

Automated gates at major airports equipped with fingerprint recognition technology are unpopular with passengers as they require prior registration. The facial recognition system will not need it.

ENDS

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

COMMENT: Now let’s survey the narratives of justification in this article. We have the argument that it’s allegedly for a looming event (NJ swarm from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, even though it’s more than six years away!), the convenience factor (faster processing of people, this time without even registering!), and the bandwagon argument that others are implementing it (Britain and Australia, whose civil societies have had more robust debates on the issues of privacy and civil liberties). All of these arguments were made during the reinstitution of NJ fingerprinting in 2007, and that time it wasn’t for a specific event, but rather for anti-terrorism [sic] in general. And as Debito.org has argued many times before, once you get the public softened up on the idea of taking away civil liberties by testing it on one sector of the population (in this case, the Gaijin Guinea Pigs, since foreigners in every society have fewer civil and political rights), it gets expanded on the rest of the population.

Let’s enter the No-Brainer Zone: I anticipate the facial recognition software will be implemented nationwide more seamlessly than any other intrusive technology yet, since it is so convenient and doesn’t require individual registry or even much hardware installation. There’s even a profit motive. Consider this:

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

EDITORIAL
Stores sharing shoppers’ faces
The Japan Times, APR 12, 2014, courtesy of JK

Over 100 supermarkets and convenience stores in the Tokyo metropolitan area have been recording images of shoppers’ faces as part of antishoplifting measures. Though the stores have posted signs stating cameras are in place, the stores have been sharing the biometric data of customers without their knowledge.

Such sharing should be considered an invasion of privacy and going against the intention of Japan’s Personal Information Protection Law.

After 115 stores of 50 separate companies installed a shoplifting prevention system, they obtained the power not only to record every customer’s face but also to share that record in a network.

If a person shoplifts or makes unreasonable complaints, camera footage of the person is turned into biometric data and classified into categories such as shoplifter or complainer. That data is then stored on the firm’s server and made available to other stores.

When the same face is recognized at another store, the staff is notified that the blacklisted person is in their store.

Because the accuracy rate of current recognition software has become extremely high — 99.9 percent accurate by some accounts — the data is more or less equivalent to the original image. That means that even when the original images of the faces are not made available, a nearly complete replication of that face, in data form, is being shared.

The problem is the lack of checks on the system. Seemingly whoever has access to the network could classify customers according to an arbitrary criterion. But what constitutes an “unreasonable” complaint is open to question. And whether an act of shoplifting is reported to the police and whether the suspect is convicted of the crime is a matter of the law. It should not be a matter of how an employee feels about it.

Unfortunately with this technology, stores are now able to put people on a blacklist for any reason whatsoever.

Rest of the article at
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/04/12/editorials/stores-sharing-shoppers-faces/

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

Comments at the JT to this article were very poignant regarding the probable treatment of Visible Minorities:

Steve Jackman
I suspect that this technology and sharing of data is also being used to target shoppers who are visible minorities for extra surveillance. If so, that would explain accounts I have heard from some foreign residents of Japan that security guards seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere when they are visiting shops (especially, certain large department stores in the Tokyo area).

=============================
phu
While I’d stop short of absolutely connecting this to such accounts, it was also my first thought that the abuse of this system would immediately (or at least very promptly) swing to surveillance of minorities.

The article uses the term “blacklist” without explicitly stating that the customers HAVE been blacklisted, as in disallowed from entering one of the stores in the network. In the absence of that actual claim, and based on what should be the illegality of this practice, I’m not convinced that’s actually happening: As presented, the whole thing seems more arbitrary than barring a convicted criminal from the premises of one store (which would be reasonable in some circumstances) and closer to cooperative discrimination, whether legally justified or not, and whether directed at minorities or at ethnic, resident Japanese.

=============================
Steve Jackman
The risk and a likely scenario of a system like this, which lacks proper checks-and-balances, is that the actions of a single shop employee at a store can result in a shopper getting forever blacklisted and tagged for extra surveillance at many other stores.

What if this employee is inherently suspicious of all foreigners in general, or harbors racist feelings towards anyone who does not appear Japanese? Such an employee can end up blacklisting and tagging a foreign shopper not for anything specific that the customer has done, but rather out of the employee’s own paranoia against non-Japanese shoppers.

=============================
phu
Certainly. In places where minorities are either accepted or largely ignored, this would still be unacceptable (as you say, it puts too much power in arbitrary and unchecked hands, regardless of how it’s used), but Japan’s pronounced discrimination problem does make it hard to ignore the likelihood of abuse skewing towards minorities.

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

Food for thought as the dragnets draw ever tighter. Although the 2020 Olympics have been used as justification for positive pro-NJ rights issues (see for example here and here), here’s an example of where it’s doing the opposite. Japan’s policymakers get weird whenever the outside world is going to drop by for a visit. Not only when they’re being called over to stay awhile. ARUDOU Debito

Mainichi: Discrimination against NJ in housing rentals highlighted in Tokyo Govt survey; like “Tokyo Sharehouse” with its new Tokyo-wide system of Japanese-Only rentals?

Posted on April 14, 2014April 26, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

eBooks, Books, and more from ARUDOU Debito (click on icon):

UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
DEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
“LIKE” US on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/debitoorg
http://www.facebook.com/handbookimmigrants
https://www.facebook.com/JapaneseOnlyTheBook
https://www.facebook.com/BookInAppropriate
If you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:

All donations will only be used for website costs. Thanks for your support!

Hi Blog. A number of people sent me this article about the Tokyo Metropolitan government surveying NJ discrimination levels (I guess it takes an Olympics before people start caring about foreigners; watch this best behavior dry up afterwards). It is indeed good to see people acknowledging that discrimination towards NJ exists, and that the media is covering it. And that the most common answer by respondents chosen (since it is probably the most normalized and systemic NJ discrimination) is in residence rentals (not to mention the rise in awareness of hate speech; hurrah). I’ll return to the subject of realtors again right after the articles.

But one just has to love the methodology when it comes to the “how to improve things” section part of the survey: The leading questions assuming that Japanese and foreigners are “different”. After all, Japan is unique, therefore anyone who is not a Japanese is not a member of the unique J-culture club, therefore foreigners must be different because they aren’t, er, unique like us Japanese (as opposed to everyone being treated like a human being with similar interests and needs, such as, er, shelter and equal access to housing?). And those “differences” must be explained (as opposed to legislated away with anti-discrimination laws?) to them and us, no matter how long that takes, and regardless of how vague a concept these “cultural differences” are. Such a convenient patsy for differential treatment is “culture”, yes sir.

Anyway, here is the article in E and J. Further comment follows:

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

Discrimination against foreigners in renting apartments highlighted in survey
April 10, 2014 (Mainichi Japan), courtesy of JK
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140410p2a00m0na005000c.html

Discrimination against foreigners in renting apartments or other residences was given as an ongoing violation of their human rights by almost half of respondents to a survey by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

The survey was conducted in November and December last year with preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games in mind. The survey was offered to 3,000 randomly chosen Tokyo residents, with responses gathered from 1,573 people.

A representative of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s human rights division said, “Violations of foreigners’ human rights continue, and we’d like to improve awareness of the issue within six years from now (when the Olympics are scheduled.)”

In a multiple-answer question on human rights violations against foreigners, “the difficulty of renting apartments or other residences” was the most common answer chosen, with 45.6 percent of respondents selecting it. Next was “receiving disadvantageous treatment at work or during job hunting” at 34.5 percent, followed by “insufficient acceptance in community activities and places of communication” at 21.9 percent and “bullying or harassment at work or school” at 21.1 percent. With the repeated instances of hate speech directed at foreigners going on around the country, 19.9 percent of respondents chose “discriminatory speech and actions.”

Regarding what is necessary to get along with foreigners, 60.1 percent answered “inform foreigners of the differences between traditions and habits in their country and Japan,” 44.3 percent answered, “create more opportunities for communication such as by encouraging participation in local society,” 41.1 percent replied, “inform Japanese of the differences between traditions and habits in Japan and foreigners’ countries,” and 24.3 percent responded, “improve foreign language support at help organizations.”
ENDS

Original Japanese:

都民人権世論調査:外国人への人権侵害、「アパート入居困難」半数近く　「差別的な表現や言動ある」は２割　／東京
毎日新聞　2014年04月10日　地方版
http://mainichi.jp/area/tokyo/news/20140410ddlk13040128000c.html

都は、２０２０年東京五輪の開催決定を受け、都民の人権意識に関する調査を行い、その結果を公表した。外国人に対してどのような人権侵害が起きているかという質問に、半数近くが「アパートなど住宅への入居が困難なこと」と回答した。都人権部の担当者は「外国人への人権侵害は依然として残っており、（五輪が開かれる）６年後を目標に人権意識を高める啓発を強めたい」としている。

調査は昨年１１〜１２月、住民基本台帳から無作為に抽出した３０００人の都民を対象に行い、１５７３人から回答を得た。

「外国人への人権侵害」は、複数回答で「アパートなど住宅への入居が困難なこと」が最多の４５・６％。「就職・職場で不利な扱いを受ける」３４・５％▽「地域社会の活動や交流の場での受け入れが十分でない」２１・９％▽「職場・学校等で嫌がらせやいじめを受ける」２１・１％−−と続いた。また、ヘイトスピーチ（憎悪表現）が各地で相次いでいることなどを受け、１９・９％が「差別的な表現や言動が行われること」を挙げた。

また、外国人と共存するために必要と思う取り組みは、「外国人に日本の風習や習慣の違いを周知する」６０・１％▽「地域社会の活動に参加を促すなど交流の機会を増やす」４４・３％▽「日本人に外国の風習や習慣の違いを周知する」４１・１％▽「各種の相談機関で外国語対応を充実させる」２４・３％−−となった。【和田浩幸】

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

COMMENT: Now consider this recent email from John F.:

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

April 10, 2014
Dear Debito, First of all, I would like to thank you for your tireless efforts in fighting discrimination in Japan. I especially appreciate how you choose to try and educate those who engage in discrimination rather than simply expressing condemnation. As an American living in Tokyo, my personal experiences with discrimination have fortunately been few and far between. From time to time, though, I have felt as if my human dignity was violated. I wish I were more courageous in rationally approaching such incidents of discrimination rather than keeping my feelings bottled up.

I would like to share with you a few specific examples of housing discrimination in Tokyo concerning share houses, and how a certain popular website advertises share house properties on the Internet. The link to the website I am referring to is tokyosharehouse.com

I had a rather unfortunate experience visiting a property advertised on that website last August. The property is called ‘Share Vie Mizue’, located in the Edogawa Ward of Tokyo. Here is the link to the property’s description: http://tokyosharehouse.com/eng/house/detail/470/

I discovered the property’s website while reading a review of it on Gaijinpot. As the property is advertised in English, I was very enthusiastic about checking it out. Naturally, I supposed it would be very welcoming towards international residents. To make a long story short, the representative who showed me the property reluctantly informed me that the owners did not welcome international residents. He did his best to dissuade me from attempting to rent a room there, and tried to offer me a place at another location. It seemed as if he was personally embarrassed that the owner of this particular property would discriminate against international guests. I wasn’t angry with him, but I was extremely upset that I took the time to visit the property on the assumption that I would be welcome due to the website being advertised in English. The website made no indication that international guests were not welcome at this property. Perhaps, hopefully, they have changed their policies since. However, the website still makes no indication that international guests are not welcome at that particular property.

Having recently returned to Tokyo from five months back in New York, I am again searching for a share house to live in. I have come across tokyosharehouse.com again, and what I discovered while browsing other properties on their website still disturbs me.

Please have a look at this link: http://tokyosharehouse.com/eng/house/detail/1324/

Now I am not female, but I find it rather painful to see the requirements for the ‘La Felice Ikejiri’ property. The requirements for renting a room are listed as ‘Female / Foreigner_x’.

At first I was a bit confused as to what this means. Is it a ‘Foreigner Only’ house for females? If you scroll down further to ‘Move-in Conditions and Managing Style’ section, you’ll notice that there is no category of requirements for foreigners. The description of the property is accompanied by a side bar on the right describing whom I assume to be the property owners, ‘Tokyo Sanku Monogatari Co., Ltd.’ or ‘Many Smile Co.’

I am sorry to write you such a long email, but coming across these listings really makes my blood boil, especially after the personal experience I had. Although language is not specifically a problem, I find it rather unusual that a real estate website would choose to advertise properties in English where non-Japanese renters are not welcome. There are other properties on the site with similar discriminatory policies. This website has been advertised on Gaijinpot in the past as well. The owners of this website should be ashamed of themselves for advertising such properties, especially when they sheepishly use euphemistic descriptions like ‘Foreigner_x’ rather than what they really mean – ‘No Foreigners Allowed’.

I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way. As share houses become more mainstream, I am afraid more and more non-Japanese apartment seekers on low budgets will be met with housing discrimination. Thank you for taking the time to read my email, and thank you for helping to restore dignity to those who have been victimized by discrimination. Best regards, John F

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

COMMENT CONTINUES: Y’know, that’s funny. Why would this company go through all the trouble to put up a website in English and then use it to refuse NJ? So they’d look international? Or so they’d look exclusionary to an international audience? Especially since there’s no room for misunderstanding (not to mention, no room, har har) when you look at the Japanese version of these websites:

(Complete tangent, but it’s also funny how the “foreigner” image is somehow redolent of Saturn…)

Yep, that’s “Gaikokujin Taiou Fuka“. Foreigners will not receive service. Japanese Only. No cutesy “Foreigner_x”. Whole page, for context:

Other places within this rental system with “No Foreigners” rules (gotta love how they pretentiously put the names in faux French, yet won’t take French people):

Claris Sangenjaya (English) http://tokyosharehouse.com/eng/house/detail/1325/ (Japanese) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/1325/
Domondo Sangenjaya (English) http://tokyosharehouse.com/eng/house/detail/1095/, (Japanese) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/1095/
Aviril Shibuya (Japanese Only in both meanings): http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/1431/
Pleades Sakura Shin-machi (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/847/
La Vita Komazawa (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/500/
La Levre Sakura Shin-machi (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/846/
Leviair Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/506/
Flora Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/502/
La Famille (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/503/
Pechka Shimo-Kitazawa (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/507/
Amitie Naka-Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/508/
Cerisier Sakura Shin-machi (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/504/
Stella Naka-Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/501/
Solare Meguro (Japanese Only in both meanings) http://tokyosharehouse.com/jpn/house/detail/509/

UPDATE APRIL 26, 2014: HERE’S ANOTHER TOKYO EXAMPLE SUBMITTED BY DEBITO.ORG READER XY: NOTE HOW FOREIGNERS (HELPFULLY REFUSED IN ENGLISH) AND CATS ARE BANNED (BUT SMALL PETS ARE ALLOWED). MAYBE IF NJ ANNOYINGLY YIPPED A LITTLE MORE LIKE POMERANIANS OR OTHER PURSE DOGS…?

Japan’s Right-wing swing taking on NJ media: Foreign correspondents ‘blindly swallowing’ anti-Japanese propaganda, writer alleges

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. As Japan’s right-wing swing begins to be noticed and acknowledged overseas (I predicted this swing would happen quite a while ago), foreign media are increasingly taking off the kid gloves, and dealing forcefully with Japan’s perpetual historical amnesia. So much so that it’s making some Japanese opinion leaders uncomfortable, and, as the article below attests, they’re pushing back against the apparent gaiatsu by claiming the foreign correspondents are succumbing to “propaganda”. Have a read.

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

Foreign correspondents ‘blindly swallowing’ anti-Japanese propaganda, writer alleges
JAPAN TODAY KUCHIKOMI APR. 10, 2014, courtesy of MS
http://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi/view/foreign-correspondents-blindly-swallowing-anti-japanese-propaganda-writer-alleges

TOKYO — In his “East Asia Anemometer” (an anemometer is a device for measuring wind speed) column for the Sankei Shimbun column of March 29, Takao Harakawa accused foreign correspondents based in Tokyo of harboring “blind belief” in the anti-Japanese propaganda being generated by China and South Korea. He bases this on his observations from a recent press conference that in his view descended into a “blame-Japan” fest.

China, he alleges, has ordered its embassies in various countries to engage in a worldwide campaign to criticize prime minister Abe for visiting Yasukuni Shrine last December. And South Korea recently went so far as to use the venue of an international comic exhibition to lambaste Japan over the sex-slave (“comfort women”) issue.

These two neighboring countries’ persistent efforts to discredit Japan, suggests Harakawa, may finally be starting to show results, as the press event held in mid-March at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Yurakucho, Tokyo, turned into a one-sided affair.

The event was intended to publicize the activities by a delegation of Japanese legislators in local government assemblies who had visited Glendale, California to protest Korean lobbyists’ installation of a statue of a comfort woman in a public park.

But when it came time for questions, Harakawa didn’t like the tone of the reporters at all.

“During the war, Korean laborers worked in the coal mines in Oita prefecture. Do you think they were sent there forcibly or not?” was one question.

“We’re not here today to discuss laborers, this is a press conference about ‘sex slaves,’” replied Yoshiko Matsuura, a councilor in the Suginami assembly, in an attempt to deflect his question.

Matsuura pointed out that the 1993 “Kono Statement” apologizing to the sex slaves was based on “completely vague testimony, and also noted that as a result of the controversy there, Japanese children residing in Glendale had been subjected to “bullying and harassment” by Korean children.

“The statue of the ‘comfort woman’ erected in Glendale will leave a huge bill to be paid in the future,” she warned.

The questions fired back by the correspondents in attendance, however, were “conspicuous in the way they were either based on insufficient understanding or bias.”

Another correspondent’s remarks that “You’re saying that the ‘sex slaves’ are a fabrication, but as opposed to merely making that statement, how many facts are there to support it? Presently Japan is continuing to lose sympathy throughout the world,” is given as another example.

Tomoko Tsujimura, a member of the Komae City assembly who also attended the gathering, was quoted as saying “Since the Japanese government is not completely responding [to the allegations], Japan’s position is being outweighed by propaganda from South Korea, and I feel the foundations have been laid for many members of the foreign media to harbor feelings of disgust toward Japan.”

After the event, Kawahara said a sympathetic foreign journalist said to him, “Today’s event was not to ask questions to you, but to cast blame on Japan.”

In the background of the journalists’ mindset, believes Harakawa, was a viewpoint echoing the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

Details from the press event have appeared in the online versions of TIME magazine and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Neither of them were inclined to support Matsuura’s views. TIME’s reporter even wrote that the speakers’ efforts to take the offensive over the sex slave issue was “likely to do them more harm than good.”

Interpreter at the event was Hiroyuki Fujita, an international journalist and translator of Henry Scott-Stokes’ recent book (in Japanese) titled, “Falsehoods of the Allied Nations’ Victorious View of History, as Seen by a British Journalist.”

“Foreigners, especially citizens of the Allied nations (during WW2), tend to view the historical truth in terms of judgments handed down by the Tokyo war crimes tribunal,” said Fujita. “According to that view, Japan must be the villain, and anyone who attempts to assert something at odds with that is stereotypically tarred as a revisionist who is attempting to gloss over history. One of the very few correspondents who’s an exception to this would be Mr Henry Scott-Stokes, who has really done his homework on the issues.”

Japan faces an urgent need to assume a state of readiness to counter propaganda from China and Korea, including additional budgetary measures for issuing information, Harakawa concludes.

ENDS

“Japanese Only” exclusionary Tentake tempura restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo, allegedly due to NJ “hygiene” issues

Posted on April 5, 2014March 28, 2021 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Another to add to the Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments. This time, a restaurant, as submitter Yoshio Tanaka notified me via email and photographs:

====================================
April 5, 2014, Yoshio Tanaka wrote:

(All photos taken April 4, 2014.)

(NB: The Japanese below the JAPANESE ONLY text on the sign reads, “The inside of this restaurant is very small. In order to avoid accidents, we are sorry, but we refuse entry to all children below the age of 5. We ask for our customers understanding and cooperation.”)

Storefront

Noren of restaurant with the phone number.

天健（てんたけ）
ジャンル天ぷら、天丼・天重
住所〒111-0032 東京都台東区浅草2-4-1
TEL・予約 03-3841-5519

“Ten-take” tempura restaurant, Tokyo-to Taitou-ku Asakusa 2-4-1, Phone 03-3841-5519

Contact details courtesy http://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1311/A131102/13010522/, last updated January 2014, with no mention of its “Japanese Only” rules. (It does mention the no children under five: 店内が非常に狭いため、事故防止の観点から5歳未満の子連れ不可の張り紙あり」. Interesting how a “no foreigners” rule somehow escapes mention.)

COMMENT: I called Tentake today (April 5) to confirm with the management that yes, they do have a “Japanese Only” restriction. Their reasons given: 1) Hygiene (eiseimen), which were, when asked, issues of “foreigners” not taking off their shoes when entering, 2) NJ causing problems (meiwaku) to other customers, and 3) a language barrier, as in NJ not speaking Japanese. Basic Otaru Onsen exclusionary excuses. When asked if he didn’t think these were prejudicial generalizations about all NJ, he said repeatedly that he couldn’t deal with “foreigners” (tai’ou o shi kirenai). Then he hung up.

UPDATE APRIL 18, 2014: The sign is down and the shop is open to NJ customers again.

My Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 74, Apr 3, 2014: “Knowing your rights can protect against fake cops”, updating the NJ Spot ID Checkpoints issue

Posted on April 2, 2014April 12, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

eBooks, Books, and more from ARUDOU Debito (click on icon):

UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
DEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free
“LIKE” US on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/debitoorg
http://www.facebook.com/handbookimmigrants
https://www.facebook.com/JapaneseOnlyTheBook
https://www.facebook.com/BookInAppropriate
If you like what you read and discuss on Debito.org, please consider helping us stop hackers and defray maintenance costs with a little donation via my webhoster:

This money will only be used for hosting and maintenance costs. Thanks for your support!

Hi Blog. My latest Japan Times column is out now. Excerpt:
ISSUES| JUST BE CAUSE

Knowing your rights can protect against fake cops
BY DEBITO ARUDOU
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES, APR 2, 2014
Courtesy http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/04/02/issues/rights-can-protect-against-fake-cops/

Long-time readers of The Japan Times will already be aware of some of the information in today’s column. But within is an important update, so press on.

Exacerbating this is social policy (see Community pages passim), with the National Police Agency and other ministries expressly portraying non-Japanese as agents of crime, terrorism, hooliganism and infectious diseases. They have also encouraged the general public to pile on, unlawfully demanding that hotels and other public facilities, taxation agencies and non-Japanese employers also carry out gaijin-card checks.

Note that this sort of thing cannot be done to Japanese. Even the prospect of creating standardized IDs (let alone being forced to carry one at all times) has caused public outrage (recall the scandal over the Juki Net system). No wonder: Citizens are in fact shielded by the Police Execution of Duties Law, which states that police officers can ask personal questions only if there is probable cause — that is, adequate suspicion that a crime has been or is about to be committed. Although there are cases of Japanese being similarly harassed by police, the attitude of those on the receiving end of such treatment — at least according to numerous videos on YouTube (search for shokumu shitsumon, or 職務質問) — generally seems to be alarm over capricious invasions of privacy.

Not so for non-Japanese. Last month I received reports that police officers in Roppongi have recently included searching bags and sticking their hands down the pockets of non-Japanese, heightening the invasiveness. (This is the same police branch, remember, that came up with non-Japanese urine checks — until The Japan Times questioned its legality. See “Cops crack down with ‘I pee’ tests,” July 7, 2009.)

Moreover, as general awareness has increased that non-Japanese must carry gaijin cards, I have received reports that weirdos posing as police (most recently in Kichijoji, Tokyo) are coming up to non-Japanese (particularly women) and demanding their personal information.

One might think things changed for the better when the Foreign Registry Law was abolished in 2012 — after all, non-Japanese can finally be registered as residents with their Japanese families — but no: The section that permits spot ID checks was incorporated into the revised Immigration Control Act (Article 23).

Fortunately, so were safeguards against cop masqueraders. So here is a revised version of your legal rights:

If someone who purports to be a police officer (some prowl in plainclothes) asks for your ID, ask if this is shokumu shitsumon (literally, a professional inquiry; download a dialog you can put in your wallet at www.debito.org/shokumushitsumon.html) If he says yes, ask if there is probable cause of a crime. If he says no, ask if you may leave. Repeat as necessary. This should stop some ID checks, especially if you start videoing it with your phone. (Legally you can, as YouTube demonstrates.)
If the police officer responds that as non-Japanese, you are required by law to display ID upon request, counter that by law, cops are also required to display badges upon request. Say “• Keisatsu techō o misete kudasai• ” and take a picture of both the badge and the hologram ID on the back. (Beware of fake badges; see an image at www.debito.org/?p=12138). This will stop most abuses. Then show your gaijin card.
If the officer refuses to show his techō (pointing to the number on his uniform lapel — or, according to one account, patting his gun — is insufficient), then head to the nearest kōban • (police box). That should send imposters scurrying away. Once there, by law, you will have to show your gaijin card, but try to get a techō from somebody, because you will need all the information (on front and back) for future reference.
If the officer demands a bag or pocket search, ask if he has a warrant, and that you won’t comply until he gets one. Say “Reijō ga arimasu ka? Reijō ga nai to dekimasen.”
If you feel as though you have suffered abusive treatment, then contact the Public Safety Commission (kōan iinkai) in your prefecture (Tokyo’s is at www.kouaniinkai.metro.tokyo.jp/osirase.html) with the exact details of the officer’s badge. You can file a formal complaint in English — they have translators. Admittedly, these are wolves policing other wolves, but do something and you might get an answer; do nothing and there is no possibility of a check or balance on abusive cops or cosplay stalkers.

Remember: Only police and other officials of the Justice Ministry (such as immigration officials) may demand to see your gaijin card specifically. When necessary, you can choose to show other ID, such as a driver’s license or health insurance card, like any Japanese.

The point is, be aware of your rights. Like anywhere, Japan has people with foreigner fixations (such as killers Joji Obara and Tatsuya Ichihashi), and they prey on the weakened position of non-Japanese in Japanese society. Empower yourself.

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

ARUDOU, Debito is the author of the “Guidebook for Relocation and Assimilation into Japan” (www.debito.org/handbook.html) A discussion of this issue is at www.debito.org/?p=12138. Send comments and story ideas to community@japantimes.co.jp.
ENDS

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 2, 2014

Posted on April 2, 2014April 4, 2014 by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 2, 2014

Table of Contents:
//////////////////////////////////
1) My latest Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column 74, Apr 3, 2014: “Knowing your rights can protect against fake cops”, updating the NJ Spot ID Checkpoints issue

2) Neo-Nazis march in Tokyo Edogawa-ku March 23, 2014, bearing swastika flags! Here’s how counter-demos could sharpen their anti-racism message

3) JT: Motley crew of foreigners backing Japan’s revisionists basks in media glare

4) Briefly interviewed by BBC Radio program “BBC Trending”: “Scrubbing anti-foreigner scribbling from Tokyo’s Streets”, March 16, 2014

CLOSURE
5) Suraj Case: Tokyo District Court finds “illegal” excessive force, orders GOJ restitution to family of NJ killed during deportation (contrast with UK case)

6) Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 73, “J.League and Media Must Show Red Card to Racism” on Saitama Stadium “Japanese Only” Urawa Reds soccer fans, Mar 13, 2014

…and finally…

7) Urawa “Japanese Only” Soccer Banner Case: Conclusions and Lessons I learned from it
//////////////////////////////////

By ARUDOU, Debito (debito@debito.org)
Freely Forwardable

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

1) My latest Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE column 74, Apr 3, 2014: “Knowing your rights can protect against fake cops”, updating the NJ Spot ID Checkpoints issue

Excerpt: Long-time readers of The Japan Times will already be aware of some of the information in today’s column. But within is an important update, so press on.

Read the rest at
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/04/02/issues/rights-can-protect-against-fake-cops/
Anchor site with links to sources up in a few days at https://www.debito.org/?p=12237

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

2) Neo-Nazis march in Tokyo Edogawa-ku March 23, 2014, bearing swastika flags! Here’s how counter-demos could sharpen their anti-racism message

I put this up as a matter of record of how Japan’s overt xenophobia has mutated from the hatred of a specific people (the Chinese and/or Koreans); now it’s piggybacking upon a historical campaign that ultimately led to genocide.

Witness this video taken of xenophobic demonstrators doing one of their demonstrations (note that this ilk last year also advocated genocide with a sign saying “good or bad, kill all Koreans”). The video below is subtitled as filmed in Tokyo Edogawa-ku, Kodomo no Hiroba (a children’s park), on Sunday, March 23, 2014:

COMMENT: This is one of the outcomes of an education system that still hasn’t come to grips with its fascist past, and thus has literate people appropriating symbols for shock value without historical awareness of what they’re advocating (or, worse yet, they are aware, and actually support genocidal fanaticism!). For once I’m willing to give these demonstrators the benefit of the doubt (as we see plenty of swastikas around Asia more as ideological fashion statements; moreover, we still haven’t seen a group manifesto specifically advocating murder). But not if Nazi Swastikas appear again. And I bet they will.

The only good news one could point out in this Edogawa-ku video to is the presence of counter-demonstrators. Not so long ago, protests like these were just seen as venting, confined to rightist wingnuts without much political traction, so they were ignored by the public in general who just walked by tacitly. Now with Japan’s sharp and overt right-wing swing, people ARE seeing the danger (as it increasingly gets noticed overseas) that these people represent, and coming out to show that racists do not represent all Japanese (their banners are, after all, also in English for foreign consumption). Good. Please continue.

But the counter-demonstrators could do better with their message. One thing that keeps getting missed out in these racist vs. counter-racist demos is the notion that the foreign element being decried is not really foreign. They (particularly the Zainichi being targeted) are residents of Japan who have been contributing to Japanese society for decades and generations. Nobody is really pointing this out — that NJ BELONG IN JAPAN and are INVESTED IN JAPAN just the same as citizens. Instead, it’s more along the lines of “racism is embarrassing to Japan, so knock it off”. It’s a shame issue, not a moral issue of equality and equal treatment of other peoples. We saw that in the recent “Japanese Only” sign issue with the Urawa Reds soccer team earlier this month: Despite some really good condemnations of racism in Japanese soccer, nobody really had the balls to say explicitly that the problem with this exclusionary sign is that NJ are Urawa Reds fans too. So this foreigner-verboten “sacred ground” within Saitama Station is a stupid concept, because fandom in sport should (and does) transcend nationality and race.

So if any counter-demonstrators are reading this blog (thanks if you are), may I suggest that you counter the evils of the “bad things foreigners in Japan do” propaganda with some “good things foreigners in Japan do” placards too? A simple, “外国人も日本人と同じ、住民だ！” would work magic in awareness raising and debate-agenda setting. Thanks.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12218

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

3) JT: Motley crew of foreigners backing Japan’s revisionists basks in media glare

JT: In the war of words — particularly with South Korea and China — over World War II-era issues that has intensified over the past 18 months, foreigners — both Westerners and Asians — have also waded into the fray. And some have even sided with revisionist positions, raising questions over the Japanese military’s alleged recruitment of sex slaves (“comfort women”) and other contentious wartime topics.

For these individuals, preaching to the Japanese choir does appear to have its rewards. At a gathering in Tokyo last autumn, veteran British journalist Henry Scott Stokes commemorated the 70th anniversary of the showpiece meeting of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere, Japan’s short-lived effort to align Asians against European colonial powers. “Japan is a country of rising sun,” he told his audience. “Joining hands together with the fellow Asian people who desire truly Free Asia, I sincerely hope that Japan will play a vital role for realizing democratic Asian unity.”

COMMENT: In light of the recent Nazi Swastika flags appearing in right-wing marches, it’s pretty wrong-headed for anyone who wants to keep a good reputation to publicly align with people like these. But it’s within character. I’ve heard plenty of pretty unflattering things about Mr. Scott-Stokes through the grapevine over the years. But another NJ bozo mentioned in the article as being in the pocket of Japan’s revisionist right is Tony Marano, a YouTube Vlogger (a sample video of his is up at the JT site; follow above link), who has in the past ignorantly commented on the “Japanese Only” signs issue — by blaming NJ (i.e., the “ugly Americans”) for the signs’ existence. Particularly one “liberal” foreigner (guess who; and I’m not a foreigner) who sues “them” and “messes up their legal system”: (video)

I wonder if Marano will ever get over his ignorance by actually doing any reading up on the issue. Probably not. Critics of his ilk rarely do — it makes the maintenance of their world view that much simpler. And, clearly, as the JT article establishes, more profitable.

UPDATE APRIL 1 (No, this isn’t an April Fool’s prank): Marano gets a regular column with tabloid weekly Asahi Geino (see scan). Now all he has to do is spout off, and it gets translated into a language and culture he doesn’t understand. I love how they try to directly translate his “god bless” at the end of the article. Marano has no idea what he’s getting himself into.

UPDATE APRIL 2: Scott-Stokes also admits that he can’t even read his own revisionist book, let alone write it:

FCCJ: “Oddly, perhaps, he admits to not knowing exactly what’s between the pages of the book that carries his name – he says he reads little Japanese and an English translation has yet to be produced. It was dictated over hundreds of hours to another FCCJ member…

So like Marano, Scott-Stokes has no idea how he’s being rendered in Japanese. Seems like for some, Japanese language fluency and apologist/revisionist stances are inversely proportional.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12215

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

4) Briefly interviewed by BBC Radio program “BBC Trending”: “Scrubbing anti-foreigner scribbling from Tokyo’s Streets”, March 16, 2014

Unrelated to the big flap covered below about the Urawa Reds “Japanese Only” Saitama Stadium Banner issue, I was interviewed by the BBC regarding anti-NJ messages, and the public backlash against the xenophobes. Since I’m not an expert on Zainichi issues, I gave a bit more background on how Visible Minorities are treated in the following segment:

BBC World Service
BBC Trending, March 16, 2014
“Scrubbing anti-foreigner scribbling from Tokyo’s streets”
Segment duration: 9 minutes
My bit comes in between 14:45 and 15:53, but please listen to the whole segment; it’s a decent article.

I’m very happy that people are charting racist graffiti using Google Maps. Kinda like what Debito.org has done for more than a decade with its Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments, complete with map to substantiate visually how widespread the issue has become. Bravo. Make a record, and make it permanent, because the only way we’re going to show that a problem exists (and is getting worse) is by not letting racists become historical deniers.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12194

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

CLOSURE:

5) Suraj Case: Tokyo District Court finds “illegal” excessive force, orders GOJ restitution to family of NJ killed during deportation (contrast with UK case)

Some moderately good news also came down the pipeline a few days ago, when the Suraj Case of police brutality and death in detention was drawn to a conclusion in Civil Court. The Tokyo District Court faulted the GOJ with “illegal” excessive force, and doled out restitution of a paltry sum of about USD $50,000 for a man’s life. Hokay. For many (unless there is an appeal), that means case closed.

It’s good that somebody was found fault with. Up until now, Japan’s Immigration Bureau got away with a clear case of cold-blooded murder of a NJ being manhandled by overzealous authorities. However, this was a decision that took place in CIVIL Court, not Criminal, meaning no criminal penalty has been applied to Suraj’s killers.

Contrast this with a very similar murder that just came down in the UK: The Mubenga Case. Same time line (an excruciatingly slow four years), same class of human being as far as the developed countries see it (a dark African man from Ghana/Angola), and same killing while in official custody. Except in the UK case, you get arrests, a charge of manslaughter, and killers’ names made public. In other words, the System in the latter case is less likely to protect individuals for their excesses, which is the much better deterrent for them to do this brutal act again. Thus we’re more likely to see Surajs happen than Mubengas, since Japan’s criminal prosecutors decided not to pursue Suraj’s case. And so the Suraj Case remains Japan’s shame, and should be a deterrent for future immigrants to come to Japan: In Japan’s overall criminal system of “hostage justice”, an overstayed visa may become a capital offense.

https://www.debito.org/?p=12201

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

6) Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE Col 73, “J.League and Media Must Show Red Card to Racism” on Saitama Stadium “Japanese Only” Urawa Reds soccer fans, Mar 13, 2014

J.LEAGUE AND MEDIA MUST SHOW RED CARD TO RACISM
JBC Column 73 for the Japan Times Community Page
To be published March 13, 2014
By ARUDOU Debito, Version with links to sources

On Saturday, during their J. League match against Sagan Tosu at Saitama Stadium, some Urawa Reds fans hung a “Japanese only” banner over an entrance to the stands.

It went viral. Several sports sections in Japanese newspapers and blogs, as well as overseas English media, covered the story. The banner was reportedly soon taken down, and both the football club and players expressed regret that it had ever appeared. Urawa investigated, and at the time of going to press Wednesday, reports were suggesting that the club had decided that the banner was discriminatory, reversing a previous finding that the fans behind the incident had “no discriminatory intent.”

So case closed? Not so fast. There is something important that the major media is overlooking — nay, abetting: the implicit racism that would spawn such a sign.…

https://www.debito.org/?p=12162

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

…and finally…

7) Urawa “Japanese Only” Soccer Banner Case: Conclusions and Lessons I learned from it

LESSONS OF THE URAWA “JAPANESE ONLY” SOCCER STADIUM BANNER CASE OF MARCH 8, 2014

Let’s sew this issue up: What happened this week is probably the most dramatic and progressive thing to happen to NJ in Japan, particularly its Visible Minorities, since the Otaru Onsens Case came down with its District Court Decision in November 2002.

In this decision, a Japanese court ruled for only the second time (the first being the Ana Bortz Case back in October 1999) that “Japanese Only” signs and rules were racial discrimination (jinshu sabetsu).

It did not call it discrimination instead based on “ethnicity” (minzoku), “nationality” (kokuseki), outward appearance (gaiken), or some kind of “misunderstanding” (gokai), “ingrained cultural habit” or “necessary business practice” (shuukan no chigai, seikatsu shuukan, shakai tsuunen, shikatsu mondai etc.). All of these claims had merely been excuses made to ignore the elephant in the room that more invidious racialized processes were involved.

But in the Urawa “Japanese Only” Soccer Stadium Banner Case, the word jinshu sabetsu reappeared in the terms of debate, and we may in fact have witnessed a watershed moment in Japan’s race relations history. Yet it wouldn’t have happened without the issue leaking outside of Japan, incurring gaiatsu (outside pressure), and a real threat to Japan’s worldwide reputation as a “civilized” society. A full explication follows:

https://www.debito.org/?p=12179

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

Alright, that’s all for this month. Thanks for reading!

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 2, 2014 ENDS