mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER SEPT 17, 2008

1) CALIFORNIA/JAPAN TOUR AUG-SEPT 2008 TRAVELOGUE

Hi Blog. This is a special Newsletter to tell you all how my recent six-week trip went between Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Berkeley, Mountain View, Hamamatsu, Inuyama, Osaka, Nagoya, Saitama, Nagano, Sendai, and Kitakami, Iwate. Here goes:

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1a) TWO WEEKS ON–FORMER AUGUST 2008, SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

This was my second time in Santa Cruz (see report on first trip at https://www.debito.org/californiatrek2005.html) with a group of students (sixteen in all, mostly guys, all raring to learn and get some experiences, if not some language abilities), and as ever my Hokkaido Information University students didn’t disappoint. At a program sponsored by UC Santa Cruz’s Extension, we joined a record number of students from places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and other European countries to toss a true salad of cultures with the same aim. Our students huddled around the lower levels (HIU, an information science and computer school, has no English majors), but what they lacked in ability they made up for in spirit. In fact, I heard from ELI coordinators that they jockey to get the HIU students every year because they’re so much fun. I could understand why. They were not from an elite school; they came from relatively lower-income families, and 1) had no elite school reputation to maintain in public, and 2) weren’t there to blow off classes and waste their hard-earned money. So they never cut class, instead staying up late doing homework in groups, and whenever possible clumped into travelling phalanxes with and without native speakers to explore nearby San Francisco, points around Santa Cruz, even play cards with me (Daifugou and Euchre) on main street around the mumbling but harmless homeless people. Everyone found them a joy to be around, as they were unabashed and full of humor (each person joining our groups every day became a new and original array of humor, in two languages) and I was glad to be their mediator for the first two weeks of their monthlong stay (which may be the last for our school — budget cuts have just killed the Santa Cruz ELI Program — see my letter of protest to Governor Schwarzenegger and the UC Board of Regents at https://www.debito.org/?p=1870).

After they recovered from jetlag (I helped by keeping them up for the first few nights in our dorm until 11PM; cards and Yahtzee and American television–particularly the heavily-influenced by Anime Cartoon Network–did the trick; so did Mountain Dew), they went off to do homestays and I found myself in a lovely Victorian-style house-hotel called the Hinds House (http://www.hinds-house.com/); highly recommended if you want a stay of over a week in a self-catering environment), walking three blocks to work, watching the fog burn off every morning (it was a summer without a summer for me–San Francisco and southern coastal environs has a climate comparable to Kushiro). I found a number of things to love: those amazingly fat and munchable American cucumbers at the local weekly farmer’s market (Americans found it hard to wrap their heads around why I was so excited to see things like English muffins, fig newtons, chocolate milk, and pop tarts; not to mention roast beef and ham which actually tasted like something). I made sure to eat as much Mexican, pizza, and fat burgers until I was sick of them (it took longer with Mexican). And I stocked up on shoes (I can’t get my size in Japan) all over again until my suitcase would be overweight (carrying books for me to sell overseas was weight enough, and I was planning to replace stocks with other goodies as the trip wore on).

Comparisons with Japan and America are unavoidable, especially for a person in my position of choosing one society over another. Quite frankly, I found very few things to be preferable in America over Japan (like, for example, the fact I no longer stood out as a different race, the cheap cornucopia of fruits and vegetables in California markets, the wider variety of soups and salad styles in America, and a people that don’t need convincing that discrimination is a bad thing). In fact, many things made my teeth itch about the States: 1) the horribly unhygienic and sparse public toilets (Americans must have enormous bladders if they spend the day shopping), 2) the run-down state of public transportation (trains and subways are also sparse and actually pretty difficult to ride — none have routes and lines as clearly signposted as Japan’s rail and subway lines), 3) the overreliance on personal automobiles (in Japan, even if trains and busses don’t go a certain place, you can always somehow snag a cab) — I certainly don’t expect the US to kick its reliance on petrol anytime soon, 4) the Americans’ exceptional tolerance of lousy food and unbalanced meals (I had a donut that was so sweet I got a headache and thought my teeth would shatter; cookies/brownies should not be a staple of airline meals). The mania for soft drinks over plain old tapwater (at least in this part of the US) seems to have subsided; but again, that’s because (I believe) the drinks manufacturers have found a way to get people to pay for something they can get for free from any tap (same bottle, different wine, if you will). Altogether, when it comes to the day-to-day essentials of getting around and getting fed, life in Japan is in my view far superior.

But the most amazing thing for me regarding America was how expensive things were getting. Prices are rising in the developed world — as a matter or course. It’s called inflation. Meanwhile, Japan has had next to no inflation (in fact, in many markets, deflation), meaning prices of many consumer items bought on a daily basis have not changed much in the twenty years plus I’ve been in Japan. However, notwithstanding all the cheaper inputs costs, cheaper labor costs, and the weak dollar, I found dining out in America to be surprisingly expensive. Prices nearly equivalent or even pricier to Japan after conversion. And that’s, of course, before you pay the goddamn tip (which regular readers know I find to be little more than a way to foist more employer wage costs onto the consumer; in other words, a 10%-15% bribe to somehow “ensure” better service when in fact it largely winds up being an insurance policy against bad service… anyway, end of rant). It’s cheaper to eat fast food, sure, but I’m getting too old for it and want to believe that American dining can do better. It can, if you pay more. Substantially more. In terms of cost performance, lose the long-held stereotype that Japan is expensive. You can get better quality at a lower price here than in California (especially when you take into account that food should be better on average in the gourmet capital of the US, San Francisco). Given many years of inflation, American prices have, quite simply, caught up with Japan’s.

But I’ll give the Americans this — they know (or knew) how to build houses to last — and upkeep them. Santa Cruz’s three avenues of Victorianesque old houses (complete with gardens and gorgeously painted wood trim) had me aching for better architecture in Japan (not much hope, given the housing industry cartels, the high labor costs, the high barriers against architects, materials, and know-how, plus the scam of keeping the Japanese consumer rebuilding and renewing their mortgages on worn-out houses every twenty years or so). Many places reminded me of homes in my childhood, where you could cut a lawn and watch trees grow unmolested, all built with symmetry, taste, and culture. But that’s my inevitable bias — that’s one of the choices you make when you move anywhere from a rural background into an urban setting, and not necessarily America or Japan’s “fault”.

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1b) TWO WEEKS OFF–LATTER AUGUST 2008, SAN FRANCISCO

We all have probably heard the joke (erroneously attributed to Mark Twain) about the coldest winter spent during a summer in San Francisco. The climate belts shrouding wherever I was in fog, lowering temperatures ten to twenty degrees cooler than areas a few hours’ cycle away, did not disappoint. But when I had my old college friend Rod pick me up and take me into what felt like a John Carpenter movie set (think ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, complete with a drug-related brawl in the toilet stall next to mine when I was camping out with an ill-timed BM), I was wondering if visiting this town was going to be much fun at all. First impressions deceive. If you just get around the fact it’s not sunny (people were amazed I found things temperate enough to walk around in shorts and a jacket; they haven’t lived through twenty Hokkaido winters), and not go out in the early morning or late afternoon when the fog turns into a slowly-drenching mist, you can find SF a nice place to walk around (I walked from one end of Golden Gate Park to the ocean, a couple of miles as the crow flies, a lot longer due to windy paths and things to see). Plus I had distractions — friends with cars.

Jeff, a SF native who always meets me on my sojourns and kindly drives me to unusual places, took me for one of the ten best meals of my life in the Napa Valley (cost: about 80 dollars with a paired glass of wine), and also to a winery for a private primer on wine tasting and the procedure. Jeff also took me to Alcatraz (yes, you can go there with sufficient advance reservation), only a mile and change away from Fisherman’s Wharf, and take an amazing audio tour and get a unique view of the SF skyline. He also drove me out to some warmer places for a sit by an unfogged lake, and an animated discussion about Bush’s America (yes, he voted for him, twice — and in a blue state, even), reminding me, as I pondered how anyone could still support the Republicans in this failed presidency, that America still has a summer somewhere.

My favorite part of my stay was of course with friend Rod, who lost his partner to AIDS a few years back and has never quite recovered from the shock. Plunging into his work instead, I offered him some memory lane walks (he loves to cook, and I prefer to wash dishes; we’re a good team), some moral support for the odd pangs of survivor guilt he felt about why his partner and not him, and a lot of games of Scrabble (he not only went out with seven-letter words about four times, he delighted in putting down dirty words we’d have to spend the rest of the game staring at; best I could manage was “gonad”), which we use, at two games to two each, as somehow competing testament to our own superior intelligence. He also was a portal into another dimension; if I were gay, I’d be with him.

In fact, much of this trip felt like trips into alternate universes. I was born (in all places) in Walnut Creek, California, just across the hills interior from Berkeley (in fact, the first five years of my life were in Berkeley, during some of the hottest student radicalism around; I still remember watching a library burn). I met up with a family that knew my birth father (more about him at https://www.debito.org/americatrekthree.html), and who offered me insights into a life once upon a time for me in California. Friend Charles, my birth father’s contemporary, even drove me down to the house I spent the first five years of my life in. I remembered it; the (now impossibly small) back yard of concrete, with a wooden porch and a redwood interwoven fence I would climb upon as a toddler and pick up slivers from. The next door neighbor’s house I remember had a rose garden, and I somehow got into there to rip off a rose (anyone who as tried it knows they have tough stems and roses; my hands obviously suffered) and give it to my mother. The backdoor loft/converted bedroom (that would have been incredibly cold if Berkeley had winters) gave me my first exposure to a fear of the dark (I watched numerous “monster movies” made in Japan, as well as the Fay Wray KING KONG with the scene of KK looking through skyscraper windows to find his maiden; I kept thinking KK would do the same thing, peeping through my windows at night). And the thing that would trigger my fear every night would be the sound of trains letting fly their whistles in the night along the bayside. It would be the signal that King Kong or Godzilla was coming ashore.

There was that lingering feeling as I peered around the place I hadn’t been for about forty years. That feeling of one possible path not taken, of staying in the Bay Area for my entire lifetime, not knowing there was a world out there, taking a pole position in the now expensive California lifestyle before the crowds really began rolling in with the Dotcom Bubble and the Post Summer-of-Love Exodus West. Never suffering through a real winter, never learning a foreign language (except maybe Spanish, but I don’t have a natural aptitude for languages anyway), never becoming the person who loves daily adventure and busting barriers, and instead just being blissfully ignorant as a Golden California Sunshine Slacker in Sandals. I’m sure I wouldn’t want my life any other way than it is now, to be sure. But every time I heard that train whistle, that odd lingering feeling of “this is a parallel universe” just kept coming back.

Meanwhile, I got to work. I had three speeches for various groups — one local human rights, one Japan-interest in Silicon Valley, and one at Cal Berkeley for the academics. All went well and were delightfully hosted. But my hosts kept on getting anonymous phone calls and emails from 2-Channelers (yes, that nice anonymized BBS which still owes me libel lawsuit money, see https://www.debito.org/2channelsojou.html) who demanded they cancel my speeches and disinvite me. They were ignored. It’s ironic how people who enjoy freedom of speech to the point of even masking their identities will try to use it to deny those same freedoms to others…

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1c) TWO WEEKS HOME–THE LATEST JAPAN TOUR

Despite four weeks outside of Hokkaido, I didn’t return with my students once we got to Narita (I instead sent many parcels back north once I got off the plane using Yamato Takkyuubin — savoring how cheap and easy it all was compared to the US — which doesn’t even offer Surface Mail anymore), and instead immediately shinked to Hamamatsu. Never mind jetlag: I was put up on newfound friend Adam and Miyoko’s house (I hate air conditioning, but soon found it a necessary evil given how hot it was around Honshu — especially after summerless San Fran), gave a speech, and then trained over to Inuyama, to be hosted in a hotel beside the Kiso River (which had never even HEARD of the word “Internet”. They offered famous Comorant fishing as an alternative) and get to know one of Japan’s naturalized city councilors, Anthony Bianchi (now in his fifth year of office, reelected by huge margins). Then it was three days in an Osaka flophouse named Chuo Hotel near Japan’s most desperate slum, Airin Chiku (actually, at 2600 yen per night for a 3-tatami room, TV, air conditioning, clean facilities, and omnipresent wireless Internet, I recommend it. It’s run by Osaka Prefecture, see http://web.travel.rakuten.co.jp/portal/my/info_page_e.Eng?f_no=16328), readying myself for a speech for Osaka gaiben lawyers (who got University of California credit for my speech, yet told me at the end they wouldn’t pay me; that sucked).

Then it was four days in Nagoya in a delightful wooden house with Edward and Aki, who got me down for a three-day intensive course on Media Professionality (it was the best class I’ve ever taught; I even raved about it online in real time, see https://www.debito.org/?p=1898), with a class that was TWO THIRDS non-native speakers! (I anticipate multiculturalism making Japan’s colleges more collegiate, at last!). After a speech for forming NGO FRANCA Osaka (http://www.francajapan.org/), the schedule kicked up into high gear. It was the “If this is Tuesday” syndrome, with stops over with Aly in Saitama, Tyler Lynch in Nagano (with the very pleasant Kamesei Ryokan, now with new backpacker rates, see http://www.kamesei.jp/), Ben in Sendai (with Sendai FRANCA drawing very good crowds, http://sendaifranca.terapad.com/), and finally a nice packed speech in Kitakami, Iwate with Susan and her friends.

That was enough. After six and a half weeks on the road, one of the longest trips I’ve ever taken alone, and over a dozen speeches, I was ready to go home at last. The lag remains; I still don’t feel as though my home shower is mine yet, or that I’m finished living outside of my suitcase. There are indeed still more speeches to do this year (see them at https://www.debito.org/?page_id=1672), but I’ll take a breather while I can. Thanks to everyone for reading and helping out, and for making the trip a most memorable and successful one.

Arudou Debito
Back in Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org
DEBITO NEWSLETTER SEPT 17, 2008 ENDS

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JUNE 6, 2006

Hi All. Arudou Debito here. Yet another set of updates:

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1) FOREIGN POPULATION TOPS 2 MILLION FOR FIRST TIME
2) PM CANDIDATE KOUNO TARO WANTS TO LIMIT FOREIGN POPULATION TO 3%
3) PUNDIT SORIMACHI KATSUO BLAMES FOREIGN CRIME ON A LENIENT JUDICIARY
4) EXCERPTS OF “DANGER! HUMAN RIGHTS BILL” BOOK ONLINE
5) NEW ALIEN REGISTRATION DETAILS
6) UPDATE ON TRAVEL AGENCIES: ESTIMATES NOW COST MONEY?
7) UPDATE ON POLICE HOME VISITS: ANSWERING QUESTIONS IS OPTIONAL
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June ６, 2006

1) FOREIGN POPULATION TOPS 2 MILLION FOR FIRST TIME

Well, guess what, it happened: Registered foreigners last year passed a benchmark. Pre-2000, this would have been heralded with media fireworks and ruminations on how international Japanese society is becoming. Nowadays however, since foreigners are constantly being portrayed as a source of social discord by the media and the profiting police forces, well… we’ll instead whisper the inevitable:

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Mainichi Shinbun, Tokyo morning edition, May 27, 2006
(translation by Arudou Debito, not reported in English)
http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/shakai/wadai/news/20060527ddm012040087000c.html

According to Immigration statistics released on May 26, as of the end of 2005 the number of registered foreigners was 2,011,555 (a 1.9% rise over 2004), the first time it has broken 2 million. This was a rise of 0.02%, to 1.57% of the total Japanese population. By nationality, North and South Koreans were at the top, with 598,687 people. There are also 519,561 Chinese, 302,080 Brazilians, 187,261 Filipinos, 57,728 Peruvians, and 49,390 Americans.
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COMMENT: Notice that the largest growth in the foreign community is Brazilian. Rising from 286,557 souls last year to break 300,000, this means close to half of last year’s net increase of foreigners (15,523 of the 37,808) were Brazilians. As this is largest increase of Brazilians since 2001, the trend is accelerating.

And I don’t see it stopping on its own. Reported a friend on another list, who heralds from near Nagoya:
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[The foreign population] is already over 3% in at least 6 cities in Aichi, and Toyohashi (until the recent mergers,usually the 2nd largest city in Aichi) is pushing close to 5%. Okazaki’s population is growing at about 300 a month, very little of it from natural increase, and 20% of the growth from new foreign arrivals.
http://www.declan.tv/okazaki_notes/kokusekibetsu.html
The % of foreigners dropped below 3% due to a merger, but should be reached again well within 12 months. At least 4% by 2012.

Brazilian (and other foreign born) factory workers in Okazaki, Toyota and Toyohashi cities usually earn 33-380,000 a month including overtime, lower tier manufacturers simply cannot find native born workers willing to do these jobs in sufficient numbers.
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Which makes a recent statement by one of the allegedly “more left-wing LDP members”, Kouno Taro, who is currently in the running to be then next Prime Minister, all the more ironic:

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2) PM CANDIDATE KOUNO TARO WANTS TO LIMIT FOREIGN POPULATION TO 3%

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Mainichi Daily News, May 31, 2006 (English original)
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060531p2a00m0na009000c.html

A Justice Ministry panel studying an overhaul of Japan’s immigration administration is set to propose that the proportion of foreign residents to the nation’s population should be kept at 3 pct or below, Senior Vice Justice Minister Taro Kono said Tuesday.

The proposal will be included in a draft package of immigration policy reform measures to be drawn up shortly, Kono, who heads the panel, told a press conference.

According to the ministry, foreign residents accounted for 1.2 pct of Japan’s population at the end of 2005.

By contrast, the proportion stood at 8.9 pct in Germany in 2001, at 11.1 pct in the United States in the same year and at 5.6 pct in France in 1999.

The panel is also considering requiring foreign nationals of Japanese ancestry to be fluent in Japanese and have regular jobs as conditions for their residency in Japan, Kono said.

Such people are currently allowed to live in Japan if they have relatives in the country.

The panel now believes it necessary to toughen the criteria because the number of problems caused by such residents has been increasing. (Jiji Press)
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I see. So I guess it begs the question how this is going to be enforced. Compulsory birth control for the increasing number of foreign worker couples who decide to have children? Just kidding. I’m sure Mr Kouno just wants to man the barricades, for whatever reason (though I would like to know what these “increasing problems by such residents” are).

Pity he (and his ministry, which should know better) gets the figure for the percentage of the foreign population wrong. It hasn’t been 1.2 percent since around 1998! Worse yet is that the Mainichi Shinbun (which should also know better, as it reported the accurate figures not four days before), just parrots the incorrect information all over again. Shame on them. I’ve already sent a scolding through my Japanese mailing lists.

You can make your feelings known to Dietmember Kouno in four languages (see how “progressive” he is?) through his flash website at http://www.taro.org . One would hope, though, that somebody aspiring for international leadership would at least make policy pronouncements grounded on accurate information.

Still, I wonder how Toyota, Suzuki, Yamaha, Nissan, et al would feel about this proposed labor force cap. Close to two decades of “Foreign Trainee” workers, working for less than less than half wages, no social benefits, and no job security, are what’s keeping Japan’s labor costs down, stopping many of Japan’s major industries from relocating overseas. How about Toyota? In its national-pride push to finally overtake GM as the word’s leading carmaker, it’ll need even more cheap labor for the foreseeable future…

Anyway, back to the “increasing problems” chestnut:

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3) PUNDIT SORIMACHI KATSUO BLAMES FOREIGN CRIME ON A LENIENT JUDICIARY

Forwarded to me by a reporter friend, here is one of the most laughably fatheaded pieces on foreign crime I’ve ever read. Entitled “Sorimachi Speaks: Japan’s Criminal Justice System and Crimes Committed by Foreigners”, Sorimachi writes some pretty amazing social science (and in English too, perfect for forwarding to the UN). Some choice excerpts:

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“The substantive and procedural laws of Japanese criminal justice presuppose a monolingual nation. It is axiomatic that this kind of nation will be very lenient towards offenders… However, Japan’s criminal justice system is on the verge of a crisis, faced with the internationalisation of crime and the underworld activities of foreign criminals resident in Japan brought about by globalisation…

“Examining the crime of theft, bold methods hitherto unimagined by Japanese offenders and not out of place in an action movie stand out. These include the widespread and systematic use of lock picking tools in theft following breaking and entering (so that access is gained in seconds), the use of cranes to steal automatic vending machines…”

[I guess that means the newly-imaginative Japanese also committing these crimes have been inspired by the more creative foreigners. How a rote-memorization education hitherto pacified an entire society!]

“It is not possible to get a grip on these cases using the investigative methods based on presumptions about fellow Japanese. New legislation has become necessary. It is desirable that the Wiretapping Law passed in August 1999 be made particular use of in the investigation of crimes committed by foreigners in Japan…”

[Yes, you read that right.]

“Japanese justice is said to be precise justice… It is doubtful whether this kind of process is entirely appropriate for the crimes of foreigners in Japan whose culture, code of conduct and standard of living are completely different… It is impossible to avoid the impression that, whilst in Japanese justice we see a model with a deep and rare lenient tinge, it is more and more the case that this precise justice is far removed from the prevention of recidivism in and rehabilitation of foreign offenders in Japan… Japan’s penalties are amongst the lightest in the world. This is because we have assumed offenders in Japan will be fellow Japanese.

“…The reality of crime committed by foreigners in Japan, which incurs waste in terms of time and money of Japan’s human and material capital is precisely that, activity interfering with the enjoyment of the nation. To put it in the extreme, it may be appropriate to classify all crime committed by foreigners in Japan as crime relating to the national legal interest.”
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Grab a coffee and read the rest at:
http://www.lec-jp.com/speaks/info_013.html

Who is this guy? Some pundit in a policy thinktank/private-sector quasi-university, who according to a Google search seems to have the ear of quite a few people. Sorimachi’s profile in English:
http://www.lec-jp.com/corporation/english/greetings.html
http://www.lec-jp.com/corporation/english/profile/index.html

Giving Sorimachi’s thesis its due, he essentially maintains that Japan’s “precise” justice system is not suited to dealing with foreigners. He then proposes that the policing and incarceration of them be toughened up, and that repatriation for trial back in their home countries be required as an adequate deterrent (as Japan’s jails are too sweet on their inmates).

Yow. Where to start. Okay, here: The major blind spot of these types of people people who wish to single out foreign crime for special attention is, well, what do you also say about the corresponding (and far higher numerically) rises in Japanese crime? Are foreigners to blame for that too? Alas, Sorimachi offers no insight or comparison, except to say that Japanese can be rehabilitated (it’s axiomatic, remember), while foreigners are incorrigible, and thus a threat to the “enjoyment of the nation” at large.

I’ve seen to it that the UN’s Dr Diene gets a copy of this screed, of course.

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4) EXCERPTS OF “DANGER! HUMAN RIGHTS BILL” BOOK ONLINE

Last update I wrote about the “emergency publication” (kinkyuu shuppan) of a book on why Japan should have no human rights law, or a human rights committee to enforce it. Well, I had a better look at it. The authors’ thesis is one of garden-variety alarmism, that giving foreigners and general malcontents any power would lead to abuse.

For example, according to a quite well-rendered manga within, if you create any means for people to enforce their constitutional rights, you will get:

• a) foreigners getting kicked out for picking fights in bars and then siccing the Human Rights Committee on the barkeeps,
  
• b) colored foreigners forcing companies to hire them, then lying down on the job and getting away with it because of the HRC,
  
• c) yakuza forcing their way into bathhouses, extorting money in the name of the HRC,
  
• d) bigoted landlords being forced to rent their apartments to Chinese [yes, you read that right],
  
• e) politicians (quoting another PM hopeful Abe Shinzou) unable to criticize Kim Jong-Il anymore…

It even compares the UN Diene Report (pg 154-155) to Iris Chang’s RAPE OF NANKING, and calls upon the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to buck up and combat this insult to “our country” and “our people”.

I should have a translation of the pertinent bits (maybe even a parody of the manga, a la Chibi Kuro Sanbo) out relatively soon. But for now, for you Japanese readers, scanned pages with comments at:
https://www.debito.org/abunaijinkenyougohouan.html

I’ve already passed the information on to my Japanese lists, with a list of books they can present policymakers as a counterweight to this propaganda.

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5) NEW ALIEN REGISTRATION REGULATIONS

I’ve written a number of articles in the past about the new proposed regulations for fingerprinting and registering foreigners (in the name of terrorism and disease prevention, natch). For example:
https://www.debito.org/japantimes062904.html
https://www.debito.org/japantimes052405.html
https://www.debito.org/japantimes112205.html

There’ll also be a pro-and-con article on this in today’s (Tuesday) Japan Times Community Page.

Well, now that the proposal has become law as of three weeks ago, here’s how things are starting to shape up. Forwarding from a friend who has Permanent Residency:

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Check out these overviews of recently passed amendments to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. Apparently people like me and other registered aliens will be able to pass through automated gates on the basis of having complied with specific prior to departure. This is related to introduction of smart alien reg cards. Such automated gate passing has already been initiated in some other countries for nationals who apply and qualify.

第164回国会において成立した「出入国管理及び難民認定法の一部を改正する法
律（平成18年5月24日法律第４３号）」について (Japanese)
http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/keiziban/happyou/20060524_law43.pdf
2006-06-01

Law for Partial Amendment of the Immigration Control and Refugee
Recognition Act (Law No. 43 of May 24, 2006) Enacted at the 164th Diet
Session
http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/keiziban/happyou/law43_20060524.pdf
2006-06-01
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I haven’t given these documents a thorough going-over yet, but there’s the information out there for those who need it.

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6) UPDATE ON TRAVEL AGENCIES: ESTIMATES NOW CHARGED?

Through March and April, friends exposed domestic travel agents (such as No.1 Travel and HIS) and their “Japanese Only” tickets and different pricing structures based upon nationality.
https://www.debito.org/HISpricing.html

One thing suggested by some Internet BBSes was to make reservations with them, then cancel out of protest of this policy.

I’m wondering if this hasn’t caused some sort of reaction within the industry. I just tried to get an official travel estimate from Twinkle Plaza in Sapporo Station (I think it’s a member of the JTB group). And they tried to charge me 2000 yen just to put something on paper. I took my business elsewhere, of course, but is this happening to anyone else?

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7) UPDATE ON POLICE HOME VISITS: IT’S OPTIONAL

I wrote last time about the “Police Patrol Card” (junkai renraku caado), where cops visit your home and ask detailed questions about the occupants, their work and legal status, etc.
https://www.debito.org/junkairenrakucard.jpg

I got quite a few answers back from people who had experienced the same thing. Most, however, said they cooperated with the survey, seeing it as a valuable service (in case of emergency), or the mere expression of Japan as a “benign police state”. It tended to happen most often in the Kantou Area around Tokyo, less in the provinces. It’s never happened to me or any of my friends AFAIK up here in Sapporo.

However, the Japanese who responded, if they had been asked, refused to cooperate. Now, given my audience (mostly socially-conscious people) this is not a representative sample. Still, they found this procedure just as intrusive as I would, and said many of the details they would and should not be bound to divulge.

I talked to a lawyer. Responding to this police request for information is in fact optional. Which means: If the police show up at your door and you don’t feel like divulging this information, just take the card and say you’ll get back to them someday. Rinse and repeat. That’s what my Japanese respondents did, FYI.

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All for today. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito in Sapporo
debito@debito.org
www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JUNE 6, 2006
ENDS
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mytest

Hi All. Arudou Debito here. Updates:

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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
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May 27, 2006, freely forwardable

1) “POLICE PATROL CONTACT CARD” ASKS FOREIGNERS FOR PERSONAL DETAILS

I received this information earlier this week from a friend in Tokyo, who said cops patrolling her area came to her door asking for personal information about her and her wherewithal in Japan.

Entitled the “Junkan Renraku Caado” and issued by the police forces, this A4-sized paper reads, in English (as this form is clearly designed for English-reading foreigners):

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“This police officer is assigned to work in your area. His duties require him to establish rapport and maintain positive contact with community residents of his beat. As such he will occasionally call at your place of residence. These visits have a long history in the Japanese community and is [sic] not meant to be intrusive in nature. The activity is intended to provide the public with the best crime prevention and traffic awareness services the police can offer. We would also like to hear your difficulties, complaints, and opinions on community affairs, thereby helping us to serve our community better. On his first visit, the patrolman will be asking you to fill out this form. Information provided by you will be mainly used for communication purposes, should you suffer from crime, disaster, or traffic accident. Necessary precaution [sic] will be taken to maintain your privacy. Information provided by you will not be affected [sic] nor disclosed to third parties. We request your assistance in this matter. Thank you for your understanding.”
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See a scanned copy of it here
https://www.debito.org/junkairenrakucard.jpg

Above this section are boxes in Japanese only asking for “Head of Household” (setai nushi) and patrolman details.

Below it are boxes in English and Japanese for filling out Home Address (in Japan) with phone number, Nationality, and Period of Stay. There are several rows for FAMILY MAKE-UP, with Name in Full, Relationship, Sex, Occupation/School, Alien Registration Certificate Number.

The bottom half has:
a) POINTS OF EMERGENCY CONTACT (Name and address of Householder’s business, Name and address of Householder’s School, Name and address of close friend or next of kin)

b) TENANTS OTHER THAN FAMILY (with the same information required as the above FAMILY MAKE-UP SECTION

c) VEHICLE REGISTRATION NUMBER

Then finally,
d) COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS/REQUESTS TO THE POLICE.

Okay, here are some things I would write in this section:
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1) Why are you asking me for this information?
2) What bearing does this information have on the stated goals of public prevention of crime, disaster relief, and traffic awareness?
3) Is filling out this form optional?
4) Do you gather all of this information from Japanese residents too?
5) If foreigners were allowed to have juuminhyou residency certificates, like all other residents of Japan who happen to be citizens, would you police need to come around to my house and collect it yourself?
https://www.debito.org/activistspage.html#juuminhyou
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Actually, in the time period spanning twenty years I have had contact with the Japanese police, I never once have had them come to my door and ask for anything like this. Yet I have heard so far that this has happened to two foreigners residing in Tokyo Nakano-ku and Shinjuku-ku. Anyone else? Let me know at debito@debito.org.

I will pass this on to one of my lawyers and ask whether or not filling this out is mandatory. Given that answering the Japan Census Bureau is completely optional, I have a feeling that filling this out would be optional too, at least for Japanese. (Ask your cop directly yourself: “Kore o ki’nyuu suru no wa nin’i desu ka?”)

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2) SHUUKAN DIAMONDO ON “IMMIGRATION ARCHIPELAGO JAPAN”

Since a major overseas magazine will soon be doing a large article on foreign labor in Japan, I finally sat down and webbed something I keep referring to in my Japanese writings on immigration and foreign labor in Japan: Fifteen pages of a special report in Shuukan Diamondo (Weekly Diamond) economics magazine, concerning the importance of Immigration to Japan, which ran on June 5, 2004. All scanned and now available at:
https://www.debito.org/shuukandiamondo060504.html

Highlights:

Cover: “Even with the Toyota Production style, it won’t work without foreigners. By 2050, Japan will need more than 33,500,000 immigrants!! Toyota’s castle town overflowing with Nikkei Brazilians. An explosion of Chinese women, working 22 hour days–the dark side of foreign labor”

Page 32: “If SARS [pneumonia] spreads, factories ‘dependent on Chinese’ in Shikoku will close down”.

Page 40-41: Keidanren leader Okuda Hiroshi offers “five policies”: 1) Create a “Foreigners Agency” (gaikokujin-chou), 2) Create bilateral agreements to receive “simple laborers” (tanjun roudousha), 3) Strengthen Immigration and reform labor oversight, 4) Create policy for public safety, and environments for foreigner lifestyles (gaikokujin no seikatsu kankyou seibi), 5) Create a “Green Card” system for Japan to encourage brain drains from overseas.

Remember that powerful business league Keidanren was the one lobbying in the late 80’s and early 90’s for cheap foreign workers (particularly Nikkei Brazilians) to come in on Trainee Visas, working for less than half wages and no social benefits, to save Japanese industry from “hollowing out”.

Now that Keidanren boss Okuda has stepped down in favor of Mitarai Fujio (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20060525a3.html), it’s time to see what Keidanren’s new tack on foreign labor, if any, will be. At 7:50 AM yesterday morning, NHK interviewed Mitarai, and made much of his 23 years living overseas with foreigners (and his comments were, sigh, directed towards “understanding foreign culture and traditions”; when will we outgrow that hackneyed and sloppy analytical paradigm?). The interview made no mention of foreigners within Japan, however. Do I hear the sound of hands washing?

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3) ANOTHER TAKE ON THE UN RAPPORTEUR DIENE TRIP

Last update, I gave a synopsis of Doudou Diene’s trip last week to Tokyo, Osaka, and Okinawa, sponsored by IMADR (available at https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html#May2006. I received a response from Trevor Bekolay, student at Kokugakuin University and University of Manitoba, who was at a meeting with Diene which I could not attend. Forwarding with permission:

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Just to add to your email about meeting with UN Special Rapporteur
Diene, I as well had the opportunity to meet him at the public meeting
on May 13th at IMADR’s building. The meeting consisted of but 20
people [due to the short notice of the schedule]. Most of the points
that he made you already included in your email…

The three-hour meeting included statements from IMADR, the NGO
representative, Dr. Diene himself, then about half of the time was
allotted to questions from those who attended. Here are the notes I
made on what I heard:

“Dr. Diene received a fair amount of negative media coverage after the
initial UN report due to the possibility of omissions which are
believed to be added to Diene’s report. IMADR attempted to address
these problems in their open letter to Dr. Diene, but the purpose of
the meeting really, was for Diene to receive feedback on the report,
especially of issues that were omitted in the original report. He
stressed that one does not have to be in a group, any individual can
inform the Special Rapporteur of individual cases of racism and
discrimination which will immediately be acted upon. Basically, the
UN is starting to police Japan’s government more closely, to determine
if they should remain in Human Rights groups in the UN.

[Inform the Special Rapporteur via sr-racism@ohchr.org
(Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights)]

“The report’s goal is to be the first step in starting social change,
not just a report on the current situation. The responsibility of
activist groups like IMADR is to inform Diene of new developments.
Give as much information as possible so he can give a good report to
the UN. Consider how the report can be used as part of the fight
against racism in Japan.

“Question Period: Mainly specific issues, such as pension issues for
disabled Zainichi Koreans. However, a representative for the Civil
Liberties Union seemed to be there to defend the Japanese right to be
racist. He mentioned the issue of freedom of expression vs. racial
discrimination. He claimed that freedom of expression isn’t well
protected in Japan, so only public servants are punished for making
racist remarks in public forums. He gave two examples of problems
with freedom of expression: one in which public servants who were
distributing political leaflets were arrested, and one in which
environmentalists were arrested by SD forces while distributing
political leaflets.”…
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Well and good. Especially since the conservatives are now feeling threatened by Diene enough to start organizing and publishing: Witness this:

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4) THE RIGHT WING START GEARING UP AGAINST DIENE REPORT

A friend who studies conservative politics in Japan called me up just before dinner tonight, to inform me of the “emergency publication” of a new book by “right-wing nutjobs” decrying the spread of human rights in Japan.

Entitled, “Abunai! Jinken Yougo Houan, Semari Kuru Senshinkoku kei Zentai Shugi no Kyoufu”
(“Warning! The Human Rights Protection Bill: The Imminent Terror of the Totalitarianism of the Developed Countries”, or somesuch), it was just published April 27 and is visible at:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4886562825/249-5993086-5621147?v=glance&n=465392

Complete, my friend notes, with manga (what else?) lots of Chinese living in an apartment on top of each other in violation of housing contract, being found out by the landlord, and taking action against him “to defend their own human rights”. Or of a “gaijin” picking a fight with a Japanese in a bar, getting turfed out, then taking action against the bar for “violating his human rights”. Hoo boy.

It zeroes in on the Diene report in specific. Not quite sure how (as I haven’t gotten a copy of the book yet), but will let you know. I ordered two copies today and will send one to Diene at the UN for his perusal.

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5) LETTER TO YOMIURI RE FINGERPRINTING LAW

Last week I forwarded you an article from the Yomiuri entitled:
New ID card system eyed for foreigners
The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 14, 2006, still up temporarily at:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060514TDY01001.htm

Well, here’s a letter I sent to the Yomiuri shortly afterwards:

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Sir, Your article, “New ID card system eyed for foreigners” (May. 14, 2006), makes an unfortunate omission and even an error.

In its haste to portray the change in the Alien Registration system as little more than a centralization and rationalization of power, your article neglects to mention the new “Gaijin Cards” will have imbedded IC computer chips.

These chips will be used, according to government proposals, to track even legal foreigners in Japan through swiping stations nationwide. [*1] This is an unomissible change.

Your article errs when it reports, “an increasing number of foreigners do not register themselves at municipalities after gaining admission at the bureau or fail to report an extension of their stay”. In fact, according to Immigration, the number of illegal foreigners has gone down every year uninterrupted since 1993. [*2] Even the figure cited within the article, “at least about 190,000 illegal aliens as of January”, is still lower than the 2003 figure of 220,000 overstays.

In this era of exaggeration of foreign crime, please endeavor to provide us with accurate reportage.
Arudou Debito
Sapporo, Japan

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[Note 1 for editors: Source, Japan Times, “Computer-chip card proposals for foreigners have big potential for abuse”, November 22, 2005.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?appURL=fl20051122zg.html ]

[Note 2 for editors: Source: https://www.debito.org/crimestats.html , very bottom for an orange bar chart indicating the number of illegal aliens in Japan (courtesy of Immigration)]
—————————————-

Well, AFAIK it didn’t get published. Ah well. To be expected.

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6) OTARU ONSENS MEDIA TAPE

For the Diene visit, I put together a tape of media (TV shows and news broadcasts) concerning the Ana Bortz Case, the Otaru Onsens Case, and NHK’s portrayal of foreign crime. (Synopsis of the tape’s contents at https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html#video ).

If you would like a copy sent to you (for a nominal fee of, say, 1000 yen to cover tape, postage and handling, see https://www.debito.org/donations.html), please be in touch with me at debito@debito.org. Quite a few teachers are using this as classroom educational material on the subject of human rights. Be happy to help.

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7) YAMATO DAMACY’S CONCLUDING INTERVIEW

What is shaping up to be the last and best bilingual interview of the bunch just came out yesterday on Yamato Damacy.
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=OusEQyGxEFQ
Touching upon survival strategies in Japan, the future, and a special appearance of Tama-chan–probably the most successful issue we ever took up on The Community!

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8) and finally… THE COMPLIMENT OF THE YEAR

When I was having dinner with M. Diene on May 17 in Osaka, in attendance was a former vice-rector of a major Japanese university who paid me a wonderful compliment:

“I am in fact a quarter French. When I was younger, I really disliked the three-quarters of the Japanese side of myself that ridiculed my foreign background. But now no longer ashamed of my French roots. I’m even proud to be a Japanese. Because we have Japanese now like Arudou Debito who say the things I could never say.”

That was a tearjerker. Here I am just doing my thing, and it somehow helped an elderly gentleman overcome longstanding hurts he’d had for decades…

Arudou Debito
Sapporo
debito@debito.org
www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 27, 2006 ENDS

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 23, 2006
Subject: REPORT: UN’s Doudou Diene’s Tokyo and Osaka trip

Hi all. Tokyo Trip report:

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1) MEETING WITH UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR DIENE IN OSAKA AND TOKYO
2) LINKS TO RELATED ARTICLES
3) ATTENDING UN SECRETARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN PRESS CONFERENCE
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May 23, 2006

1) MEETING WITH UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR DIENE, OSAKA AND TOKYO

I met M. Doudou Diene for the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth times over two days (May 17 and 18) in Osaka and Tokyo respectively. In Osaka, he attended a hearing of human rights groups and a dinner. In Tokyo, he gave a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ), and attended a hearing for Dietmembers in an Upper House conference room (BLL rep Matsuoka Tohru and Shamintou Party Leader Fukushima Mizuho attended, while several other Dietmember offices sent their meishi with regrets; no contact whatsoever, sadly, from Tsurunen Marutei’s office). There were also several other meetings I could not attend in his very busy six-day schedule, available at https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html#May2006

M. Diene listened attentively to all speakers, then comments about his role in the fight against racial discrimination worldwide. As Special Rapporteur, although he does represent the UN in name and ideal, Diene does not receive a salary from the UN or any interest group. He thus is not beholden to anyone and has the freedom to pick his sites of investigation. His procedure is to talk to both the members of civil society and the government (he formally requests to speak to the highest echelons of any local and national government; they can and do refuse), then give his recommendations based upon his findings. His reports to the UN, by the way, do not focus exclusively on Japan; his backlog of articles and movements elsewhere may be found on the United Nations website by typing “Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene” on their search engine, at
http://www.un.org/search/

I did not audio record Diene’s speeches, but to paraphrase his points from memory:

————————————————-
1) Racism, xenophobia, and related intolerance is not something you deal with just once–it is something you keep combatting, as it is a mutating phenomenon. Which is one reason he returned to Japan this time on the invitation of rights group IMADR (www.imadr.org), to follow up on his July 2005 initial visit and January 2006 report.

2) Racism etc. is on the increase worldwide. More governments are using the new mutation of intolerance–i.e. the fear of terrorism–as a means of justifying increased discrimination and decreased civil liberties for peoples within their borders. Meanwhile, more politicians are bringing xenophobia out of the political fringes and using them for populist purposes during election campaigns. Even prominent intellectuals are using increasingly sophisticated arguments to justify what amounts to racist practices and increased intolerance (he cited Samuel Huntington’s book “Who Are We?”, an extension of Huntington’s earlier thesis that cultures inevitably clash, as an intellectual’s view of foreigners threatening an “American Creed’).

3) To combat racism, one needs the rule of law and policy measures at the highest levels of government to expose and deal with it (which is where Japan is particularly culpable, as it lacks a law forbidding racial discrimination). There must be a means to address, redress, and punish.

4) However, racism is merely the tip of the iceberg–one must also have an intellectual and ethical strategy. The expression of underlying attitudes and values in a society is what encourages negative reactions towards peoples on a grand scale. Education is essential to change those attitudes, along with a complete rewrite of history to remove bones of contention: problematic interpretations of the past along nationalistic lines. He proposed that UNESCO convene an assembly of the best historians from all countries within a region, and write an agreed-upon historical account to resolve future disputes and ameliorate potential frictions between countries and peoples. (UNESCO, he notes, has already done this on the genesis of Africa, Central America, and Central Asia.) Unless you deal with the deeper root causes of intolerance, there is little hope for a lasting resolution of it, he concludes.

5) Until then, Diene intends to file his reports with the UN in the considerations of the promises Japan has made to the international community, gauging how closely Japan is following the international instruments it has signed.

6) Now that Japan has been elected to the newly-formed UN Human Rights Council, with 46 other member states (see Kyodo brief at http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/372161), Diene welcomes Japan’s increased responsibility and international scrutiny of its own internal human rights issues.
(More on this new Human Rights Council at:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/ga10449.doc.htm
http://www.un.org/ga/60/elect/hrc/ )

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COMMENT FROM DEBITO: Frankly, I found M. Diene’s breadth, depth, and accomplishment of thought–on both the concept of discrimination and the strategy for securing human rights–to be breathtakingly inspiring. Now here is a man I am happy to have in a position of spokesman for our cause, not only because he knows what he’s talking about, but also because he actually *CARES* about the outcome for people around the world (and must be tirelessly processing an enormous amount of information during his travels!). He shows a tenacity of belief and action that I can only hope to emulate somehow. Although I don’t share (yet) his faith that Japan will actually feel any more compunction to create an anti-discrimination law by mere dint of being on the Human Rights Council, I am willing to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, and gear up to make the case later before the Council myself that Japan’s legislative, administrative, and judicial branches have little to no intention to follow the treaties it signs.

To that end, in addition to the folder and video of referential materials I gave him
(see https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html#may2006 for contents),

I also included a second folder with reports regarding, inter alia, Japan’s awful record vis-a-vis international divorce (and its status as extralegal haven for child abductions, see http://www.crnjapan.com), the potential further targeting of foreigners in specific under the proposed Conspiracy Law (“Kyoubozai Houan”, citing the al-Qaeda witch hunt of 2004 and the Himu Case, see https://www.debito.org/japantimes102305detentions.html ), and issues involving foreign educators and the parochial house renting “guarantor system”. Let’s hope it all means something in the end.

(For those who wish to contact M. Diene with a concern (he said several times that he is emailable), his email address care of the UN is sr-racism AT ohchr.org. Address it specifically to Doudou Diene. Mention my name if you want.)

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2) RELATED ARTICLES COVERING DIENE’S VISIT

Eric also attended the May 17 Osaka Meeting (although the Japan Times was sadly absent from the Tokyo venues). This is what how he portrayed the event:

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ANTIDISCRIMINATION LAW NEEDED
Racism rapporteur repeats criticism
By ERIC JOHNSTON, Staff writer
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060518a6.html
The Japan Times: Thursday, May 18, 2006

OSAKA — The U.N. rapporteur on racism repeated Wednesday his strong criticism of the Japanese government’s attitude toward combating the problem, saying the country needs an antidiscrimination law.

“Japanese human rights groups and others, in linkage with the international community, can move toward creating an antidiscrimination law which will hopefully lead to addressing the deeper causes of racism and xenophobia,” said Doudou Diene, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

Meeting in the afternoon with nearly three dozen human rights representatives, including foreigners’ rights activists, Diene heard about the discrimination faced by the Korean, Okinawan, and Japanese-Brazilian communities, as well as descendants of the former “buraku” outcast class, and about specific incidents of government and corporate discrimination against foreigners.

In a scathing report released in January, Diene said racism in Japan is deep and profound.

At Wednesday’s meeting, he repeated the call in his report for the government to protect its ethnic and cultural minorities through legislation outlawing racism.

Diene’s report pointed out that Japan is party to the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, but has not yet ratified a U.N. convention to protect migrant workers.

The January report came nearly six months after Diene, at the invitation the International Movement Against all Forms of Discrimination and Racism Japan Committee, traveled around the country meeting with representatives of the Ainu, “buraku” descendants, and Korean communities as well as foreign migrant workers.

On this current unofficial visit, also arranged by IMADR, Diene came to Okinawa on Saturday and met local government officials and residents opposed to the U.S. bases.

After speaking Monday to people living near U.S. Kadena Air Base who have filed a lawsuit about the noise near, Diene told reporters he heard the noise from F-15s taking off from Kadena and better understood the situation after talking to them.

Diene also met people living beside the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and later toured the waters off the marines’ Camp Schwab near Nago, where a replacement facility will be built.

Diene was to have meetings with Foreign Ministry officials and human rights lawyers in Tokyo on Thursday.

The Diene report and his visits — last July and this week — have drawn a mixed reaction here.

Human rights activists have welcomed it for detailing the economic, social and political discrimination that various ethnic and cultural minorities face and for urging the government to adopt national antidiscrimination legislation.

Critics, however, have said the report is flawed because Diene is in Japan at the behest of a group with a political agenda.

They have charged that the Japan portrayed in his report reflects only the views of IMADR and its allies, and the paper is not an objective analysis of the situation for minority groups. As of this week, the Diene report and his recommendations have been endorsed by 77 groups in Japan, including human rights organizations, religious groups and unions.

“My report does reflect certain limitations. I am only in a given country for about 10 days, and I have not been able to meet everybody I would have liked to meet,” Diene said.
————————————-
JAPAN TIMES ARTICLE ENDS

Kyodo’s take in English here:
https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html#kyodo051806
Voice of America’s take, with a photo of Diene (and, ahem, yours truly):
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-05-18-voa6.cfm
The Okinawa Times and Ryukyu Shinbun (Japanese), with headlines reading “The concentration of US bases, noise, and environmental destruction is discrimination towards Okinawa”:
https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html#ryukyu051706
(Finally, someone goes down there to survey the situation! Even former President Bill Clinton irresponsibly refused to accept former Okinawa Governor Ota’s invitation to visit in the late 1990’s.)

Final word on Diene for the moment: His trips have been an enormous boost for the human rights groups in Japan, and his statements have legitimized for the whole world to see the issues that Japan’s emerging civil society have been taking up for years. The government (there was AFAIK no Diene meeting with PM Koizumi or with Tokyo Gov. Ishihara. Again) and the Japanese media again generally turned a blind eye. But I have a feeling that with M. Diene, there will be more follow-ups. I hope to see him again, next time in Geneva, very soon.

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3) UN SECRETARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN PRESS CONFERENCE

Another highlight of this trip was meeting up with a reporter from the Italian press at the FCCJ, who had actually read my book JAPANESE ONLY (I want to hug anyone who does!), and who invited me to join him as a guest at the Japan Press Club for Kofi Annan’s hourlong press conference on May 18.

More on Annan’s trip to Japan and South Korea at:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060513b7.html
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060518a5.html
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060519a8.html

Attended by all the major press, Annan gave a masterful presentation (would not expect anything less of a world leader of his calibre) with the appropriate gravitas, wit, and sincerity. He was excellent at avoiding pointing fingers at specific countries, explaining earnestly why he would not broach certain topics, and giving you the feeling that he was not dodging questions while necessarily doing so. I was aglow at how well he did it. Learned a lot.

Three examples (paraphrased from memory, not quotes; all rendering errors mine):

1) How to dodge a question effectively:

When asked about what was talked about with that day’s meeting with the Emperor, Annan said:

“If I were to disclose what is talked about every time I meet a monarch or emperor, it will get around. And the next time we meet, we will only talk about the weather or their grandchildren. I do not want this to happen. So I don’t want to go into details on this. I will say, however, that we did talk about important world issues of the day and that we had a very constructive conversation.”

2) How to rebuke criticism:

When asked about the illegality of the Iraq war and the irrelevance of the UN regarding unilateral action by “coalitions of the willing” led by the US:

“People are tending to see the UN as irrelevant. However, you must realize that it is not just something out in space like a satellite. The UN is made up of those countries, it IS those countries, even those critical of the UN, and they make the UN what they put into it. We are not a pacifist organization–we understand the use of force at the appropriate, agreed-upon juncture, and have used it from time to time as the record shows. We do not see coalitional action like this as constructive. The UN is doing the best job it can, but for it to work people have to be willing to work within it. Going outside of it when you do not get your way is not in my view the best path.” [or something to that effect–grand paraphrasing here]

3) Asking the question:

You know I was tempted to raise my hand–it’s not every day you could ask a question to the leader of the United Nations! However, only authorized journalists are allowed to raise their hand at these functions. Fortunately, my reporter friend did it for me:

Question: “Japan yesterday passed a law reinstating fingerprinting for foreigners (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060518a2.html). Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene is also here investigating the situation of racism and xenophobia within Japan. Do you have any comment concerning Japan’s election to the Human Rights Council and its domestic situation vis-a-vis xenophobia?”

Annan’s answer: “I was unaware that Japan had passed this law. I am aware that Diene is here but we have not met to discuss his trip or findings. I am distressed that many countries worldwide are increasingly legislating xenophobic tendencies in the name of fighting terrorism, and I would hope that people will understand that legislating away civil liberties for peoples within its borders is not the proper path to take.”

Best we could have hoped for in this situation. A seed is planted.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo
debito@debito.org
www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 23, 2006 ENDS

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 16, 2006
Hello All. Let me just tie up some loose ends before the UN events get underway:

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1) ROGUES’ GALLERY UPDATE MAY 2006: Ikebukuro, Hiroshima, and Okinawa
2) H.I.S. TRAVEL PRICING DUPLICITY, INFO SITE UP ON DEBITO.ORG
3) MHLW DATA SITE ON INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGE, BIRTHS AND DIVORCE
4) YAMATO DAMACY INTERVIEWS TWO AND THREE
5) BOSTON GLOBE ON U.S. EXECUTIVE POWER
6) ASIA TIMES ON DRAFT “CONSPIRACY LAW” IN JAPAN
7) YOMIURI ON NEW GAIJIN CARDS
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May 16, 2006

1) ROGUES’ GALLERY UPDATE MAY 2006: Ikebukuro, Hiroshima, and Okinawa

With the UN’s visit, people have been sending me more photos for inclusion on the Rogues’ Gallery
https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html
a website cataloging “Japanese Only” signs to demonstrate how discrimination unchecked by any law spreads nationwide.

The new total of twenty cities includes three new entries:

TOKYO IKEBUKURO (nightlife)
HIROSHIMA (allegedly a bar)
https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html#misc

OKINAWA URUMA CITY (a billiards hall)
B-Ball Sutagio, Uruma-shi Midori Machi 4-8-10, ph 098-975-0205
https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html#Uruma

Submitter of the sign Jeff Norman notes:
——————————————–
“I ran into the manager of this store and asked him about this policy… He stated that it wasn’t discrimination, just that no one was able to speak English there. When I asked him if there were a large number of foreign pool players, he said no and that there had never been a problem with any foreign patrons. He went on to add that he had spoken with an American relative by marriage and that relative had suggested to him that he do this to avoid any trouble. He claimed that he would consider my opinion on the matter. The amazing thing here is that there really doesn’t appear to be any need for this sign or discriminatory policy at all, but yet it exists. Lastly, the question that is always left in my mind is how can a ‘Japanese Only’ sign not be considered discriminatory?”
——————————————–

For good measure, I have also added to the very top of the Rogues’ Gallery a map of the Japanese archipelago, pinpointing the cities where “Japanese Only” signs and exclusionary policies have been found. That’s
https://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html

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

2) H.I.S. TRAVEL PRICING DUPLICITY, INFO SITE UP ON DEBITO.ORG

I wrote over the course of April and early May about major Japanese travel agencies H.I.S. and No. 1 Travel (which make a good living off the foreign community in Japan) having “Japanese Only” fares, and large mark-up fares for non-Japanese customers.

H.I.S. said they would cease this practice. They still, however, maintain a site with different fares by nationality:
http://www.his-j.com/tyo/air/ovs/ovspar.htm

I have a feeling this story might have legs. So I created a bilingual information site with screen captures of “Japanese Only” fares on their website, an mp3 recording of an H.I.S. Iidabashi clerk explaining why foreigners are charged more than Japanese (courtesy of Jason and friend), and emailed correspondence from an H.I.S. customer service rep.

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

Already there is talk of people calling the agencies, creating an elaborate itinerary, then cancelling it later on to drive home just how distasteful and damaging discriminatory pricing is. For after all, apparently this is apparently not the first time these travel agencies have been caught offering differential fares, or promising to stop doing it…

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

3) MHLW DATA SITE ON INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGE, BIRTHS AND DIVORCE

Last month I passed on a April 17 Sankei Shinbun article in Japanese talking about the increase in international marriage (www.sankei.co.jp/news/060417/sha065.htm, although the link is now dead). I mentioned that I hadn’t tracked down the source of the Sankei’s stats. Well, friend Nakai-san found it:

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/jinkou/suii04/index.html

In Japanese. There’s a lot there, including marriages, births, divorces, etc. for 2004. Something to print out and pore over (which I will do if and when I find some time). Anyone want to beat me to the punch and put out a report?

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

4) YAMATO DAMACY INTERVIEWS TWO AND THREE

Very entertaining site Yamato Damacy keeps putting out weekly video podcasts, offering interviews of people on the street and cute harmless capers.

Then they interviewed me on rights issues in Japan for four hours last March (thanks), and so far have put out three fifteen-minute excerpts:

http://yamato.revecess.com/?lang=en&episode=13
http://yamato.revecess.com/?lang=en&episode=15
http://yamato.revecess.com/?lang=en&episode=20

(NB:  Links are now dead:  now find them on You Tube)

Bilingual. Google video. I think these are a very good introduction to the issues, and to the potential of a multicultural, multilingual Japan.

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

5) BOSTON GLOBE ON U.S. EXECUTIVE POWER

I received this from friend Larry the other day. Now, while my focus is generally Japan human rights stuff, this article by the Boston Globe (April 30th), on the Bush Administration’s bypassing Congress in legislative enforcement, is stunning. I think the journalist should get a Pulitzer for this.

“President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.” Very thoroughly continued at
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/

Interview on NPR’s Terry Gross with the reporter at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5392733 (Click on the “LISTEN”)

It’s an amazing portrayal of the rot which ensues when one party pulls the levers.

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

6) ASIA TIMES ON DRAFT “CONSPIRACY LAW” IN JAPAN

A good primer on a very controversial law, the Kyoubouzai Houan, currently being debated in the Diet, which the media and the lawyers groups have been railing against for quite some time now. It’s another step in the direction of the police-power state, which with enough fears stoked of terrorism may indeed come to pass if we are not careful. Forwarding:

—————————————-
The return of ‘thought crimes’ in Japan
By Scott North
Asia Times May 12, 2006
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/HE12Dh01.html

Japan’s government is pushing for the passage of an anti-conspiracy law with potentially far-reaching consequences. Called the Kyoubouzai Hoan (conspiracy or collusion law), the legislation appears headed for passage in the diet (parliament) as soon as next week. In its present form, it could result in Japanese citizens being detained or punished for merely agreeing with one another.

In combination with another statute that permits detention without charge, the new law could have a chilling effect on civil liberties, including freedoms of speech and assembly and the right to organize. Domestic critics of the plan say it evokes comparison with the pre-World War II Peace Preservation Law, which made opposing the war a thought crime. The proposed statute is a vaguely worded, two-sentence amendment to an existing law. It defines “conspiracy” as an agreement, whether overt or tacit, fanciful or earnest, between two or more people that might be construed as planning to violate any statute for which the minimum sentence is four years or more. There are currently 619 such statutes, and more could be added by changing the minimum sentence guidelines.

Lawyers say that a husband and wife imagining nefarious ways to get back at their landlord for raising their rent fit the amendment’s definition of a “group” planning criminal activity. Labor-union members brainstorming ways to resist harsh workplace practices could be held for colluding to violate laws that prohibit interfering with business activity. Teens discussing how to hot-wire cars could be held on conspiracy charges even if they did not attempt to act on their knowledge.

Simply belonging to a group or being in the same room where such conversations take place could make a person subject to the new law. No crime need be actually carried out for the police to detain suspects. Failing to report overheard conspiratorial talk could be construed collusion.

In the postwar era, Japanese law has generally punished only crimes actually committed or attempted. In cases such as murder or arson, prison time is sometimes given to accomplices who knowingly provide weapons or gasoline. However, punishment for conspiracy alone has been limited to rare cases of sedition.

The statute promises co-conspirators who reveal plans to the police reduced sentences or immunity from prosecution. People fear the new law would encourage self-censorship or spying in non-profit organizations, churches, labor unions, and political groups. Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly, as well as protections against searches and seizures, could be rendered null. Various forms of cyber-communication could be mined for incriminating agreements.

Much would depend on enforcement. Japan’s police have a well-documented tendency to assume the guilt of those detained and have been known to conduct lengthy interrogations aimed at extracting confessions, rather than exerting themselves in pursuit of corroborative evidence. New detention facilities currently under construction give domestic observers pause to consider the government’s motives for bringing this law now. The ruling party’s smug reluctance to acknowledge the amendment’s shortcomings or extend debate on the matter is also cause for concern.

The rationale for the legislation is that Japan is a signatory to a United Nations treaty designed to stop international organized criminal activity. But the draft amendment makes no mention of the treaty, which Japan’s UN representatives originally opposed as unnecessary. A Kyoto student group used Japan’s version of the US Freedom of Information Act to get the transcripts of the committee that drafted the amendment. They reportedly received pages in which most of the text had been blackened out.

Japan already has domestic laws against organized criminal groups. The new conspiracy provision raises the specter that much daily speech and activity could be criminalized or made subject to police scrutiny, if not immediately, then at some time in the future.

Japan should reflect on the historical lesson that threats born of free thought and speech are nothing compared with the corrosive power of unchecked authority. One need look no further than Guantanamo Bay or Japan’s own history for persuasive examples of why this amendment is unnecessary.

—————————————-
Scott North PhD is associate professor, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University.

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

Speaking of policing:

7) YOMIURI ON NEW GAIJIN CARDS
(Quick comment at the end)
—————————————-
New ID card system eyed for foreigners

The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 14, 2006
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060514TDY01001.htm
Original Japanese at
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20060513-00000104-yom-pol
Courtesy of Tony and Mark

In an attempt to make it easier to spot illegal aliens, the central government is likely to handle admission and registration services for foreigners, and issue identification cards that prove the holders are legal residents in Japan, sources said Saturday.

For that purpose, the government is likely to change the Alien Registration Law, which stipulates municipal governments must issue foreign residents with registration cards.

Under the new measure, the Immigration Bureau issues a different form of registration card for foreigners who wish to stay in the country for a defined period.

The government may submit a revision bill for the law to the ordinary Diet session in 2008 at the earliest. The revised law may be enforced in fiscal 2009.

The law stipulates that foreigners, after being admitted by the Immigration Bureau, are supposed to register with the municipal government where they are living within 90 days of their arrival in Japan, providing their name, nationality, address and other information. Foreign residents who wish to change the period of their stay or their residential status are required to report to their municipal office after getting permission from the Immigration Bureau.

As of the end of 2004, about 1.97 million foreigners–a record high–were registered. On the other hand, as an increasing number of foreigners do not register themselves at municipalities after gaining admission at the bureau or fail to report an extension of their stay, it has become increasingly difficult to spot illegal aliens. The Justice Ministry estimates there were at least about 190,000 illegal aliens as of January.

The Alien Registration Law, which covers all foreigners, except those who stay for a short period, does not forbid the issuance of foreign resident registration cards to illegal aliens. The government says banning the issuance of the card to illegal aliens would cause legal contradictions, such as seeing illegal aliens without the card not be defined as foreigners.

Municipalities issue identification cards to illegal aliens that describe their holders as having no right to stay in Japan. However, some companies have mistakenly hired illegal aliens with such cards.

To improve the situation, the Justice Ministry plans to set up a system to issue foreign residents with cards each time they renew their residential admission or extend their stay, so illegal aliens without a card can be more easily spotted.

On each card, the holder’s name, nationality, birthday, passport details, residential status, address, school or company name and other information will be shown. Under the new system, when foreign residents change their workplace or school, their new employer or school will be obliged to report to the bureau. The ministry expects the cards will make it clear their holders are not illegal aliens. Also, foreign residents will not have to visit both the government and municipality offices to go through procedures to get residential status.

The municipalities, which need to hold some information on their foreign residents, are likely to retain lists of foreign residents. The ministry will discuss the matter with the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry and other related entities.

The government is likely not to issue the card for special permanent residents, such as South and North Koreans.

(May. 14, 2006)
—————————————-

COMMENT: Tony remarked to say that as written he didn’t see how this would change the current situation, except centralize the database, and plug a hole where illegal aliens could get Gaiijin Cards.

There is, however, no mention in the article of the IC Chip proposed to be imbedded in future Gaijin Cards, or swiping stations to track even legal foreigners as they move about within Japan, as I wrote about last November in the Japan Times:
https://www.debito.org/japantimes112205.html

This being the Yomiuri, inconvenient facts like that are often omitted.

Not to mention misreported. The section reading, “as an increasing number of foreigners do not register themselves at municipalities after gaining admission at the bureau or fail to report an extension of their stay” is blatantly untrue. See https://www.debito.org/crimestats.html , very bottom for an orange bar chart indicating the number of illegal aliens in Japan (courtesy of Immigration). The number has GONE DOWN EVERY YEAR UNINTERRUPTED since 1993. Even the figure cited within the article above, “at least about 190,000 illegal aliens as of January” is still lower than the 2003 figure of 220,000 overstays.

Sorry, sounds like there’s some sugar coating, atop a base of consensus manufacturing, going on. I’d expect nothing less from the Yom. Pity I can’t find a “letters to the editor” section on the Daily Yomiuri website to advise them of their error.

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

All for now. See you in Osaka and/or Tokyo this week!

Arudou Debito
Sapporo
debito@debito.org
www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 16, 2006 ENDS

mytest

Hi Blog. Just a couple more and we’re caught up with when this blog started back in June 2006. This is Week Five for me on the road (having a lovely time talking with naturalized citizen and twice-elected Inuyama city councilor Anthony Bianchi–don’t you dare call him a “gaijin” either 🙂 ), so let me stopgap for today’s blog entry.

Thanks, Debito in Inuyama, Aichi-ken (30 kms north of Nagoya, and a place brimming with history).

====================================
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 8, 2006

Hi all. Welcome back from the holidays. Here’s another update to keep your backlogged emails company:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) FORMER AINU DIETMEMBER KAYANO SHIGERU DIES
2) UN’S DOUDOU DIENE TO REVISIT JAPAN MAY 15-19
3) “SLAVEDRIVE YOUR GAIJIN!” CEO ENGLISH SITE DISAPPEARS
4) HIS TRAVEL ADMITS TO HAVING DIFFERENT AIRFARES FOR FOREIGNERS
5) JAPAN TIMES ON TOTTORI HUMAN RIGHTS ORDINANCE
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
May 8, 2006
Freely Forwardable

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) FORMER AINU DIETMEMBER KAYANO SHIGERU DIES

Kayano Shigeru, Japan’s first and only Ainu Dietmember, died of pneumonia in Nibutani, Hokkaido on May 6, 2006. He was 79.

Articles in English on the man have not appeared yet in the English-language press, so for those who want their news fresher in Japanese (and would like to telegram their condolences):
http://www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/Php/kiji.php3?&d=20060507&j=0022&k=200605075623

Hokkaido Shinbun editorial (May 7) on Kayano’s legacy:
http://www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/Php/backnumber.php3?&d=20060507&j=0032&k=200605075647

A bit of background on where he came from and what he was trying to accomplish, in English at the Japan Times (free registration):
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20040627a1.html

I have been friends with his son, activist Kayano Shiro, for close to a decade. I managed to meet his father for the first (and sadly, only) time last June when M. Doudou Diene visited from the United Nations.

Speaking of:

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

2) UN’S DOUDOU DIENE TO REVISIT JAPAN MAY 15-19

M. Doudou Diene, Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights on contemporary forms of racism, visited Japan last July 2005. He reported that “Japan is still closed, spiritually and intellectually centered” in a preliminary press conference. And in an official report to the UN in January, he said, “Racial discrimination is practiced undisturbed in Japan.” “It can hardly be argued that Japan is respecting its international obligations.”

More on what happened during his visit, the report we submitted to him, and links to his report to the UN at
https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html

Well, guess what. He’s coming back! And this time to visit Okinawa, Osaka, and Tokyo. His schedule, courtesy of Mr Morihara Hideki, of the group International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR-JC, imadrjc@imadr.org, http://www.imadr.org), I translate:

MAY 14 TOKYO TO OKINAWA
7PM PUBLIC MEETING IN NAHA (place TBD)
MAY 15 AYEM PRIVATE MTG WITH OKINAWA PREF GOV
PM VISIT AMERICAN AIR BASES
MAY 16 VISIT HENNOKO, MEET WITH LOCAL ACTIVIST GROUPS
7PM PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS DIENE’S UN REPORT (IN NAHA)
MAY 17 OKINAWA TO OSAKA
PM PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS DIENE’S UN REPORT (place TBD)
MAY 18 OSAKA TO TOKYO
NOON PRESS CONFERENCE AT FCCJ
PM PUBLIC MEETING AT DIET AND WITH REPORTERS
PRIVATE MEETING WITH TOKYO GOV ISHIHARA (TBD)
7PM PUBLIC MEETING AT OSAKA KEIZAI HOUKA ASIA PACIFIC CENTER
MAY 19 PRIVATE MEETING WITH POLITICAL PARTIES (TBD)
MEETING WITH NICHIBENREN FED. OF BAR ASSOCIATIONS
EVE PUBLIC CONFERENCE ON DIENE REPORT IN TOKYO

He is open for interviews with the press. Contact Mr Morihara at IMADR-JC at the details above.

Glad to have him back. I will try to attend in Osaka and Tokyo if possible.

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

3) “SLAVEDRIVE YOUR GAIJIN!” SITE DISAPPEARS

I reported last April 20 that the “Slavedrive your gaijin! [sic]” (gaijin o koki tsukae!) “CEO English” website, which offers lessons on how executives can exploit their gaijin before they exploit back, adjusted its language with apologies (yet still kept a link to its lesson on denying a pay rise to a gaijin staffer who doubled the company’s profits and tripled its sales!). See all historical data as screen saves at:

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

Well, I just discovered, as I was writing the Japanese version of this report, that the site in question,
http://www.ceoenglish.com
has been completely taken down, due to the level of protest.
There is a message in Japanese there to that effect.

Well and good. Thanks for your help, everyone.

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

4) HIS TRAVEL ADMITS TO HAVING DIFFERENT AIRFARES FOR FOREIGNERS

I told you that HIS Travel (and No. 1 Travel, in the same keiretsu) has been offering differing airfares based upon whether the customer is foreign or not. The estimate in question, as I reported a little over a month ago to some lists, was NRT <-> LAX 57,000 yen for Japanese, 70,000 yen for foreigners, on ANA (NB: the airline denies that it offers different fares by nationality).

After contacting the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (Ryokou Shinkou Ka, Mr Ohzaki, Tel 03-5253-8111, ext 27313), I confirmed that this pricing structure was not permitted. They are looking into it.

I then called HIS’s Customer Service Center (Okyakusama Soudan Shitsu, Mr Kitahara) to tell him that MLIT had been appraised. He sent me the following email (my translation, original email at the very bottom of this report):

————————————————
From: sodan@his-world.co.jp
Subject: About the sale of airplane tickets
Date: April 19, 2006 4:12:42 PM JST

Mr Arudou Debito. This is Kitahara of the Customer Service Center.

Regarding your recent inquiry, regarding the sale of airplane tickets from Narita Airport, and not allowing tickets to be sold to foreigners.

As a result of our company’s deliberations, we have gotten rid of that condition. We will be offering tickets to all customers regardless of nationality. HIS KK
————————————————

Although this isn’t exactly the issue I brought up, HIS has been caught out in a lie. They still have on their website Tokyo <-> Paris tickets with requirements that purchasers hold Japanese nationality.

http://www.his-j.com/tyo/air/ovs/ovspar.htm
(Do a word search for “kokuseki” in Japanese. Courtesy Kirk M.)

If you’re going to do business with HIS or No. 1 Travel in future, I daresay you’d better ask a native Japanese speaker to make your ticket reservations for you if you want to get the best prices. FYI.

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

5) JAPAN TIMES ON TOTTORI HUMAN RIGHTS ORDINANCE

What follows is my JT article, in full. Enjoy.

THE ZEIT GIST
KILL BILL, PART THREE
Tottori’s Human Rights Ordinance is a case study in alarmism
By DEBITO ARUDOU
Column 30 for the Japan Times Community Page
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20060502zg.html

On Oct. 12, 2005, the Tottori Prefectural Assembly approved Japan’s first human rights ordinance, a local law forbidding and punishing racial discrimination.

In a land where racial discrimination is not illegal, this is an historic occasion.

Even a clarion call: If even rural Tottori can pass this, what’s stopping the rest of the country?

But history pushed back. Five months later, Tottori Prefectural Assembly unpassed the ordinance.

What went wrong? This is a cautionary tale on how not to create landmark legislation.

THE ORDINANCE ITSELF

The Tottori Prefecture “Ordinance Regarding Promotion and Procedure for the Restitution for Human Rights Violations” (“jinken shingai kyuusai suishin oyobi tetsuzuki ni kansuru jourei”) looked very promising.

Drafted by a committee of 26 people nominated by a progressive governor, Katayama Yoshihiro, the bill reflected the input of those who would most want it: a lawyer, several academics and human rights activists, and even three foreign residents.

Its express goal is, “when violations of human rights occur or threaten to occur, to devise measures for the speedy and appropriate restitution or effective prevention of damages, and by doing so contribute toward the realization of a society which holds human rights in high regard.”

Ambitious in scope, it governs behavior related to abuse (physical, mental, and through negligence) and discrimination by race. By “race,” the ordinance includes “blood race, ethnicity, creed, gender, social standing, family status, disability, illness, and sexual orientation.”

It states, inter alia, that nobody may unduly (“futou”) racially discriminate against an individual or a group with shared racial characteristics, publicly defame another person, or even be the vehicle for the dissemination of defamation and discrimination.

The ordinance would establish a committee of five to hear cases, contact the perpetrator, and oversee conflict resolution. Committee members would be nominated by and report periodically through the governor.

Moreover, unlike other oversight groups of this ilk, the committee actually had teeth: It could launch investigations, require hearings and written explanations, issue private warnings (making them public if they went ignored), demand compensation for victims, remand cases to the courts, even recommend cases to prosecutors if they thought there was a crime involved. It also had punitive powers, including fines up to 50,000 yen.

It even had a built-in safety catch: Taking effect June 1, 2006, the ordinance would expire at the end of March 2010 unless specifically extended.

It looked good. Good enough to be passed by the Tottori Prefectural Assembly 35 to 3.

But after that, the deluge.

BEWARE OF LOCAL ORDNANCE

Almost immediately there was an alarmist blitz, even from neighboring prefectures. The Chuugoku Shinbun (Hiroshima), in its Oct. 14 editorial entitled “We must monitor this ordinance in practice,” claimed it would “in fact shackle (“sokubaku”) human rights.”

Accusations flew that assemblypersons had not read the bill properly — only voted for fluffy ideals without clear thinking. Others said the governor had not explained to the people properly what he was binding them to.

Internet petitions blossomed to kill the bill. Even Wikipedia, in its Japanese article on this ordinance, had more than twenty con arguments and not a single pro (and as such bears a “neutrality disputed” tag).

Some sample complaints (with counterarguments):

* The bill had been deliberated upon in the Assembly for only a week. (Even though it was first brought up in 2003 and discussed in committees throughout 2005? How long is sufficient?)

* Its definitions of human rights violations (such as “defamation” — “hibou”) — were too vague, and could hinder the media in, say, investigating politicians for corruption. (Even though it contains a clause that freedom of speech and press must be respected?)

* Since its committee was not an independent body, reporting only to the Governor, this could encourage arbitrary decisions and coverups. (Just like the currently-existing Bureau of Human Rights (“jinken yougobu”) reports only to the secretive Ministry of Justice, so why not do away with the BOHR too?)

* This might threaten the reputation of the accused, since the committee could legally make their names public. (As can the police, but is anyone suggesting cops should be denied policing powers because they might make a mistake?)

* This invests judicial and policing powers in an administrative organ, a violation of the separation of powers. (So no oversight committee in Japan is allowed to have teeth? And what of the many other ordinances, such as those governing garbage disposal, mandating fines and incarceration?)

And so on. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations sounded the death knell in its statement of Nov. 2: Too much power had been given the governor (as opposed to dispersing it within the police forces?), constricting the people and media under arbitrary guidelines, under a committee chief who could investigate by diktat, overseeing a bureaucracy that could refuse to be investigated.

If there were really so many holes in this bill, one wonders what anyone ever saw in it. Why had it not been shot down in committee? Before it could be put before the Prefectural Assembly and overwhelmingly passed as a law?

O SUPPORTERS, WHERE ART THOU?

That remains unclear. Also unclear is what happened to the voices in support of this document. The government issued an official Q&A to allay concern, and the governor said problems would be dealt with as they arose. But supporters apparently got drowned out.

In December and January, the prefecture convoked informal discussion groups containing the vice-governor, two court counselors, four academics, and five lawyers (but no human rights activists). They offered handmade theories on how the constitution binds the people, how administrators cannot be judges, etc.

The result: A U-turn into complete defeat. On March 24, 2006, the Tottori Prefectural Assembly voted unanimously to suspend the ordinance indefinitely. Gov. Katayama shrugged and reportedly said in paraphrase, “We’ll get started immediately on fixing things. We wouldn’t need this ordinance if there were absolutely no human rights violations in our prefecture, but there are and we do.”

LESSONS

In the interests of full disclosure, your correspondent admits he wanted this ordinance to go through. It would be about time.

In 1996, Japan promised the United Nations it would take all effective measures, including laws, to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.

More than a decade later, we still have no law, and instead policies encouraging exclusionism and racial profiling.

Moreover there is no law on the horizon. Twice now, in 2003 and 2005, the national Diet rejected bills that would safeguard more human rights for everyone in Japan.

As above, so below: A local legislature passing something, then unpassing it? Very bad form. Not to mention a bad precedent.

Yet, as this column has argued (“Watching the Detectives,” on July 8, 2003, https://www.debito.org/japantimes070803.html), the present administrative machinery to curtail discrimination, the BOHR, is essentially meaningless, precisely because it has only a limited investigative ability, and no policing or punitive powers.

It can only hopefully “advise and enlighten” discriminators.

That is what Tottori was apparently trying to improve upon. Yet, ironically, those improvements caused its undoing.

“We should have brought up cases to illustrate specific human rights violations. The public did not seem to understand what we were trying to prevent,” said Mr Ishiba, a representative of the Tottori governor’s office.

“They should have held town meetings to raise awareness about what discrimination is, and created separate ordinances for each type of discrimination,” said Assemblywoman Ozaki Kaoru, who voted against the bill both times.

Unfortunately, history demonstrates that bills specifically guaranteeing foreigners’ rights get trashed, not because of a lack of awareness, but rather because of intractable fears of North Korean residents getting any power.

It’s dubious whether a law outlawing racial discrimination alone will ever be passed.

The lesson of this case: If you wish to create landmark legislation, you better have your supporters ready to vocally defend it.

If not, unanswered alarmists will shout down any progressive action in favor of the status quo.

Tottori, meanwhile, is launching another drafting committee. When will it submit another rights bill? Unknown.

Send comments to: community@japantimes.co.jp
The Japan Times: Tuesday, May 2, 2006
ARTICLE ENDS
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Alright, here’s the original email from HIS travel agency in Japanese:
———————————————————————-

From: sodan@his-world.co.jp
Subject: 航空券販売条件について
Date: April 19, 2006 4:12:42 PM JST
To: debito@debito.org
有道　出人　様
ﾊ
HISお客様相談室の北原と申します。

先日お問い合わせいただきました、成田発航空券の販売条件の中で
外国籍のお客様販売不可というものがございました。

社内で検討した結果、現在はその条件は削除いたしました。今後は
あらゆるお客様に同じ条件で販売していく所存でございます。
ﾊ
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　株式会社　エイチ・アイ・エス
———————————————————————-

All for today. Thanks as always!
Arudou Debito
Sapporo
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAY 8, 2006 ENDS

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 14, 2006

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1) GOVT TO LAUNCH PANEL ON FOREIGN WORKERS’ LIVING CONDITIONS
2) J AMBASSADOR TO CANADA ON CHILD ABDUCTIONS TO JAPAN
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Gov’t promises to improve livelihood of foreign residents
Friday, April 14, 2006 at 07:07 EDT
http://www.crisscross.com/jp/news/369814

TOKYO The government will map out measures to improve living conditions for foreign residents in Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Thursday. A panel of senior government officials from several ministries and agencies will focus on how foreign workers, their families and longtime residents have led their lives in Japan, he said.

The panel will take up various problems facing foreign residents, including economic issues and language and other handicaps their children may face, Abe said. It will also try to ascertain how they have been accepted by local communities, he said.

“Having admitted them into the country, Japan bears a certain degree of responsibility for their well being,” he said.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Courtesy of Tony at The Community (www.debito.org/TheCommunity)

COMMENT FROM DEBITO:
Let’s overlook the misleading headline and focus on the positive. We have Abe, as now the favorite to become the next prime minister in September (and who also has a history of pressuring NHK to censor “unpatriotic” views), saying something as positive as this. Well and good.

However, less hopeful is the typical composition of these types of “panels”. “Government officials from several ministries and agencies”? Hhrum. Let’s see if they let foreign workers represent themselves in any way in these policymaking discussions.

The record of shingikai, letting those affected by policy drives to participate in the process, is pretty spotty. I’ve always been amazed how many panels of “experts” in Japan (particularly those involving “foreign issues”) will all be composed of Japanese, and Japanese elites at that (who’ve never experienced much discrimination, except being seated in a chair they didn’t like in a restaurant overseas…). Moreover few in the media seem to decry this overt lack of balance. I saw on the news recently, for example, a panel on beef imports, sans any clear representative of the US beef industry giving any counterperspective. Regardless of your stance on the BSe issue, I find problematic the lack of *even an attempt* to strike a balance. To me, it’s all part of the process of manufacturing consent, which I find highly irritating when it comes to issues that involve national pride or economic embargoes…

But I digress. Keep an eye on this one–it may mean something if the panel knows what it’s doing…

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2) JAPANESE AMBASSADOR TO CANADA ON CHILD ABDUCTIONS TO JAPAN

In an important interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company, broadcast March 31, 2006, three people talked about the issue of how Japan has become a safe haven for child abductions after international marriages break up.

Interview excerpt, a quote from Jeremy Morley, a lawyer in New York City specializing in international family law:

———————————————-
[Morley] Children are not returned from Japan, period, and it is a situation that happens a lot with children of international marriages with kids who are over in Japan, they do not get returned. Usually, the parent who has kept a child is Japanese, and under the Japanese legal system they have a family registration system whereby every Japanese family has their own registration with a local ward office. And the name of registration system is the koseki system. So every Japanese person has their koseki, and a child is listed on the appropriate koseki. Once a child is listed on the family register, the child belongs to that family. Foreigners don’t have a family register and so there is no way for them to actually have a child registered as belonging to them in Japan. There is an international treaty called the Hague Convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction, and Japan is the only G7 country that is not a party to the Hague Convention. I think it’s horrible. It is an international outrage and it is an enormous problem that is not being addressed by the international community.
———————————————-

The interview opens with the plaintiff, Murray Wood, talking about his case, where he won custody of his children from Canadian courts, but was refused custody by Japanese courts essentially because of “who dares wins”: The judges simply refused to uproot the children (currently residing in Saitama where he is denied any access, let alone custody). Regardless of the international arrest warrant out on ex-wife Ayako Wood.

See Canadian Ambassador Sadaaki Numata get all defensive and hint at cultural imperialism in his responses to the interview:

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[Numata] That is precisely, precisely, what I am disputing. And to cause suspicions, like saying Japan is a haven for abducted children and so forth, I don’t think it’s just, it’s not the way I go about this business of diplomacy. And, and, and we are considering the question of whether or not to become a party to the convention, but there are a number of factors that need to be taken into account. Its impact on the Japanese Family Law system, and also what I might call the sociological impact on the question of to what extent it would serve, it would be in the interest of the Japanese people. And we are in the process of studying all of these issues carefully.
———————————————-

Probably by one of those elite “government panels”, no doubt.

See the interview in transcript with links to the original audio file at
http://www.crnjapan.com/articles/2006/en/20060331-japanambassadorsadaakinumatainterview.html

(Paste the entire link in your browser if it scrolls to the second line. Thanks as always to the Children’s Rights Network of Japan for all their good works!)

Japan’s unwillingness, both domestically and internationally, to guarantee access to and responsibility for children for BOTH parents, is a tragic shame. One that should be known about before people consider marriage in Japan. More on that in our upcoming book…

Arudou Debito
Sapporo
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 14, 2006 ENDS
ENDS

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 7, 2006 (Excerpt)
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1) ASAHI SHINBUN ON “GAIJIN MAPS”
2) PERU’S FUJIMORI OUTSOURCING ELECTABILITY THROUGH NEW WIFE
3) H.I.S. TRAVEL AGENCY ALLEGEDLY OVERCHARGING GAIJIN
4) POLICE INTERROGATION ACCOUNT FROM RELEASED INNOCENT INTERNEE
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Released April 7, 2006

1) ASAHI SHINBUN ON “GAIJIN MAPS”

Welcome to the future of law enforcement. Introducing… Gaijin Mapping! So you can tell where the “hotspots” are for foreign crime (kinda like Cancer Maps for insurance companies; pity foreigners are the cancer.) Never mind Japanese crime, of course; I don’t understand why they don’t just biochip everyone and be done with it… Well, again, because they can’t. Just do it to the foreigners, because they can. But as the article hints, I don’t think this sort of thing is going to stop at the foreigners… Article follows:

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New tool eyed to find foreigners staying illegally
04/07/2006 The Asahi Shimbun
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200604070156.html

In another controversial plan, the Justice Ministry will use electronic maps to locate foreigners believed to be staying here illegally, as well as businesses that have hired illegal workers, sources said.

The system is expected to start in fiscal 2007. Immigration personnel will carry hand-held terminals showing such maps to speed up the process of taking suspected illegal foreigners into custody, they said.

Criticism had already been lodged against the plan, much like the Justice Ministry’s system set up in 2004 of having the public send e-mail information about foreigners who seem to be living in the country illegally. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has criticized the e-mail tip-off system for encouraging citizens to betray their neighbors.

Critics say the ministry’s map plan will unfairly treat overstayers as hard-core criminals. “It’s wrong to treat overstaying foreigners as if they constitute a hotbed for serious crimes,” Manami Yano, a member of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, said.

But the ministry is determined to reach the government’s goal of halving the number of illegal foreigners by the end of 2008 from the estimated 250,000 who overstayed their visas or entered Japan illegally in 2003.

An estimated 193,000 foreigners were living in Japan illegally in January this year.

The ministry receives about 16,000 pieces of information annually via e-mail, letters and telephone calls about suspicious foreigners, ministry officials said.

In addition, about 19,000 foreigners around the nation in 2004 registered their names and addresses with city, town and village offices, although they did not have proper visas.

Ministry officials said many register because registry as a foreigner is needed as a form of ID to open bank accounts or buy cellphones.

Such information is available in writing, but it has been difficult to piece that data together with the information given by informants in different municipalities, even if all the information concerns the same individual.

Ministry officials said the electronic maps will combine all the information and plot the likely whereabouts of the suspicious foreigners.

But human rights groups and those who help non-Japanese say foreigners without the proper visa status often register to allow their children to attend public schools.

Yano also noted that it is rare for foreigners without proper visas to get involved in serious crimes in Japan.(IHT/Asahi: April 7,2006)
ARTICLE ENDS

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2) PERU’S FUJIMORI OUTSOURCING ELECTABILITY THROUGH NEW WIFE

Former Peru Prez and refugee of Japan Alberto Fujimori is up to his old tricks again…. outsourcing through a newfound bride in yet another attempt to somehow get relected in Peru after deserting his safe haven via citizenship in Japan…. Boy this guy is a character! Hope he gets what’s coming to him.

===========================
Fujimori to wed hotelier before poll
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060314a2.html

The Japan Times: March 14, 2006

LIMA (AP) Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori will wed longtime girlfriend Satomi Kataoka, a Japanese hotel magnate, ahead of Peru’s presidential election, a spokesman for the jailed ex-leader said Sunday.

Kataoka, who owns many luxury hotels and is known for her political pull in Japan, made the announcement to 2,000 Fujimori supporters in a Lima discotheque Saturday, spokesman Carlos Raffo told The Associated Press. She did not specify a date, but Peru’s election is set for April 9.

Kataoka arrived in Peru on Friday to support pro-Fujimori candidates in the election, and traveled Sunday to Santiago, where Fujimori has been held since his surprise arrival in Chile in November.

Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 when his 10-year autocratic regime collapsed amid growing scandals. He had said Chile was to be a stopover on his way back to Peru, but Chilean authorities arrested him at Peru’s request.

Fujimori, who is fighting extradition, faces charges in Peru including sanctioning a death squad accused of murdering 25 people, illegal phone tapping, diversion of public funds to the intelligence service, bribing lawmakers and transferring $ 15 million to his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.
===========================

ARTICLE ENDS

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3) H.I.S TRAVEL AGENCY ALLEGEDLY OVERCHARGING GAIJIN

Here’s something to consider before buying any more plane tickets–shop around a bit.
Forwarding collated emails with permission:

===========================
From: gameboy rock
Date: March 17, 2006 9:30:15 PM JST
Subject: H.I.S. travel agency, different ticket prices for japanese/gaijin

Hi Debito. Just a heads up, you might consider writing about:

My girlfriend called H.I.S. travel agency in Shinjuku about tickets from Narita to LA this May. After my GF gave all the details (dates, etc), the staff asked if the buyer was Japanese. she told them no, Canadian. The price for me was quoted at 70000yen, and for Japanese customers it was 57000yen.

The justification was vague, something about a cancelled tour, so they were offering the tickets at a discount, to Japanese only.

We called another HIS-affilliated travel agent “No.1 Travel” in Shinjuku, which serves a large majority of foreigners here in Tokyo. They had the same deal.

Finally, my GF went to the HIS Iidabashi branch office with a mic and recorder, and recorded a conversation with the staff about the tickets, giving the different prices, and claiming it was legal, and saying that they do these Japanese-only campaigns regularly. That recording is available at
http://www.baitohell.com/his/voice20.mp3
(There’s a lot of silence as the agent checks the ticket info. Near the end, you can hear the agent explain the pricing difference. Also, the general volume is low.)

I don’t know how legal this is, but if you’d like to talk to HIS yourself, the website is:
http://www.his-j.com/index.html

I spoke to a cabin attendant I know at ANA, and she said it was unlikely that the pricing is from ANA. Debito: feel free to post it on the forums. I figure the more people who stop dealing with HIS, the better.
===========================

Contact email for this information (in case the above email address doesn’t come out): the6955 AT yahoo dot com
ENDS

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4) POLICE INTERROGATION ACCOUNT FROM RELEASED INNOCENT INTERNEE

Another horror story from the annals of people who get taken into custody and interrogated by Japan’s police forces. Under suspicion because he happened to be a foreign neighbor of a suspected foreign drug dealer. Result: 23 days of hell, then turfed out without so much as an apology or a written acknowledgement of innocence, or incarceration! Have a look at it. It’s a harrowing tale:
http://noiman.com/gefaengnisd.html
(Starts out with introduction in German, then switches to English…)

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That’s all for this update. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito
Sapporo
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER APRIL 7 2006 ENDS

mytest

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MARCH 1, 2006 (excerpt)

Hello all. Just got back from nearly two weeks down south. Some issues I collected along the way:

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1) MAINICHI et al: POLICE RACIAL PROFILING RESULTS IN MISTAKEN ARREST OF JAPANESE THEY THINK IS A FOREIGNER
2) MOFA TO HOLD HEARING RE UN CERD COMMITTEE REPORT
3) NUGW “MARCH IN MARCH” SUNDAY MARCH 5 IN SHINJUKU
4) “REVERSE DISCRIMINATION” AT KYOTO FORMER IMPERIAL PALACE
5) BOOK “JAPANESE ONLY” 2006 REVISED VERSION HITS STORES
//////////////////////////////////////////////

March 1, 2006 Freely forwardable

First up…
File this under “I told you this would happen” Part 647:

1) MAINICHI: RACIAL PROFILING RESULTS IN MISTAKEN ARREST OF JAPANESE

Lots of people have emailed me this article (thanks!), and it’s deservedly gotten a lot of press in Japan. This is the best one I’ve found so far:

—————————ARTICLE BEGINS————————-

Police left red-faced after arresting Japanese woman they thought was a foreigner

Mainichi Shinbun Feb 28, 2006
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060228p2a00m0na001000c.html

KAWAGUCHI, Saitama — Red-faced police released a woman they had arrested for not carrying her passport after she proved to be Japanese, police officials said.

The officials said local police had deemed that she was non-Japanese because she looked like a foreigner and did not say anything in response to questions in Japanese.

Local police were apologetic about the mistake. “We caused great trouble to the woman. We’ll take measures to prevent a recurrence,” the head of Kawaguchi Police Station said.

At around 7:40 p.m. on Saturday, three officers spoke to a 28-year-old woman walking on a street in Kawaguchi, and asked her name and nationality because she looked like a woman from Southeast Asia, according to the officials.

After saying, “I’m Japanese,” she refused to talk to the officers, who took her to the police station. After she refused to respond to the questions officers asked her in Japanese, police deemed that she was a foreigner.

The officers confirmed that she was not carrying her passport, and arrested her for violating the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law. She subsequently wrote down the name of one of her family members on a sheet of paper. One of the officers contacted her family and found out she is a Japanese national.

Police quoted the woman’s mother as telling them, “My daughter wouldn’t talk to anybody she doesn’t know.” (Mainichi)

—————————ARTICLE ENDS————————-
Links to some Japanese articles on this:

ヤフーニュースと読売

————————————————————–

アジア系と間違え、埼玉県警が日本女性を誤認逮捕

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20060227-00000315-yom-soci

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20060227i315.htm

　埼玉県警川口署は２７日、同県川口市の無職女性（２８）を東南アジア系外国人と間違え、入管法違反（旅券不携帯）容疑で誤認逮捕したと発表した。

　女性は、日本人とわかり、２６日未明の逮捕から約１４時間後に釈放された。

　同署によると、交番勤務の署員３人が２５日午後７時４０分ごろ、川口市上青木西の路上を歩いていた女性に職務質問。女性は「日本人です」としか話さず、身分を示すものも持っていなかった。署員が所持品に書かれていた母親の勤め先を訪ねたものの、身元は確認できず、２６日午前５時１５分ごろ逮捕したという。

　その後の取り調べで、女性が自分と家族の名前、生年月日を紙に書き、身元が判明。女性は午後７時２０分ごろ釈放された。

　女性の母親は、女性が普段から他人と話すのが苦手だとしているという。

　署員は「目が大きく、彫りが深かったため、外国人だと思い込んだ」という。

（読売新聞） – 2月28日3時2分更新

————————————————————–

毎日

————————————————————–

誤認逮捕：旅券不携帯で逮捕の女性、実は日本人　埼玉

http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/shakai/jiken/news/20060228k0000m040152000c.html

　埼玉県警川口署は２７日、入管法違反容疑（旅券不携帯）で逮捕した女性（２８）が実は同県川口市在住の日本人だったと分かり、釈放したと発表した。女性が言葉を発せず、容姿などから外国人と判断したという。

　同署によると、２５日午後７時４０分ごろ、川口市内の路上を歩いていた女性にパトロール中の署員３人が職務質問。署員は女性の容姿が東南アジア出身者に似ており、名前や国籍を尋ねたところ、小さな声で「日本人です」と言ったきり何も話さなくなったため、署に任意同行した。女性は署でも日本語の質問に対し無言を通したため、同署は「外国人」と判断。パスポートの不所持を確かめて同容疑で逮捕した。

　女性は逮捕後に家族の名前を紙に書き、母親に確認すると娘と分かって誤認逮捕が判明した。母親は「娘は知らない人とは話をしない性格」と話していたという。

　金川智署長は「女性には大変迷惑をかけた。今後指導を徹底し、再発防止に努める」としている。【村上尊一】

英文を読む

毎日新聞　2006年2月28日　0時38分　（最終更新時間　2月28日　0時53分）

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COMMENT: You just knew I would jump on something like this. As I’ve been saying all along, it’s getting harder to tell a Japanese on sight anymore, and even in this case there’s no indication there was any international parentage. Her only crime was walking past the Police Box and looking foreign, despite claims to the contrary. An honest mistake, worthy of interrogation and arrest, surely.

But let’s go beyond any possibly simple mistake. A person is by law NOT REQUIRED to carry any ID on them if they are Japanese. And foreign residents of Japan are NOT REQUIRED to carry passports around either (that’s why they have Gaijin Cards). Being arrested for not carrying a passport is in fact illegal behavior by the police. But as you know, the police in Japan are bending the laws these days whenever they can claim foreign involvement.
https://www.debito.org/japantimes101805.html

Moreover, by law (the Keisatsukan Shoukumu Shikkou Hou), the police are not allowed to to ask people personal questions unless there is probable cause, notably the suspicion of connection with a past or future crime. However, foreigners (and only foreigners) can be asked for ID without probable cause, but foreigners can ask cops for ID back. Full details at
https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#checkpoint

Back to the miscreant. According to friend Ben citing other news sources, she was held by police for 14 hours. How nice. I look forward to the same treatment–as there’s little I can do to look more Japanese. If I wink off the mailing lists for awhile, start inquiring at some cop shops, huh?

Such is the price one pays nowadays when foreigners in Japan are viewed and treated as criminals…

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2) MOFA TO HOLD HEARING RE UN CERD COMMITTEE REPORT

In response to United Nations Special Rapporteur Doudou Diene’s recent fantastic report, which tells it pretty much like it is for minorities in Japan (full details at https://www.debito.org/rapporteur.html ), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs seems to be feeling some heat. They have put out a public notice asking for NGOs and other groups to join a hearing for some input into their next report to the UN (now years overdue) regarding the status of racial discrimination in Japan. This will take place on March 7, 2006, between 3PM and 5PM. Journalists, book a seat now.

It is open by application to the MOFA, to the Gaimusho Kokusai Shakai Kyouryoku bu Jinken Jindou ka, a Mr Nakano, phone 03-5501-8240, email cerdhoukoku@mofa.go.jp. Application deadline is today, March 1, 2006. Sorry for the short notice.

I applied, FYI. Hope I get in. Sounds like fun. I’m sure we can fill the two-hour audience granted us.

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3) NUGW “MARCH IN MARCH” SUNDAY MARCH 5 IN SHINJUKU

For those who wish to show their support of foreign workers, given their sometimes astonishingly bad working conditions and lack of legal protections, feel free to join the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, as well as several other labor unions, this Sunday from 1:30 PM in Kashiwaki Park, Shinjuku, Tokyo, for their second annual march to draw attention to the issues. More details at
http://nambufwc.org/march-in-march/

There really is no other recourse to effectively secure your right to work in Japan (which is actually guaranteed in the Japanese Constitution, Article 27) except to join a union (even I did). See how I reached that conclusion at
https://www.debito.org/acadapartupdateoct05.html

Anyway, come to the march. It’ll be fun. Live music, dances, speakers, even a NOVA Bunny Show. I’ll be there. And you’ll probably hear my voice through a megaphone at some point…

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4) “REVERSE DISCRIMINATION” AT KYOTO FORMER IMPERIAL PALACE

Now for something a little lighter. I was in Kyoto two weekends ago staying at the Palace Side Hotel (http://www.palacesidehotel.co.jp/), a rather pleasant but certainly cheap (and therefore recommended) hotel right next to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. I did get asked for my passport when I checked in (over 70% of their guests are tourists, I later found out), and got some nonplussed looks from the staff when I refused to do so and showed them the law (yes, I carry them; get your own at https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#passportnumber) saying it wasn’t required for residents of Japan regardless of nationality. I made sure to have a few words with the manager, who promised to do better about obeying the law in future. Anyhoo…

What made the trip interesting was the fact that my (non-Japanese) friend and I tried to get into the Kyoto Imperial Palace (you must make an appointment with the Kunaichou offices next door). They have a few tours each weekday, one in English at 10AM. I saw on the forms that the English version requires you give your Gaijin Card number, whereas the Japanese version only needs an address without ID. So when I asked for the Japanese version, they gave me it with a caution to reveal my numbers. When I told them of my nationality, they said:

“This tour in English is for foreigners only. Moreover, unlike foreigners, who can sign up for tours on the day, Japanese must register at least the day before for any tours. So you cannot partake. However, you can have your foreign friend sponsor you and bring you in as interpretee…”

I guffawed and begged off. Also asked if the Imperial Agency would consider a bit of kisei kanwa… Funny how these things work, isn’t it. Friend Olaf told me I should be pleased they did in fact treat me like a Japanese. Well… A stupid rule is a stupid rule, regardless of application, is what I put it all down to. No wonder these people drive Commoner Imperial wives nuts…

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5) BOOK “JAPANESE ONLY” 2006 REVISED VERSION HITS STORES

Those who have been holding out for a copy of my book “JAPANESE ONLY–The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan” are in for a treat. The revised 2006 EDITION has just come out, which includes a translation of the 2005 Supreme Court decision rejecting the case, and an Index for your researching ease. Those who have the 2004 version (which sold out, thanks) can get an index applicable to their pagination at
https://www.debito.org/japaneseonlyindex.html

Want a copy of the book? See
https://www.debito.org/japaneseonly.html

Moreover, I can now reveal that my proposal for my third book has just been accepted by publishers. More details later…

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Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito
Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MARCH 1 2006 ENDS