Another (rather pedestrian, but something for the uninitiated; even the GOJ comments–albeit flacidly–this time) article about the rolling controversy that remains 2-Channel, the world’s largest BBS, and a hotbed of anonymized libel (the “den of criminals” comment is not mine).
As always, 2-Channel adminstrator Nishimura gets quoted. Wish they’d asked more comments from the victims.
The Financial Times (London) reports that more bodies within the UN are joining the fray and pointing out Japan as not only a slacker in the human rights arenas, but also as sorely lacking in terms of checks and balances regarding the criminal procedure and the judiciary.
LA Times: For the first time, a DVD recording of a suspect confessing his crime to police was admitted as evidence in a Japanese court Friday, a move that could lead to stricter checks on the lengthy, secret police interrogations that defense lawyers say result in pressure on suspects to make false confessions. Prosecutors and police have long resisted demands from human rights activists and lawyers to record their questioning of suspects, who can be held without charge for 23 days in special police cells with limited access to defense lawyers. But a court case here may open the way for greater oversight of the confession-based investigation culture.
During one of my recent speech tours, I was told by a Nikkei Brazilian student (I will call her Maria) that her sister (call her Nicola) had been victimized by a Japanese high school’s rules. According to Maria, Nicola had been forced by her school to dye her hair weekly because it was not as dark as her peers’. Maria said she herself escaped the Hair Police (she looks more phenotypically “Japanese” than her sister), but Nicola was told to darken and even straighten hers. Although graduated from the high school, Nicola still has not only mental trauma from the ordeal, but also damaged hair which to this day has not recovered. An example of how Japan’s cookie-cutter educational rules are doing a disservice to Japan’s imminent internationalization…
The number of foreign students in need of Japanese-language instruction in 885 municipalities exceeded 20,000 as of 2005, and the figure continues to increase, a government survey has found. The Education, Science and Technology Ministry has produced guidebooks for language teaching, but most public primary, middle and high school teachers have little experience in teaching Japanese as a second language. Experts have pointed out the need for teachers who specialize in teaching Japanese to foreign children.
In the newly opened Chukiren Peace Museum, the 80-year old curator, Fumiko Niki, is among a small group of activists and academics who have spent years compiling a depository of records that they say proves the enormity of the imperial army’s war crimes before and during World War II. The effort to remember that history is being lost in a growing revisionist tide, she fears. “We are in a very dangerous period,” says Ms. Niki. “Awareness of Japan’s role in wartime is fading.”
1) IPS ON JAPAN XENOPHOBIA’S EFFECT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH
2) KTO ON GAIJIN HANZAI AND SEXING UP FOREIGN CRIME FIGURES
3) NYT ON FORCED CONFESSIONS BY JAPANESE POLICE
4) LUCIE BLACKMAN’S ALLEGED KILLER ACQUITTED, ODDLY
5) ANTHONY BIANCHI REELECTED TO INUYAMA CITY ASSEMBLY
6) PEACE AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE CONFERENCE, KYOTO, SUBMISSIONS DUE MAY 31
and finally…
7) KYUSHU CYCLETREK 2007: REPORT OF THE 768-KM TRIP WITH PHOTOS
This is a little ditty about my recent 768 cycle around Kyushu during Golden Week 2007. Complete with maps and photos, have a gander if you want to see marathon cycling in all weather.
Here’s another article outlining the social damage created by Japan’s close-to-a-decade (since April 2000, see my book JAPANESE ONLY) of media, police, and governmental targeting of NJ as agents of crime and social instability: Even when the press finally decides to turn down the heat, the public has a hard time getting over it.
John Dower: Children’s games can provide a barometer of their times. With consumer of any sort still in the distant future, youngsters were thrown back on their imaginations, and their play became a lively measure of the obsessions of adult society. Not long before, boys in particular had played war with a chilling innocence of what they were being encouraged to become. They donned headbands and imagined themselves piloting the planes that would, in fact, never return. They played at being heroic sailors long after the imperial navy began to be decimated. Armed with wooden spears and bayonets, they threw themselves screaming at mock-ups of Roosevelt and Churchill and pretended they were saving the country from the foreign devils [48]. In defeat, there was no such clear indoctrination behind children’s games. Essentially, they played at doing what they saw grownups do. It was a sobering sight…
Lee Kyung Jae obtained Japanese nationality to bring the voices of foreign residents to local and national politics. Running for a seat in the Osaka prefectural assembly election Sunday, he is the first candidate of foreign origin who has run in a local or national election on a campaign to represent the interests of an ethnic group, according to the Korean Residents’ Union in Japan (Mindan). Results blogged on Debito.org.
Here’s an article which will hopefully start the pendelum swinging backwards on the whole “foreigners are potential criminals” starting point whenever NJ interact which the police. Some advice follows from the US Embassy (gleaned after a recent email exchange over yet another case of post-assault police negligence) which would have made my closing comments a little more informative.
Feature
Crime Spree
Foreigners who turn to Japan’s justice system for help find themselves ignored. Is incompetence to blame—or racism?
METROPOLIS MAGAZINE #677 MARCH 16, 2007
By Oscar Johnson
1) SAKANAKA ESSAY ON NEW FRAMEWORK FOR J IMMIGRATION POLICIES
2) KEIDANREN WANTS MORE FOREIGNERS
3) NIIGATA PREF CITY TO ABOLISH “NATIONALITY CLAUSE”
4) TOKYO GOVERNORSHIP HEATS UP: ASANO DECRIES ISHIHARA’S XENOPHOBIA
5) PM ABE: “OK OK, I APOLOGIZE FOR THE ‘COMFORT WOMEN’ ALREADY”. KINDA.
6) FOREIGN MINISTER ASO: DIPLOMACY AS A MATTER OF HAIR AND EYE COLOR
7) MANUAL: BEWARE FOREIGN P*NISES! WITH CHART OF SIZES
8) DEBITO.ORG UPDATES: KARA KIKAN, NATURALIZATION, APARTMENT “SHIKIKIN” REFUND
9) MEDIA UPDATES: JET INTERVIEW, DEBITO.ORG MAKES JAPANZINE’S BEST FOR 2007
10) 2-CHANNEL UPDATE: NISHIMURA WILL PAY FINES “ONLY ON PAIN OF DEATH”
11) CONCLUDING GAIJIN HANZAI ISSUE WITH JT AND J FOCUS ARTICLES
and finally… JAPANESE ONLY T-SHIRTS ALSO ON SALE IN FRONT OF JR TOKYO STATION
Now, for the first time, part of “Nyukan Senki” has been translated into English in the hopes that the outside world will better be able to follow, and perhaps even participate in the discussions, formal and informal, that are taking place in Japan. Readers lacking a deep familiarity with Japanese politics should understand that, within the official debate (a debate that human rights NGOs, liberal opposition politicians have little or no influence over and which foreigners are entirely absent) Sakanaka is far more concerned about the enactment of a humane but realistic immigration policy than many of the other politicians, bureaucrats, academics, and senior corporate leaders with similar levels of political clout.
Some odds and sods waiting to be webbed: Concluding articles to the GAIJIN HANZAI Case for posterity (Japan Times and Japan Focus), an article on how your overseas work can count towards a J pension (kara kikan), other countries’ attitudes towards citizenship (some deprive it at will, some sell it), and, yes, a handbook cautioning J women about foreign men because of drug use and penis size…
The Japanese Business Federation, Keidanren, has recommended to the government that the immigration
requirements for foreign engineers’ visas be relaxed, to encourage a larger number of people to come work here, particularly in IT.
Transcript of Luncheon with UN Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene and Arudou Debito, Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Feb 16, 2007. Now reformatted with links, addendum, and photo.
Article: Japan should now create a society where people with various cultural backgrounds are accepted as Japanese, called “Chinese-Japanese,” for instance, without any discriminatory connotations and be treated fairly as equal and important members of society.
1) NEW JAPAN TIMES ARTICLE OUT TODAY ON “MYTH OF JAPAN’S CRIME WAVE”
2) UN’S DOUDOU DIENE BACK IN TOKYO NEXT WEEK
–ANYTHING YOU’D LIKE ME TO SUBMIT TO HIM? BY NOON FRIDAY
3) UPCOMING SPEECHES IN TOKYO, ONE WITH DIENE RE GAIJIN HANZAI MAGAZINE
4) ECONOMIST ON J POLICE INTERROGATIONS AND NEW SUO MOVIE
5) J TIMES: PREFECTURES RANKED RE SUPPORT FOR FOREIGN RESIDENTS
Here we have an interesting development: The editor of the GAIJIN HANZAI URA FILES responds to his critics. A fascinating and relatively rare glimpse into the mindset of a person with a “thing” about gaijin. I post his response below, then comment after each paragraph.
Large gaps exist in how well local governments provide useful information and linguistic and other assistance to non-Japanese residents, according to a recent study by a nongovernmental organization.
Economist article on the new Suo film and police interrogations/confessions in Japan. Some links on what to do if arrested. DO NOT SIGN A CONFESSION IF YOU DID NOT DO IT, or you have sold yourself down the river.
To deflect the cultural relativists and naybobs who make a sport of poking holes in any argument or social movement, it’s probably a good idea to give a review of the “GAIJIN HANZAI UNDERGROUND FILES” publication. and why it’s symptomatic of so much of what is wrong about a media which has insufficient safeguards against hate speech and defamation of ethnic groups.
Foreign press takes this up, books get withdrawn by distributors with apologies, and publisher defends this because of the need for debate, and that the word “nigger” is not offensive in Japan. Huh?
1) IVAN HALL NOV 3 2006 JALT SPEECH ON DEBITO.ORG
2) ENDGAME FOR JAPAN’S QUEST FOR UNSC SEAT?
3) METROPOLIS ON INTERNATIONAL CHILD ABDUCTIONS
4) AP PRIMER ON J IMMIGRATION ISSUES
5) HUMOR…
a) How to deal with Japanese police ID checkpoints: have personalities.
b) Amorously noisy bathers cause trouble at onsen. Ban them too?
c) Yunohana’s “Japanese Only” sign copied into online video game.
d) First Debito.org Dejima Award: Town approves university only if no foreign students allowed
and finally.. “JAPANESE ONLY” T-SHIRTS ON SALE AGAIN AT DEBITO.ORG
Ivan Hall, author of seminal work CARTELS OF THE MIND (Norton 1997), described the systematic ways Japanese “intellectual cartels” in influential sectors of thought transfer (including the mass media, academic, and legal community) shut out foreign influences as a matter of course. He gave a marvellous speech in JALT Kitakyushu on November 3, 2006. It is my pleasure to premiere the full text on debito.org.
Assuming that this is true: Gracious old rural inns, traditionally, have been places where Japanese go to relax in natural surroundings while soaking away their aches and pains in mineral hot springs. But, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (10/13), inns’ clientele of late seem to have other ideas. “The idea of 24-hour bathing was to let you get up early, and soak in the tub while watching the rising sun burn off the morning mist,” continues the kami. “Or, you could go late there at night and gaze at the starry sky. It made things all the more relaxing. But when you’ve got to worry about families bathing within hearing range of these noisy young couples, it’s really vexing.”…
1) IMMIGRATION BUREAU VIOLATES PRIVACY OF MARRIAGE,
IN QUESTIONING J SPOUSES FOR LONGER-TERM VISAS
2) ECONOMIST ON THE BASIC EDUCATION LAW’S REFORM
3) BUSINESS CONSORTIUM INTRODUCING IC CHIP SHOPPING DEVICES
4) MORE LABOR ABUSES OF FOREIGN “TRAINEES” COMING TO LIGHT
and finally…
DEBITO’S EXPANDED ITINERARY: UPDATED SCHEDULE WITH OPEN DAYS
GOING THROUGH TOKYO, KANSAI, AND KYUSHU, NEED ME TO SPEAK?
Want a visa of any duration longer than three months, and just happen to be married? Well the Immigration Bureau has instituted a new questionnaire, which asks you breathtakingly personal questions, such as what language you use at home, who came to your wedding, how much rent you pay, how and where and when you met (include photos, love letters, international phone bills), and how you learned Japanese. Why? Because they are Immigration and they can do whatever they damn well please to foreigners and their unfortunate Japanese spouses.
Launching a series on what I see as a very serious issue (training people to be “patriotic” at the early stages of education, with “love of country” tests already happening in Kyushu and Saitama grade schools), here is an introductory article from The Economist (London) on Japan’s reform of its Basic Education Law (Kyouiku Kihon Hou).
I don’t quite share its analytical framework or its rosy conclusions, but it’s a decent primer on the issue. Further links to this issue on debito.org included after the article. Further links to this issue on debito.org included after the article.
Below that follow two more Japan Times articles showing the most recent policy push in its genesis, back in 2002 and 2003.
I’m sure I’ll be saying this many times in the course of analysis and argument from now on, but what of the international community and mixed-roots children getting their education in Japan? Will they have to make a choice about their national identity (one, not both?), or just be excluded altogether?
Japan Times on how the foreign community, particularly the composition of its ethnicities, is changing. An interesting case study of one Chinese’s immigration to Japan.
1) INTERVIEW WITH J-SELECT MAGAZINE
2) BECOMING A LAWYER IN JAPAN: THE BIFURCATED J BAR EXAM
3) JOEL DECHANT AND HIS GUIDED TOURS OF BEPPU
4) TEN THINGS WHICH CHANGED MY LIFE IN 2006
and finally… DEBITO.ORG A DECADE ON…
Daily Yomiuri reports: Two state-run immigration “Gaijin Tanks” (where overstayers await deportation) failed to have a full-time doctor on staff despite ministerial requirements. Maintaining adequate medical and health services at detention facilities of any kind is stipulated in the U.N. Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment.
Links to articles of interest from Mark Smith of the Children’s Rights Network of Japan, charting the media’s growing awareness of Japan’s safe haven for child abductions after international divorces.
1) JAPAN TIMES ERIC JOHNSTON MISQUOTED IN NEW BOOK ON IMPERIAL FAMILY
2) ANTHONY BIANCHI RUNNING FOR MAYOR OF INUYAMA, AICHI PREF
3) GOJ’S ANTI-IMMIGRANT AND ANTI-REFUGEE STANCE DRAWS FIRE FROM U.N.
4) TOKYO SHINBUN ON JAPAN’S FOREIGN SLAVE LABOR CONDITIONS
5) YOMIURI: FOREIGN WORKERS CANNOT WIRE MONEY HOME, WRITE LETTERS…
6) SENDAI CITY LOSES LAWSUIT OVER BUS ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION
7) ASAHI: COURT RULES JUKI NET UNCONSTITUTIONAL. HOWZABOUT GAIJIN CARDS?
8) GOJ NOW REQUIRES OVERSEAS “RAP SHEETS” FOR LONG-TERM VISAS
9) QUICK UPDATES TO PREVIOUS BLOG ENTRIES…
and finally… LOSING MY SUGAWARA ON MY KOSEKI
Japan Times reports UNHCR’s Antonio Guterres visit to Japan, where he says that as more people migrate worldwide, Japan will not be able to stop immigration. He added his concern with how people are treated once they get here. Kyodo News article same day gives good example, with a man from Myanmar facing deportation after being caught working full time as a dependent on his wife’s visa filed a lawsuit Wednesday
seeking to stay. He argues it is unreasonable to prohibit immigrant families from having a dual income.
Fascinating account of how people become lawyers in Japan, and the sea change in Japan’s Bar Exam system.
Hello Blog. Interesting article on how Japan’s factories’ abusive practices towards foreign “trainee” workers are coming to light. (I have another article on this subject on this blog at http://www.debito.org/?p=105) In this case, a Muslim trainee worker has had to sign a “seiyakusho” (a written oath, mildly translated in the article as merely a “note”) …
Fascinating post on Japanese govt policy moves against “pseudo sushi”–certifying washoku restaurants abroad as “real Japanese”. Plethora of puns to be made here.
Hello Blog. Forwarding from a reporter friend. Comment is his. Debito ////////////////////////////////////////// Not sure what to make of this. Should I be dissapointed that they chose a foreigner as the defendant in their mock trial or pleased that the jury didn’t necessarily lock him up and throw away the key just because he wasn’t Japanese….. …
In filming a Tokyo Comedy Store event, TV Wide Show “Tokudane” seems to be fishing too much to find “Japanese vs. Western Humor” dichotomy, especially the type where Westerners making any joke about Japan is shown as a criticism about all of Japan. This according to one of the comedians interviewed, Dave MG, who writes this blog entry. Fascinating background information behind show to be aired next Weds Nov 22.
Professor Noriguchi is becoming a regular pundit on English language education in Japan. After saying not two months ago that one problem with non-Japanese teachers is that they stay in Japan too long, he’s now positing theories about how English is traumatizing and bilking Japanese, especially given the natural disadvantages that the homogeneous Japanese have towards learning English compared to other Asians… Not to mention the inferiority complex which Japanese have towards the West, thus making them unneighborly… Oh go on, read it yourself, and email him if you like.
(Submitted to the Life in Japan yahoogroups list, which kicked off some debate. Subscribe to LIJ via http://groups.yahoo.com/group/life_in_japan/) Hi LIJ. Thought I’d throw another bale of info onto the bonfire of debate on English education in Japan: Wide Show Toku Da Ne this morning had a long segment (about 15 minutes, between 8:25 and 8:40 …
With Japan’s population now in decline and the need for more foreign labor becoming increasingly apparent, the issue of how to deal with newcomers has become a concern not just for Japanese but for long-term foreign residents, especially Koreans.
Ebullient Ishihara to seek 3rd term 09/01/2006 http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200608310347.html THE ASAHI SHIMBUN Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has made clear he will seek a third term to help prepare Tokyo for its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Ishihara, 73, declared his intention to run for the gubernatorial race next spring after Tokyo beat out Fukuoka on …
SF Chronicle: Imagine discovering you have been living in an artificial world with rules designed to mask a terrible reality. This is, of course, the premise of “The Matrix,” but it is also an analogy I use to explain child custody and visitation in Japan, a subject in which I do research (and have had personal experience). Japan’s family courts have rules and procedures that hide a sad truth: They are powerless to protect the parent-child relationship when a divorce turns hostile…
Foreign-born lawmaker puts Japan’s acceptance of outsiders to the test By Oscar Johnson Courtesy http://www.crisscross.com/jp/newsmaker/345 Marutei Tsurunen stands in front of the Diet. PHOTO BY TSUTOMU FU TOKYO — Marutei Tsurunen relentlessly clawed at the doors of the Diet for a decade with two goals in mind: to get the inside scoop on politics and …
1) “POLICE PATROL CONTACT CARD” ASKS FOREIGNERS FOR PERSONAL DETAILS
2) SHUUKAN DIAMONDO ON “IMMIGRATION ARCHIPELAGO JAPAN”
3) ANOTHER TAKE ON THE UN RAPPORTEUR DIENE TRIP
4) THE RIGHT WING START GEARING UP AGAINST DIENE REPORT
5) LETTER TO YOMIURI RE FINGERPRINTING LAW
6) OTARU ONSENS MEDIA TAPE
7) YAMATO DAMACY’S CONCLUDING INTERVIEW
8) and finally… THE COMPLIMENT OF THE YEAR
Hi All. Arudou Debito here. Something you should know about ASAP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// “ON HOW TO ALLOW FOREIGNERS ENTRY FROM NOW ON” MOJ “PROJECT TEAM REPORT” TRANSLATION FOLLOWS, YOUR FEEDBACK TO MOJ BY JULY /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// July 4, 2006. (revised slightly July 5) Freely forwardable Last newsletter, I wrote you about how Dietmember and Senior Vice Minister …
1) DIETMEMBER KOUNO TARO’S RECOMMENDATIONS ON IMMIGRATION.
GIVE YOUR FEEDBACK
2) MOFA HAS NEW HEARING ON FOREIGNERS’ RIGHTS JULY 28
3) “NO DANCING LICENCE”: POLICE RAID HIROSHIMA FOREIGNER PUB EL BARCO
4) ASAHI: WITCH HUNT FOR PARENTS WHO REFUSE TO SING “KIMIGAYO”
5) LINKS TO HANDOUTS FROM RECENT SPEECHES
6) JAPAN TIMES JUNE 27 ON UN REP DIENE VISIT AND AFTEREFFECTS