Author: Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 10, 2007

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. I think blogging should be certified as addictive, as I’m having trouble keeping my posts below one a day. Since there are so many, all I’ll do in this newsletter is provide the title of the blog entry, a very quick summary, and a link. Let’s see how that works out. It’ll certainly save me time and space.

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 10, 2007
Contents as follows:

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1) TOWARDS FOUNDING A NPO FOR PERMANENT RESIDENTS, NATURALIZED CITIZENS, AND IMMIGRANTS
2) GOJ “JINKEN SHUUKAN” HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK AND ITS FLAWS
3) UNHCR DISMAYED BY SECRET DEATH PENALTY OF CONVICTS
ALSO TRYING TO PUT A BRAVE FACE ON JAPAN’S REJECTION OF REFUGEES
4) LITTLE BLACK SAMBO & GOLLIWOG DOLLS ON SALE AT RAINFOREST CAFE, NEAR DISNEYLAND
5) TOYOKO INN’S RACIAL PROFILING, PROTEST LETTER, AND SUGGESTED BOYCOTT
6) FUN FACTS: DIVORCE RISING, WORKFORCE TO PLUMMET, JAPAN’S MINUS GDP GROWTH,
AND 39% OF DIETMEMBER SEATS INHERITED
7) MORE ON NJ FINGERPRINTING:
CHUUGOKU SHINBUN, HOKKAIDO SHINBUN, DER SPIEGEL, NEWSWEEK, THE ECONOMIST,
THE JAPAN TIMES, THE MANITOBAN, AND JAMES FALLOWS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
PLULS ANONYMOUS ON SHINAGAWA FINGERPRINT PREREGISTRATION: A FARCE
8) IRONY: JAPAN POST CREATING “YOKOSO JAPAN” STAMPS. WITH DOMESTIC POST VALUE ONLY!
9) JAPAN TIMES PREZ OGASAWARA INTERVIEWED ON FUTURE OF PRINT MEDIA IN JAPAN
and finally…

10) ARUDOU DEBITO DOING NEW BOOK TOUR IN MARCH 2008. DROP BY AND SPEAK?

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By Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan (debito@debito.org)
Daily blog entries at https://www.debito.org/index.php
Debito.org podcasts archived at http://www.transpacificradio.com/category/debito/
Freely forwardable

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1) Towards founding a “Permanent Residents/Naturalized Citizens” organization

With all the NJ anger regarding the new Fingerprint Laws–moreover the GOJ’s tendency of consistently showing indifference, if not outright antipathy, towards the needs and interests of Japan’s international residents–there have been calls in the comments sections of several Debito.org blog entries for a new organization to represent the Permanent Residents and Naturalized Citizens of Japan. The organization is still in its embryonic stage. But let me create this separate special blog entry for people to discuss and pound out questions and concerns. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=789

Created Yahoogroup for forming NPO for Immigrants, Permanent Residents, and Naturalized Citizens

Just created a yahoogroup for the forming NPO “Japan Organization for Immigrants, Naturalized Citizens, and Permanent Residents (JOIN-CPR). Join if you’re serious about pushing for the rights and interests of NJ in an official capacity. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=817

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2) GOJ Jinken Shuukan: “Human Rights Week” and its flaws

The Ministry of Justice’s Bureau of Human Rights has started its 59th “Human Rights Week” this week. I translate and interpret official BOHR documents to show where the focus of their efforts lie, and the shortcomings in their own “human rights awareness”. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=810

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3) UN News: UNHCR dismayed by secret death penalty of J convicts

Tangental to Debito.org, but UN News: “Japan is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which legally obligates States Parties to ensure strict safeguards when applying the death penalty. It is widely accepted that [capital punishment] executions cannot be carried out in secret and without warning, as this could be seen as inhuman punishment and treatment under the ICCPR.” And this is what Justice Minister was referring to recently about the higher value placed on life in Japan than the West? Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=822

J Times: UNHCR’s Guterres bravely spins on Japan’s exclusionary refugee policy

Take our money, keep your people. UNHCR: “Japan was the UNHCR’s third-largest donor country in 2006, with a $75 million (JPY8.1 billion) contribution, after being the second-largest donor for eight years through 2005. However, the number of people granted refugee status in Japan remains small. In 2006, the government recognized only 34 people as refugees, compared with 23,296 in the U.S. and 6,330 in Britain.” Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=816

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4) Little Black Sambo dolls on sale at Rainforest Cafe, next to Tokyo Disneyland.

John C: “I went into The Rainforest cafe in iksepiri Maihama, Chiba (the shopping centre next to Disneyland) today with my son and I was utterly disgusted to find these Little Black Sambo dolls…” Plus what he did about the issue–successfully. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=808

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5) REPORT: Racial Profiling at Toyoko Inns; suggest boycott

SUMMARY: Toyoko Inn, a high-profile nationwide chain of hotels in Japan, have a clear policy of racial profiling at their hotels. They illegally demanded a passport from the author on the basis of his race alone last on November 30, 2007, reflecting their history of even illegally threatening to refuse accommodation to NJ residents unless they provide Gaijin Cards at check-in. This systematic harassment of NJ clientele is unnecessary and unlawful, especially in the face of hotels increasingly refusing all foreigners accommodation across “Yokoso” Japan. Toyoko Inn’s continuing refusal to abide by the laws, despite advisements from NJ customers in the past, forces this author to conclude that NJ residents and international Japanese citizens, not to mention supporters of human rights in Japan, should take their business to hotels other than Toyoko Inn–until the chain at the national level agrees in writing to improve their services. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=797

Here’s the protest letter I sent by naiyou shoumei to Toyoko Inn’s boss Mr Shigeta, regarding their recent racial profiling of me at their Hirosaki outlet, and their history of treating the physically handicapped and NJ customers badly. Until we get a positive answer, I suggest we take our custom elsewhere.
https://www.debito.org/?p=826

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6) Fun Facts #9: Divorce, Population decrease, Japan’s minus GDP growth, and inherited Nat’l Diet member seats

Here are another series of “Fun Facts”: innocuous-looking statistics which open portals into grander trends at work:

Stats showing a leap in Japan’s divorce rate (as predicted), a predicted drop in Japan’s labor force, a more impressive drop Japan’s GDP over the past ten years (in contrast with the rest of the developed world), and one reason why the system is breaking down–nearly 40% of the parliament is second-or third-generation (or more) Dietmembers, meaning Japan’s legislature is a peerage masquerading as a democracy. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=823

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7) MORE ON NJ FINGERPRINTING:

Hokkaido Shinbun Editorial and article on NJ Fingerprinting Debacle

Fingerprinting issue: Two very good articles from the Hokkaido Shinbun give the full panoply of human rights issues, citing what seems to be articles sourced from Debito.org, as well as the highly-critical Korean media. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=791

Chuugoku Shinbun: Fingerprinting “a new form of discrimination”

Some favorable domestic media: Chuugoku Shinbun: “Ahead of its implementation on Nov. 20, foreign residents in Japan are protesting the new immigration system requiring foreigners to be fingerprinted and photographed when entering Japan, arguing that “it’s a new form of discrimination.” Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=802

FP issue: Newsweek on damage done by model US-VISIT Program

Newsweek: “According to the Commerce Department, the United States is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined in the midst of a global tourism boom. And this is not about Arabs or Muslims. The number of Japanese visiting the United States declined from 5 million in 2000 to 3.6 million last year. The numbers have begun to increase, but by 2010 they’re still projected to be 19 percent below 2000 levels. During this same span (2000-2010), global tourism is expected to grow by 44 percent.” Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=800

Economist on NJ Fingerprinting

The Economist (London) on the NJ Fingerprinting Debacle, with ample airtime given to the critics. As it should be, since this will affect business. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=790

James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly on NJ Fingerprinting

James Fallows on NJ Fingerprinting at Narita: “Let me put this bluntly: this is an incredibly degrading, offputting, and hostility-generating process… Today’s time spent in the passport clearance line for foreigners at Narita: 1 hour, 30 minutes. But mainly there is no getting around the insult factor of having entry to the country be like getting booked into County Jail… Think how the alarm bells would go off if China tried to impose a scheme like this! The editorials about “Big Brother in Beijing” practically write themselves. But now the two countries that apply the most intrusively big-brotherish surveillance over those trying to visit are two liberal societies: the United States and Japan.” Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=795

Japan Times: Mark Schreiber gives Immigration the finger at Narita

Mark Schreiber from the Japan Times gives us his experiences on what happened to him when he took a junket to Saipan, just to test the Fingerprinting machines on the way back… Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=785

Der Spiegel: “Border Controls: Japan’s fear of foreigners”

Der Spiegel on Japan’s fingerprinting: “No Japanese citizen even needs an Identity Card; yet the biometric data of foreigners will be stored for 70 years. Civil rights campaigners can smell the terrorism hysteria and racism, while the National Tourist Office fears for the country’s image… And Ms. Ogawa from the Tourism Office fears that worse may still come: “The Government has asked us to carefully observe tourists’ mood regarding these changes over the coming few weeks. If Japan’s image really does drastically deteriorate, then in our final report, we may have to include the recommendation that that these measures be abandoned.” Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=815
Original German at
https://www.debito.org/?p=803

Anonymous on NJ Fingerprinting: Pre-registering in Shinagawa a farce.

One farce: “It seems that if parents residing in Japan wish to use the automated gate process when leaving Japan or when returning, they will have to be separated from their children. Children are not required to give finger prints, but at the same time, at the automated re-entry gates there will be no human beings to inspect the passports of the children. Thus, for re-entering families, it appears that the adults can go through the automated gates but the children, if they have re-entry permits, must stand in the line like we always did for returning Japanese and re-entry permit holders and will enter Japan separately. Except that, obviously, if the child is a baby or not experienced enough to do this alone, then they have to come in through the tourist line with a parent. So at the end of the day, if a family wishes to stay together, or has to stay together because of the age of the child, they must go through the tourist line (Yes, I know, it seems obvious that we need fingerprint taking capability at the re-entry permit line)… there was a ton of frustration among these parents who had taken time to come all the way out to Shinagawa to pre-register themselves thinking to spare their family and tired children the agony of the tourist line only to find out that it was a complete waste of time.” Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=812

Manitoban: NJ FP etc. “The Land of the Rising Shun”

An article in The Manitoban (Canada) using lots of information from Debito.org, dispersing what’s been going on in Japan vis-a-vis NJ in Japan legally, socially, and logistically over the past 50 years throughout the Canadian steppes. Mottainai. Best to also put it on Debito.org for a wider audience. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=804

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8) Irony: Japan Post Office issuing “YOKOSO JAPAN” stamps January

Here’s your daily laugh: Japan Post Office is issuing new YOKOSO JAPAN stamps next January. Not only does this presume the tourists are going to want to come here to be treated like terrorists and criminals, but also the stamps don’t even amount to overseas postage: 80 yen domestic only! Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=792

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9) FCCJ No.1 Shimbun interviews Prez Ogasawara of Japan Times.

Interview with the President of the Japan Times in the FCCJ No. 1 Shimbun, talks about the future of print journalism, the plight of the Japan Times, and even cites Debito.org!
https://www.debito.org/?p=814

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10) Arudou Debito’s new book tour March 2008. Want me to come speak?

News of my upcoming tour around Japan between March 17 to 31, to promote my next (co-authored) book–“GUIDEBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS”. Its goal: To help non-Japanese entrants become residents and immigrants. Want to know more? Contact me. Want me to come speak? Ditto. Read more:
https://www.debito.org/?p=824

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All for today. Thanks for reading!
Arudou Debito in Sapporo, Japan
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER FOR DECEMBER 10, 2007 ENDS

「ガイジン、パスポート見せろ」を言う東横インの重田社長に改善要請文

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Here’s the protest letter I sent by naiyou shoumei to Toyoko Inn’s boss Mr Shigeta, regarding their recent racial profiling of me at their Hirosaki outlet, and their history of treating the physically handicapped and NJ customers badly. Until we get a positive answer, I suggest we take our custom elsewhere. Arudou Debito

（アップデート：２００８年１月１２日現在：一ヶ月間が経過しても、東横インから返事は一切ございません。）
=========================

〒144-0054　東京都大田区新蒲田1-7-4
株式会社　東横イン
TEL.03-5703-1045　FAX.03-5703-1046
代表執行役社長　重田訓矩　殿

外見・人種・国籍を問わない顧客対応の改善を再び求めます

拝啓　益々お繁盛に賜りお喜び申し上げます。
私は[某]大学准教授　有道　出人（あるどう　でびと）と申します。日本在住歴は２０年間少々、帰化した日本人です。数回、御社のホテルに宿泊したことがあり、誠に感謝します。しかし、本年も１１月３０日から２泊に渡り、東横イン弘前（弘前市大字駅前１−１−１、TEL 0172-31-2045）で弘前学院大学での講演のきっかけで予約していただき宿泊致しました。

当日、列車で札幌から直接弘前に入り、６時間かけてから夜１１時頃に到着しました。チェックインする際、フロントの方（石岡氏）からもらった氏名と住所を書く書類を記入する途中、「パスポートを見せて下さい」と言われました。「なぜですか」と聞いても、「当ホテルのルールと日本法律に基づいて、全ての外国人のパスポートを確認する義務付けがあります」と。該当法律を見せてもらい、「ここでは『日本住所を持たない外国人』に当てはまることでは？」と指示し、「私の国内住所の有無を先に確認すべきでは？記入される前にこうやって聞くことはまだ早いのでは？」と。

石岡氏は「でも、法律上で外国人の場合は…」と一点張りするところで、「私が外国人だと外見だけで判断しているのでは？」（ちなみに私は白人です。）「実は、私は日本人です。こうやって私のパスポートを要求することはありません」と述べても、石岡氏は「じゃ、証明として日本の運転免許証を見せて下さい。」私は「あのう、普通の日本人からこうやって身分証を要求するのですか」と聞き、石岡氏は「しません」と認め、「では、なぜ外見のみで不審者扱いになっていますか。ましてや、外国人だけで法律で義務付けられてないことも要求して、これはracial profiling （人種的人物分別）か『ガイジン・ハラスメント』になっていませんか。人種差別になっていませんか。」

マネジャーの呼び出しを頼んだものの、石岡氏は「不在です」と答え、私が再度「連絡して下さい」と言っても「いま忙しいです」と。「ならば私は本社にこのことを通告しますね」とと、ようやく副支配人の小原容子氏に取り次いでくれました。経緯を説明するとお詫びをいただきました。

次の夜、小原氏と直接お会いして、詳しく話し合い、これから応対を改善すると約束してもらい問題の解決となったと思います。残念ながら、これは東横インの応対にとって氷山の一角だと思います。

以前、東横イン札幌駅西口北大前支店で、２００５年１１月で永住権を有する北海道紋別市在住の外国人は予約する際、フロントの人は「外国人登録証を見せないと宿泊拒否となる」と説明しました。日本国内の住所があり確認する義務付けはないし、こうやって拒否は旅館業法第５条違反です。にもかかわらず、注意しても当ホテルは譲りませんでした。

それに、東横インはチェーン店として人権問題を起こした歴史があります。２００５年末から２００６年の初期まで、当局から「バリアフリー」認定をもらってから身体障害者の設備もなくした事件があり、かなりのマスコミの騒ぎ上ようやく前社長西田氏からの謝罪があったのも事実です。

よって、再び顧客対応の改善を求めます。以降の通りを願います。

１）現在の法律上、身分証は観光客（つまり日本に住所を持たない人のみ）には該当すると承知すること。
２）外国人に見える顧客の場合、法律の通り、日本国内の住所の有無を把握し、日本人客と同様にチェックインの待遇をすること（要は、身分証は不必要だと承知すること）。
３）全支店・全社員にこういう事実を啓発すること。
４）御社東横インはビジネスホテルチェーンとして、これからどうするか、特に、どうやって外国人に見える顧客の対応を改善するのかと、内容証明で文書上お知らせ下さい。

私はdebito.orgという多文化多民族社会になりつつある日本を図るウェブサイトを持っています。この事件は既に私のブログに載せてあり、直接御社からご連絡、ご改善の公約がない限り、読者と関心者に宿泊拒否を促進しております。海外のマスコミにこう報告致してあり、国内のマスコミにもこの手紙を送信致します。

ご返答をお待ちしております。宜しくお願い致します。敬具

２００７年１２月９日
[住所省略　某]　大学
准教授　有道　出人

以上

UN News: UNHCR dismayed by secret death penalty of J convicts

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This is tangental to Debito.org, as it involves issues of the death penalty, not internationalization and multiculturalization. But it’s yet another example of Japan not following treaties. Do read to the very end, and goggle at a comment from Justice Minister Hatoyama…

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TOP UN HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICIAL DISMAYED BY EXECUTION OF THREE JAPANESE PRISONERS
UN News.org. New York, Dec 7 2007 7:00PM
Courtesy UNNews AT un.org

The top United Nations human rights official today deplored the execution of three prisoners – including one aged over 75 – in Osaka, Japan, and appealed to the East Asian nation to reassess its approach to the death penalty.

The executions reportedly took place suddenly and neither the convicts nor their families were given advance warning.

“This practice is problematic under international law, and I call on Japan to reconsider its approach in this regard,” Louise Arbour, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said.

Expressing particularly dismay at the execution of the prisoner over the age of 75, she said that “it is difficult to see what legitimate purpose is served by carrying out such executions of the elderly, and at the very least on humanitarian grounds, I would urge Japan to refrain from such action.”

In contrast to carrying out executions in secret as it has done in the past, Japan publicly released the names of those executed, the High Commissioner noted.

Japan is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which legally obligates States Parties to ensure strict safeguards when applying the death penalty. It is widely accepted that executions cannot be carried out in secret and without warning, as this could be seen as inhuman punishment and treatment under the ICCPR.

Ms. Arbour urged the Japanese Government to implement a moratorium on executions or ban the practice altogether, as a growing number of nations have.
2007-12-07 00:00:00.000
ENDS

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COMMENT: And this is where our Justice Minister, Hatoyama “al-Qaeda” Kunio, was referring to about the higher value put on life in Japan than in the West? I included this in an earlier Newsletter, but it bears repeating:

========================================
Interview with Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama
Shuukan Asahi, October 26, 2007 P.122.
Title: “The Reason I will carry out Executions.”
Partial translation by Michael H. Fox, Director, Japan Death Penalty Information Center
http://www.jdpic.org

Q: There is a big trend to abolish the death penalty worldwide. Why do you want to keep it in Japan?

HATOYAMA: The Japanese place so much importance on the value of life, so it is thought that one should pay with one’s life after taking the life of another. You see, the Western nations are civilizations based on power and war. So, conversely, things are moving against the death penalty. This is an important point to understand. The so called civilizations of power and war are opposite (from us). From incipient stages, their conception of the value of life is weaker than the Japanese. Therefore, they are moving toward abolishment of the death penalty. It is important that this discourse on civilizations be understood.
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Go figure.
The entire article translated with commentary by Michael H. Fox was recently published on Japan Focus. See
http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2609
Debito in Sapporo

Dream: “Japan is a Hugh Grant society.” Continue this story, everyone.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Good morning, Blog. It’s not like me to put dreams up on this blog (except maybe the pipe dreams, like a Japan with a law against racial discrimination 🙂 ), but I just had such a zinger that I thought I’d put it up. And give readers a chance to complete the story themselves in the Comments section, as I woke up laughing before the next person in line in the dream could take up where I left off.

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Scene in the dream: The back of a bus in a long road trip, destination unknown, with a bunch of bored people including for no apparent reason (this is a dream, remember) Hugh Grant, Hollywood actor. People wanted to poke fun, so we decided to create a chain-letter style story where one person would take up the story where the last one left off. It was my dream, so I started:

“When the Hugh Grant woke up that morning, he had no idea what kind of a day he was in for.

“Hugh had lived quite a successful life, developing a character built on personal embarrassment, charm, stuttering, and all manner of endearing and self-effacing characteristics that his fans found appealing and his detractors couldn’t really fling mud at. He was a profitable character too, ingratiating himself into many situations around the world, showing himself as willing to do what it took in public to give himself a good image (as that was the very nature of his job, of course–to be an appealing character), and leaving a positive impression lingering long after he had left the building–of somebody you’d like to see more of. Even if the only lingering memory Hugh himself had of any of these situations was the fact that he had been present there. And it was very, very difficult to imagine Hugh’s other side, like of him on the toilet having long and loud bowel movements, or of having predilections for late-night trysts with ladies of the night, or of lacking the shy yet sticking-to-it character that was omnipresent wherever he went. And if he were caught with his pants down, he would offer charmingly tearful apologies in public. Awww… never mind, people would say. Good job. Mission accomplished.

“Japan was much the same if you thought about it. A society that loves to show the outside world in its shy, stuttering, self-effacing manner, that Japanese were a group of uniformly ‘shiny, happy people’ and ‘hardworking ganbarujans’ in its media, music, catchy train ringtones, video games, etc.. How whenever Japan went overseas and faced the foreign public, be it media or individual homestay host, it was the job of every Japanese to act as an ingratiating cultural representative, leaving a nice impression lingering that we were a nice friendly people living in a nice friendly place with a shy but huggable persona, something you’d like to see more of (and would even pay money to do so). Even if many memories of these lucky plucky kokutai volunteers was ultimately the fact that they had made a good impression on others, less the impression the others had made on them. No matter. It served some sort of purpose–Japan as a character was profiting nicely.

“And it covered up the elements of Japan’s dark side: the fingerprinting of foreigners at the border as suspected terrorists and criminals; the racial discrimination so endemic and systematic that it was ignored, even justified by some as a matter of culture; the long and current history of dalliances with sexual slavery; the fundamental problems of inequality and squander created by a powerful (and largely unquestioned) ruling elite, one that has long forgotten (if it ever knew) what the common person needs; the unanswered questions of why hikikomori, why ijime, why the odd dichotomy between the purported crime-free society and the constant media focus on crime (except when it was white-collar or otherwise organized crime), why the largest pay differential between men and women in the OECD, why an ardent refusal to play by international rules and accept global standards…? No matter. People liked Japan for the image it put out. Just don’t come here and try and scratch the surface by staying here too long–you’d only get confused by the public persona and the reality. And if they were caught out in the Grand Kabuki, they would offer charmingly tearful apologies in public and get back to business as usual. Good job. Mission accomplished.

“And as Hugh Grant woke up that morning in the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo, he had no idea what kind of a day he was in for. He was about to enter Hugh Grant Society himself…”

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

This was where I woke up, laughing, rats. So I blog this for a bit of fun. Nothing against Hugh Grant, seriously (I have no idea why he’s in this dream!), but who wants to fill in the next part of the story? Or fill in the next segment for somebody else to take up the baton?

Japan as the Hugh Grant Society. Enjoy. Debito

Arudou Debito’s new book tour March 2008. Want me to come speak?

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Japan’s biggest human rights publisher Akashi Shoten will publish my third book (first two are here), “GUIDEBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS”, advice for NJ on how to get a more secure lifestyle in Japan, coauthored with Akira Higuchi. More details on it here.

But first, news of a book tour to promote:

===================================
“GUIDEBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS” BOOK TOUR
I will be traveling around Japan during the latter half of March 2008 to promote a co-authored new book. If you’d like me to drop by your area for a speech, please be in touch with me at debito@debito.org. (This way travel expenses are minimalized for everyone.)

Tentative schedule follows, subject to change with notice on this blog entry.

March 17-23, Tokyo/Tohoku area.
Applied for speaking engagements at Good Day Books and the FCCJ.

March 24-30, Kansai/Chubu area.
March 27, Speech at Shiga University (FIXED)
March 28-29 Speech in Kyoto and/or Kobe
March 29, evening, Speech for JALT Osaka (FIXED)
March 30, Speech at JALT Okayama (FIXED)

Due back in Sapporo by April 2, so three weeks on the road.

May I come speak? Please drop a line at debito@debito.org
Thanks for considering. Arudou Debito in Sapporo
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Book brief with link to synopsis follows:

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“GUIDEBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS” (tentative title)

Authors: HIGUCHI Akira and ARUDOU Debito
Languages: English and Japanese
Publisher: Akashi Shoten Inc., Tokyo
Due out: March 2008

Goal: To help non-Japanese entrants become residents and immigrants

Topics: Securing stable visas, Establishing businesses and secure jobs, Resolving legal problems, Planning for the future through to death…
===================================

Introduction and table of contents at
https://www.debito.org/?page_id=582
ENDS

Fun Facts #9: Divorce, Population decrease, Japan’s minus GDP growth, and inherited Nat’l Diet member seats

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here are another series of “Fun Facts”–innocuous-looking statistics which open portals into grander trends at work:

Fact one: Divorce rate rocketing, as predicted by Debito.org.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
-> National Chauvinistic Husbands Association
Courtesy Terrie’s Take #442, December 2, 2007

The advent of a new law back in April this year which allows women to seek half of their husband’s pension has spawned both a boom in divorces (up 6.1% in April alone) as well as a reactionary protest group called the National Chauvinistic Husbands Association (NCHA). The group says that the “chauvinistic” part of their moniker, “kanpaku” in Japanese, refers more accurately to the top assistant to the emperor in days gone by, rather than the current negative meaning that it has today. Regardless, the association faces an uphill battle. Apparently 70% of Japanese women are staying single until 29 or later, versus 75% of them being married at that age twenty years ago, and 95% of all divorce applications come from women. (Source: TT commentary from kansascity.com, Nov 29, 2007)

http://www.kansascity.com/238/story/382085.html
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COMMENT: Surprised by both the jump and the fact that almost all people asking for divorce are women. I was in the tiny minority. More on the issue of divorce in Japan at https://www.debito.org/thedivorce.html

On to Fact 2: Japan’s imminent depopulation:

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-> Workers to fall 10.7m in 22 years
Courtesy Terrie’s Take #441, November 25, 2007

The Labor Ministry has said that Japan’s working population will drop by around 17%, or 10.7m people, by 2030. This will cause the current labor force of 66.57m to fall to 55.84m. The Ministry says that the fall could be held to less than half this amount if more women and elderly joined the workforce. ***Ed: And tell us again why the Japanese government has turned xenophobic about foreigners living in Japan? It’s only a matter of time before the realities of the market force a mind shift in the politicians and bureaucrats who today are so busy trying to keep foreigners and their child-breeding ways out of Japan.** (Source: TT commentary from nikkei.co.jp, Nov 23, 2007)

http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/AC/TNKS/Nni20071122D22JFA10.htm
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COMMENT: I will point out the irony behind the wan hope that forcing more women to work is actually going to help women want to have babies? And that the oft-touted development of robots (including this silly article from The Economist Dec 20th 2005 “Japan’s humanoid robots–Better than people: Why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans”) is no elixir.

This leads us to Fact Three: Japan’s decreasing GDP Growth (in start contrast to the rest of the developed world. Courtesy of Niall Murtagh of The Community:

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Debito — Interesting statistic on WBS news (World Biz Satellite) last night, December 2: can’t remember the figures exactly but in the 10 years from 1996 to 2006, GNP grew by over 50% in UK, Canada, Australia, 45%+ in France, Italy, and by about 2% in Japan.

In other words while Japan is not getting poorer, it is being left behind by nearly all other major (and minor) countries, as regards growth.

Immigration does seem to go in tandem with economic growth (from 1995-2005, non-nationals in Ireland went from almost none to 10% of population, while GNP increased by about 140%). It won’t happen here. Did a bit of quick googling and found figs that make the TV stats seem about right.

(Web site only gives figs in national currencies, so I calculated the % change).
It sure hasn’t been a great decade for Japan, even if statistics are only statistics!

——————————
GDP per capita, current prices
IMF World Economic Outlook and EconStats
http://www.econstats.com/weo/V016.htm
——————————
1996 – 2006 % change
——————————
Japan: -1.47
Italy 47.14
France 38.60
UK 61.29
Germany 22.94
Netherlands 47.79
Spain 84.45
Finland 59.11
Greece 103.54
Portugal 66.93
Switzerland 22.08
Ireland 153.17
Australia 59.33
NewZealand 43.33
Canada 54.76
Korea 87.64
China 131.90
US 51.34
——————————
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

COMMENT: Do people really think they’re being served by the powers that be that run this country? Although I’m well aware the true policymakers in this society are the faceless bureaucrats, the actual policymaking part of Japan that is not faceless–the Diet–is actually a peerage masquerading as an elected legislature.

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“When you look at the figures, what can only be called a political class becomes clear. After the last election, for example, 185 of 480 Diet members (39%) are second- or third- (or more) generation politicians (seshuu seijika). Of 244 members of the LDP (the ruling party for practically all the postwar period), 126 (52%) are inherited. Eight of the last ten Prime Ministers were from inherited seats, as are around half of the Abe and Fukuda Cabinets. When you have an average turnover of only about 3% per election, the cream floats to the top, and debates become very closed-circuit…”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

Courtesy the author. Excerpted from my upcoming Japan Times Zeit Gist column out December 20, 2007, Draft Six. Otanoshimi ni…

Arudou Debito in Sapporo
ENDS

Hokkaido Shinbun Editorial and article on NJ Fingerprinting Debacle

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Finally got around to translating this, sorry for the wait. Two articles from the Hokkaido Shinbun, Japan’s largest regional newspaper with near-monopoly readership in Hokkaido. Despite trying to sit on the fence when it came to The Otaru “Japanese Only” Onsens Case (1999-2005), this time they come out quite clearly with misgivings about the NJ Fingerprinting thingie. Editorial first, article second–the latter depicting the Korean media giving Japan a lot of stick.

Why do I get the feeling that the editors are reading Debito.org? Ki no sei? Debito in Sapporo

=================================
LACKING IN CONSIDERATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The new Immigration procedures
Hokkaido Shinbun top editorial Tuesday, November 20, 2007, Morning Edition page 3
Original Japanese at https://www.debito.org/?p=821
Translated by Arudou Debito

Starting from today, a system requiring fingerprints and facial photos from Japanese coming to Japan comes into effect.

The goal is to stop terrorism. The fingerprints and photos will be instantly checked against a blacklist of terrorists and criminals, and if there is a problem, people will be refused entry at the border.

We understand the point of refusing terrorists at the shores. However, questions still remain about human rights, particularly privacy, when fingerprinting most of the 7,000,000 non-Japanese annually who come to Japan as if they were criminal suspects.

The bureaucrats in charge must not make decisions arbitrarily or on political grounds.

The system is grounded upon the amended Immigration and Refugee Control Act. We call for prudence when carrying out this policy:

First of all, there is nothing in the law which says how long these fingerprints or photos will be saved in a database. Immigration explains that “If we say how long, terrorists will wait until the end of the time limit and come in then.”

Although Japan is only the second country to create this biometric data program, after the United States, in America at least the time period for data storage is set at 75 years. That’s a person’s lifetime.

It is not inconceivable that the Japanese police will use this data in their criminal investigations. Chances are high that personal data will be leaked. We say that after the data is instantly checked against the database, it should be deleted immediately.

Second, the new powers granted the Minister of Justice under this amended law, to force people seen as “potential terrorists with the ability to easily carry out terrorist acts” (tero no jikkou o youi ni suru koui o okonau osore ga aru) to leave Japan’s borders, must be used properly.

Justice Minister Hatoyama Kunio said in a speech about these new regulations that a “friend of a friend of his is a member of al-Qaeda”. He was allegedly warned that there would be a terrorist bombing in Bali, Indonesia, two months before the event, and told to stay away.

But it is far too careless to assert that this person was indeed a member of al-Qaeda just based upon hearsay from a friend. If the Minister on this basis alone wishes to use his power to deport people, this is an abuse of his powers.

Third, the accuracy of this Blacklist they are putting together. In America, one out of every 500 citizens is now recorded on their blacklist as a terrorist suspect. It is said that even Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nelson Mandela is on it, and won’t be able to enter the United States.

All foreigners entering or leaving Japan [sic], except the Special Permanent Residents and children under 16, are to be targeted under this new system. That means 70% of all foreigners in Hokkaido. It won’t do to have our residents [shimin–meaning the editor is including NJ] mistakenly put on this list.

On the other hand, last month as an amendment to the employment laws, employers are now required to register the names and visa statuses of all their foreign workers gaining or changing employment. Now there is a systematic legal apparatus for administrating foreigners and all their personal information from entry through employment.

This apparently aims to reduce the number of illegal entrants, but having this strong an administration system is quite likely to increase foreigners’ ill feelings towards Japan. We must make sure that this inspection doesn’t result in violations of human rights.

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

FINGERPRINTING, NEW IMMIGRATION SYSTEM STARTS
KOREAN TOURISTS DISPLEASED
MEDIA: “VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS”
Hokkaido Shinbun November 21, 2007
Translated by Arudou Debito

SUMMARY: A new Immigration system was brought on line on Nov 20 “for barring terrorists from entry”. In principle, this applies to foreigners over the age of 16 coming into Japan, where they will have their fingerprints and mug shots taken. Several vocally irate tourists were spotted at the international entry port at Chitose Airport. Korean media, the source of many of Japan’s tourists, was critical in its reporting, and the trend of public opinion may create the danger of a diplomatic flap.

———————–

Over the course of the day, 9 flights, including charters from Korea and Taiwan, brought about 1000 foreign tourists into Hokkaido. Korean tourist Kim Yong Gyun (65), who flew in from Pusan to Chitose, said with a bewildered look, “It’s not as if I feel good about having my fingerprints taken.” Machines were also breaking down, causing some consternation.

A semiconductor engineer from Seoul (37) did not contain his disdain. “This isn’t for catching terrorists. It’s for tightening the noose around overstayers. There’s absolutely no explanation whether or not they’ll protect our biometric data.”

Sapporo Immigration dealt with this with an emergency beefing up of inspection staff at Asahikawa, Hakodate, and Obihiro airports. Even then, at Hakodate Airport, a Korean Air flight of about 150 people were held up for an hour and 15 minutes, reckoned at about twice the usual duration. An airline staff member expressed his worry about the weekend, when the planes would actually be full.

On the other hands, the governments of their respective countries are withholding comment on the new system. Last year, of all the 410,000 total entrants into Hokkaido, the top group, at 134,000 people were Taiwanese, with Koreans coming in second. Both these countries have deep-rooted dislikes of Japan.

The Ministry of Justice sent representatives in October to the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and asked for their understanding. Both Japanese and Korean diplomats were advising prudence towards possible ill-feelings.

The Korean media on Nov 20 all reported in unison this state of affairs. The online edition of The Hankyoreh Shinbum reported an angry arrival at Narita Airport saying, “Foreigners are being treated as criminal reinforcements; this is a violation of human rights.” Kim Dae Hyung, Tokyo correspondent, reported, “Korea is still relatively unaware of what’s going on over here, but as far as human rights are concerned, this is very problematic. The Korean Government might be holding its tongue for the sake of good relations, but in reality they are watching public opinion.”

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

SIDEBAR
Several people trigger alarm for having history of deportation
Obihiro, other places have trouble reading fingerprints.

A new system was brought online on Nov 20, where foreigners over the age of 16 must have their fingerprints and mug shots taken. As of 5PM Nov 20, according to the Ministry of Justice, several people have tripped the database for having fingerprints matching those of previously deported people, which has raised several questions (gimon ten ga shoujiru).

These people were asked more details later, and there is a chance they might be deported.

In addition, the Justice Ministry announced that at Obihiro, Narita, Chubu International, Fukuoka and Hakata, a total of 21 people were unable to have their fingerprints scanned. They say their fingers were too worn down, as they were elderly people.
=========================
ENDS

Created Yahoogroup for forming NPO for Immigrants, Permanent Residents, and Naturalized Citizens

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Got a week’s extension on my next Japan Times column, so I’m going to spend my Friday night doing what everyone does on a Friday night–writing protest letters, podcasting…

Oh, and creating a yahoogroup for the people who would like to participate in forming an NPO to represent the interests of NJ long-termers, permanent residents, immigrants, and naturalized citizens. (Sorry it took me a few days to get to it.)

Background on that discussion, plus tentative goals and statement of principles of the group at https://www.debito.org/?p=789

The group’s name is NPO Foreign Residents And Naturalized Citizens Association (Japan) (FRANCA).

So far we have two people–Steve Koya (who is willing to act as Treasurer) and myself (who will do whatever, probably speak out and write a lot).

The yahoogroup is designed for more private discussion and debate (as well as voting on resolutions and goals through the polls functions on the site). We’ll hammer something out over due time and then formally register the group with the government.

You can join by going to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/francajapan

When you join, you will be asked by the settings if you want to write a message. Please do–tell us your real name, how long you’ve been in Japan, and what you hope to get out of this group. Thanks. I will vet and approve every application.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo

=============================
PS: I’m seriously vetting for people who believe in the goals (see the yahoogroups site) of the group, and are serious about getting it off the ground. Trolls, moles, bemused bystanders, and people who trash groups for sport will not be accepted and will be dropped from the group if uncovered. (Sorry to sound Draconian, but I’ve got nearly a decade’s experience running lists like The Community and it’s better in the long run to front-load only the interested.) Goryoushou kudasai.

J Times: UNHCR’s Guterres bravely spins on Japan’s exclusionary refugee policy

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. The United Nations drops in, and tries to put a brave face on Japan’s inability to accept refugees or asylum seekers like any other developed country. Stressing improvements when there really aren’t any. He’s a diplomat, all right. Debito in Sapporo

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

UNHCR chief pitches third-country resettlement
By KAHO SHIMIZU Staff writer
The Japan Times November 29, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/nn20071129a5.html

Japan is notorious for accepting very few refugees, despite making a significant financial contribution to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

But the visiting head of the U.N. organization said Tuesday that Japan is making steady progress in improving the situation facing asylum seekers here.

“Japan is not a country with many refugees . . . but the asylum system is moving in the right direction,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told reporters during his three-day visit to Tokyo.

After arriving Monday, Guterres met with government officials, including Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, and left the country Wednesday morning.

Japan was the UNHCR’s third-largest donor country in 2006, with a $75 million (¥8.1 billion) contribution, after being the second-largest donor for eight years through 2005.

However, the number of people granted refugee status in Japan remains small. In 2006, the government recognized only 34 people as refugees, compared with 23,296 in the U.S. and 6,330 in Britain.

Since assuming the top position at the UNHCR in 2005, Guterres, 58, said he has witnessed some improvements in Japan. These include the introduction of an appeal system to review cases of people whose applications for refugee status have been turned down, and the move by authorities to grant protection for people whose applications have been rejected but are allowed to stay for humanitarian reasons.

Above all, the most encouraging development for Guterres was that Japan has begun discussing the possible introduction of the third-country resettlement program, which means accepting refugees who sought asylum in other countries.

The UNHCR views resettlement in a third country as an important tool of protection and a durable solution for refugees, especially when voluntary repatriation to their home countries and local integration are difficult.

In September, the government set up a working group involving officials of the Justice Ministry, Foreign Ministry and other bodies, and began studying the program.

The U.S., Canada and Australia were among the first countries that began offering third-country resettlement opportunities, but although countries in South America, including Brazil and Argentina, recently introduced such a system, no Asian country has done so.

Guterres said he felt there is political will from the Justice Ministry and the Foreign Ministry to introduce the system because they are making a serious analysis of conditions to bring it about.

“We would very much appreciate that (if Japan becomes) the first Asian country to install the program,” Guterres said. But at the same time, the former Portuguese prime minister said the UNHCR does not want Japan to rush, nor is it necessary for Japan to accept a great number of refugees from the beginning, because the U.N. organization wants a system that really works to help asylum seekers.

People’s awareness about refugees in Japan is relatively low due in part to its geographical location, but Guterres said he was encouraged by growing interest among young people.

The Japan Times: Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007
ENDS

FCCJ No.1 Shimbun interviews Prez Ogasawara of Japan Times.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Working on my next Japan Times column, due tomorrow (and this one is pretty tough going–I’ve got too much to say).

But here’s something you might find interesting. Interview with Yukiko Ogasawara, President of the Japan Times, in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan’s “No.1 Shimbun”. Even a citation from Debito.org, thanks!  Debito in Sapporo
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The future of print: “The newspaper business still has a few years left here”
by Tony McNicol. Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan No.1 Shimbun December 3, 2007
http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/2993
Courtesy of the author.

Things could hardly have been worse when Yukiko Ogasawara became president of the Japan Times last March. She faced the aftermath of wide-ranging job cuts, a precipitous drop in the newspaper’s circulation, and fierce, growing competition from Internet news sites, expat bloggers and the rest of the so-called new media.

Her father, Toshiaki Ogasawara, the chairman of plastic parts and components manufacturer Nifco Inc., bought the Japan Times in 1983. This year The Japan Times celebrated its 110th anniversary. Daughter Ogasawara says she is determined to increase circulation and put the paper back on a firm financial footing. But with the Japan Times losing money, and far more commercially successful print media also feeling the pinch, is it even worth trying?

Blogger Debito Arudou recently triggered a lively debate with an impassioned plea for the Japan Times’ survival. He argued that the broadsheet had a special role to play as the “only independent newspaper in Japan.” Putting the opposite case, Mark Devlin, publisher of the Japan Today news website recommend people “just let the damn thing die … there is a slim possibility that some new blood would come along and resuscitate it.”

So which is it? Is the Japan Times a dinosaur doomed to extinction or a phoenix about to rise from the ashes of the print media? The No. 1 Shimbun recently spoke to Yukiko Ogasawara in her office.

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

Rest at http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/2993
Debito

Der Spiegel: “Border Controls: Japan’s fear of foreigners”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

SPIEGEL ONLINE – 26. November 2007, 16:30
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/reise/fernweh/0,1518,519596,00.html

Translated by Ralph, original German at
https://www.debito.org/?p=803
==============================
Border Controls
Japan’s fear of foreigners
by Christoph Neumann

No Japanese citizen even needs an Identity Card; yet the biometric data of foreigners will be stored for 70 years. Civil rights campaigners can smell the terrorism hysteria and racism, while the National Tourist Office fears for the country’s image.

“Yokoso!” Welcome! The Japanese National Tourism Office greets visitors to Japan at the airport by displaying giant-sized notice boards with the word Yokoso! in red letters. The Japanese Immigration Department however is somewhat less exuberant in its welcome for arriving foreigners: since last week, foreigners no longer have to just show their passports as previously, but also, as in the USA, have to provide their fingerprints, have their photos taken and survive a short interrogation. This regulation concerns not just tourists and people travelling on business, but also applies to foreigners who are resident in Japan. Excepted are only diplomats, children under 16 years of age and family members of Korean nationals who were forcibly brought to Japan during the Second World War.

JAPAN: PROTESTS AGAINST FINGERPRINTING
(A selection of photographs starts. Click on any one of four.)

Yuki Ogawa from the National Tourist Office does not at first regard the measures as being a contradiction to the heartfelt welcome: ” Just like us, the Immigration Department officials could be relied upon to extend a warm and hearty welcome to Japan to foreign visitors. But there have been some cases….”

These “cases” are highlighted by the Japanese Ministry of Justice in an information video. Scenes from the collapsing World Trade Center and the bomb-destroyed Atocha Railway Station in Madrid appear. The smiling woman speaker then links the increased security measures explicitly with the “ever-growing threat of terrorism”. When the new system was officially inaugurated at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, the Minister of Justice, Kunio Hatoyama, promised that:” Now we will be able to prevent any Al-Qaida terrorists from entering the country”.

“I’m making my contribution”

Over several years the promotion of a very selective terrorism hysteria within Japan has failed to achieve any actual results. On Tokyo’s gigantic railway stations, such as Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, both of which see over one million passengers every day, almost no real security measures are apparent. Instead, passengers even on slow trains and barely used country lines are being bombarded with announcements and posters urging them to immediately report unattended baggage: all of this in the name of “measures to protect against terrorism”.

For a while last winter, women working at the country-wide chain of railway station kiosk shops wore a sticker proclaiming:
“Me too, I’m making my contribution to the battle against international terrorism”. As to how exactly she would do this, when she was squeezed in between plastic bottles of tea, sandwiches and newspapers, the determined woman brusquely brushed off the question: “We all have to wear this, but I don’t have any time to think what they might actually mean by it”.

In fact Japan as a rich Westernised industrial power and an ally of the USA in the Iraq war has reasons to fear a terrorist attack. Actually, not so long ago, Japan was the victim of several terrorist attacks, such as the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo underground network in March, 1995. However, even such Draconian immigration controls as those they have now would not have prevented a single one of these attacks, because up to now all terrorist attacks on Japanese soil, have been carried out by Japanese citizens.

Protests against ID cards

The Japanese Ministry of Justice does not even have photographs of many of its own citizens, let alone their fingerprints. Japanese commonly identify themselves by means of their Health Insurance card. For many mobile phone providers in trusting Japan, all Japanese need to do to prove their identity is to show their latest electricity bill. A few years ago, when the Government finally got round to proposing the introduction of ID cards for its citizens, something which most of the rest of the world has had for ages- and these were just cards with a photo, but no fingerprint- there arose cries of protest throughout the country. In 2006, the Japanese Constitutional Court even declared that such cards would be unconstitutional.

In comparison however, there is no problem with storing the fingerprints and photographs of all foreigners in Japan for 70 years, and even to share them with the “authorities of other countries” “under certain conditions”. At the National Police Agency, they may well be rubbing their hands in glee, but Japanese civil rights activists are in an uproar. Debito Arudou, the author of a book about racism in Japan, calls the new regulations “a part of a government plot to have all foreigners declared criminals”.

Makoto Teranaka from Amnesty International Japan explained at a protest meeting: “Since 9/11, even in Japan, under the banner of the fight against terrorism, all sorts of human rights have been being cold-bloodedly eliminated. The fact that our government is going after foreigners using these measures is nothing other than racism”.

Meanwhile, the conservative Japanese media are having a field day over the news that since the introduction of the new system, eleven foreigners, who had overstayed their visas and previously been deported, were able to be discovered and refused entry.

Discrimination becomes socially acceptable

Nevertheless, most Japanese are still helpful and friendly to foreigners and curious to know more about them. But the 15-year economic crisis and a visibly increasing foreign population have made many Japanese jittery and open discrimination has become surprisingly socially acceptable.
Many clubs, public bathhouses and even noodle shops have notices at their entrance stating Japanese Only, explicitly forbidding entry to foreigners. The police in Nagano Prefecture had notices displayed at ATMs, in which white-skinned confidence tricksters are to be seen, who are in the process of Japanese of the money, which they have just withdrawn.

Moreover, the popular leading politician, Shintaro Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo, a man notorious for his racist outbursts, recently became responsible for the promotion of a campaign to bring the Olympics to Tokyo in 2016, something which does not bide well as a symbol of interracial understanding.

And Ms. Ogawa from the Tourism Office fears that worse may still come: ” The Government has asked us to carefully observe tourists’ mood regarding these changes over the coming few weeks. If Japan’s image really does drastically deteriorate, then in our final report, we may have to include the recommendation that that these measures be abandoned.”

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

以上
Hopefully, all this typing has helped to destroy some of my fingerprints….
Ralph

Anonymous on NJ Fingerprinting: Pre-registering in Shinagawa a farce.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Just sent to me by a friend. It’s important enough to deserve its own blog entry. Arudou Debito

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

Ah, human rights. I have just come from the Shinagawa Immigration office where I went to pre-register my fingerprints and photograph pending my upcoming Christmas trip to the US with my children. Here are my few observations with some venting, I fear, in between. Is the US this bad about this process?

1. Process is disorganized. A makeshift area has been set up at the counter where people apply for re-entry permits. The area is closed off by privacy screens, so it is impossible to find the machine where you are supposed to take a number. Many people, including me, mistakenly took number cards from the machine reserved for re-entry applicants. Eventually they stationed an immigration officer with a fistful of number cards in the vicinity, but they neglected to paste onto his forehead a sign that says “get your numbers here”, so there was confusion whenever someone stepped up to the area to start the process.

2. None of the officers in attendance can speak English, even though many people had questions.

3. The fingerprint machines were not working. Some people had to wait and then redo their fingerprints. They could not read my index fingers with the machines and eventually had to read my middle fingers. One woman standing next to me could not read any of her fingers despite repeated attempts with both hands. I have no idea how she will re-enter the country.

4. There was not an excessive wait.

5. The officers in attendance do not have any idea how the process will work for the exit from Japan or the re-entry. There were maps of the Narita immigration area pasted up on screens, but the attending officers did not seem to know what the maps meant and responded Shirimasen when asked questions in Japanese. And even more helpful, these maps were pasted on the INSIDE of the screens, not on the OUTSIDE where they could be examined by the hordes of gaijins who presumably need to know where to go when they get to Narita.

6. Most important, it seems that if parents residing in Japan wish to use the automated gate process when leaving Japan or when returning, they will have to be separated from their children. Children are not required to give finger prints, but at the same time, at the automated re-entry gates there will be no human beings to inspect the passports of the children. Thus, for re-entering families, it appears that the adults can go through the automated gates but the children, if they have re-entry permits, must stand in the line like we always did for returning Japanese and re-entry permit holders and will enter Japan separately. Except that, obviously, if the child is a baby or not experienced enough to do this alone, then they have to come in through the tourist line with a parent. So at the end of the day, if a family wishes to stay together, or has to stay together because of the age of the child, they must go through the tourist line (Yes, I know, it seems obvious that we need fingerprint taking capability at the re-entry permit line). This question was asked many times by parents who came to immigration to get their re-entry pre-registration, but none of the officers in attendance could answer the question clearly, and there is no information available in English to explain this. They could not even answer when asked in Japanese. I found out because while I was standing in line I asked my secretary to call the Ministry of Justice to find out the procedure. And of course, I let it be known to the gaijins around me what she had learned. Boy, let me tell you, there was a ton of frustration among these parents who had taken time to come all the way out to Shinagawa to pre-register themselves thinking to spare their family and tired children the agony of the tourist line only to find out that it was a complete waste of time.

7. Another confusing point in the process relates to the distinction between passports that are machine readable and those that are not. US, UK and other countries issue machine readable passports. Philippines, Pakistan and many other countries do not. For those countries, the immigration office has to put a bar code sticker onto the passport so that it can be read by the machines. This resulted in the creation of two separate application lines, one for the star belly sneetches and one for those who have none. Unfortunately, there was only one fellow holding a fist full of numbers. So the result was that he would call a number, determine whether the applicant was a star belly sneetch or one who has none, and then would allocate people to separate sub-lines. Then there was the comedy of calling out numbers in apparently random order to deal with the separate lines. Number 30, number 16, number 33, number 17. Very confusing, and they did not explain to people why they were treated differently, until I asked in Japanese and explained to a Philipino in the line, so that the information about the bar codes was thereafter passed down the plain belly sneetch line among the Philippinos and Pakistanis.

So, in conclusion, it appears that the much touted automatic gate line is useful only for returning businessmen, single residents of Japan and families with children over the age of 16. Otherwise, brace yourself.

Enough said? not sure what I will do when I come home from the states. Have a great day.
ENDS

「人権週間」法務省の強調事項・有道 出人の批評

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Sent this out to my Japanese lists. Debito

「人権週間」法務省の強調事項・有道 出人の批評

　みなさまこんにちは。有道　出人です。いつもお世話になっております。

　さて、ご存知かどうかは分かりませんが、今週は「人権週間」でございます。法務省と全国人権擁護委員連合会は税金を使って色々なイベントを開催します。ただ、有意義であるのか、効果的であるのか、ましてや根本的にどんなような「主義」に基づき差別撤廃・意識高揚を行うのか、をこのメールで私は批評したいと思います。（私のコメントは引用するテキストの後です。）

　先ず、行政官からこの「人権週間」の目的についての説明を引用します：

出典：http://www.moj.go.jp/JINKEN/jinken03.html
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○人権週間とは？
　国際連合は，昭和２３年（１９４８年）第３回総会で世界人権宣言が採択されたのを記念し，昭和２５年（１９５０年）第５回総会において，世界人権宣言が採択された１２月１０日を人権デーと定めるとともに，すべての加盟国にこれを記念する行事を実施するよう呼びかけています。法務省と全国人権擁護委員連合会は，世界人権宣言が採択された翌年の昭和２４年から毎年１２月１０日の人権デーを最終日とする１週間を人権週間と定め，人権尊重思想の普及高揚のための啓発活動を全国的に展開しています。
一日人権擁護委員による街頭啓発 （甲府地方法務局）

人権イメージキャラクター人ＫＥＮまもる君・あゆみちゃんが小泉総理大臣（当時）を表敬訪問し、総理と共に人権の大切さを訴える
「第５９回　人権週間」強調事項（抜粋）
ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー
○「育てよう　一人一人の　人権意識」
_○「女性の人権を守ろう」 __　
○「子どもの人権を守ろう」 __
○「高齢者を大切にする心を育てよう」 __　
○「障害のある人の完全参加と平等を実現しよう」 __　
○「部落差別をなくそう」 __　
○「アイヌの人々に対する理解を深めよう」 __　
○「外国人の人権を尊重しよう」 __
○「ＨＩＶ感染者やハンセン病患者等に対する偏見をなくそう」 __
○「刑を終えて出所した人に対する偏見をなくそう」 __　
○「犯罪被害者とその家族の人権に配慮しよう」 __
○「インターネットを悪用した人権侵害は止めよう」 __　
○「性的指向を理由とする差別をなくそう」 __　
○「ホームレスに対する偏見をなくそう」 __　
○「性同一性障害を理由とする差別をなくそう」 __　
○「北朝鮮当局による人権侵害問題に対する認識を深めよう」 __

強調事項の詳細についてはこちら。
http://www.moj.go.jp/JINKEN/jinken03-01.html
ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

詳細からDebito.orgは特に認識していることについて、こう書いてあります：
出典：http://www.moj.go.jp/JINKEN/jinken03-01.html
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
○「外国人の人権を尊重しよう」

　近年の国際化時代を反映して，我が国に在留する外国人は年々急増しています。憲法は，権利の性質上，日本国民のみを対象としていると解されるものを除き，我が国に在留する外国人についても，等しく基本的人権の享有を保障していますが，現実には，我が国の歴史的経緯に由来する在日韓国・朝鮮人をめぐる問題のほか，言語，宗教，生活習慣等の違いから，外国人に対する就労差別やアパートやマンションへの入居拒否，飲食店等への入店拒否，公衆浴場での入浴拒否など様々な人権問題が発生しています。
　平成８年１月には，「あらゆる形態の人種差別の撤廃に関する条約」（人種差別撤廃条約）が我が国において発効し，人種差別や外国人差別等あらゆる差別の解消のための更なる取組が求められています。
　今後ますます国際化が進むことが予想される状況の中で，外国人のもつ文化を尊重し，その多様性を受け容れることが，国際社会の一員として望まれています。
　法務省の人権擁護機関としても，国民のすべてが，国内・国外を問わず，あらゆる人権問題についての理解と認識を深め，真に国際化時代にふさわしい人権意識をはぐくむよう啓発活動を展開していきます。
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

有道　出人よりコメント：
もちろん、人権週間を開催しないよりも、した方がいいと思います。ただ、上記のテキストの中では、色々な面から人権が委ねている人権擁護部の盲点が現れています。

１）なぜ上記の文で「人種差別・身元差別」などではなく『外国人差別』のみと言われていますか。『国籍』が要因ですか。それだけではなく、国際結婚の子供は「日本人離れ」の顔があるならば、「外人扱い」になるケースがかなりある。日本人・日本国籍が有する人であるので、これは「外国人差別」に該当しません。これは人種差別です。これも「真に国際化時代」の一部です。人種差別は日本人にも悪影響となります。私は以前いくらでも人権擁護部に注意してもきかないです。

２）なぜ「我が国」に外国人が「在留」しているのみとの言い方ですか。「我々対外国」なら、外国人は「住民」ではないみたい。短期的な「在留」よりも「在住」や納税や社会貢献についてもう少し言及できませんしょうか。それこそ「多様性を受け容れること」だと思います。

３）なぜ「言語，宗教，生活習慣等の違い」が排他的の行動の説明になるのでしょうか。必ずしも違いがあるわけではいし、習慣などの違いがあったという証拠がなくても「外国人」は外見・身元のみで門前払いするケースが多いです。かえって「違いがあるから」を主張するのはたいてい差別主義者の弁解となり、同様に政府もそうやって言及するのは若干皮肉です。「習慣が違っても他国の人はちゃんと学べる」ことも無視となります。

４）人権擁護部がよく「尊重しよう」と言うが、なぜ人種差別撤廃法整備も唱えませんか。９６年から「遅滞なく法律も作る」と国連条約で公約したものの、ほぼ１２年間が経過しても「外国人差別」を撤廃措置と機能は行政府には未だにありません。人権擁護部さえ自分が「差別撤廃の拘束力はない」と認め、よって、立法がないと綺麗言葉に留まることとなりました。
https://www.debito.org/policeapology.html

要は、この「人権週間」は国連に伝えるようなアリバイ的な措置に留まるだけではないと信じたいですが。
https://www.debito.org/japanvsunj.html
税金の無駄遣いではないとも信じたいですが、頑張ります。
宜しくお願い致します。有道　出人
debito@debito.org
https://www.debito.org/nihongo.html
December 5, 2007
ENDS

GOJ Jinken Shuukan: “Human Rights Week” and its flaws

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. If you’ve been watching TV or been out in a few public places, you might have seen two cute-ish big boy and girl mascot dolls named “Ken” (for “kenri”, one’s rights, or “jinken”, human rights), drawing attention to issues of discrimination in Japan. Otherwise you might not know that we are in the middle of Japan’s official week for human rights. “Jinken Shuukan” started on December 3 and ends on December 10, or “Jinken Day”. Sponsored by the notorious Ministry of Justice’s Bureau of Human Rights (Jinken Yougo Bu, or BOHR–“notorious” for doing nothing much otherwise).

The website with this year’s 59th proceedings (thanks Stephanie) lists up these issues of note (my translations):
http://www.moj.go.jp/JINKEN/jinken03.html
========================
1) Teaching people one by one about the importance of human rights.
2) Human rights for women.
3) For children.
4) For the elderly.
5) For the disabled.
6) For the Burakumin.
7) For the Ainu.
8) For foreigners.
9) For people with AIDS or Hansen’s Disease (leprosy).
10) For formerly incarcerated criminals who have paid their debt to society.
11) For victims of crime and their families.
12) For the victims of human rights abuses on the Internet.
13) For people discriminated against for their sexual orientation.
14) For the homeless.
15) For those with Gender Identity Disorder.
16) For those who have suffered human rights abuses from the DPRK.
========================

As far as Debito.org goes, here is what they say about their goals towards discrimination against “foreigners” (gaikokujin) on a page with a longer writeup: (again, my translation):

========================
“LET’S RESPECT THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF FOREIGNERS”

Reflecting the era of Japan’s Internationalization in recent years, every year the number of foreigners staying (zairyuu) in our country (sic–waga kuni) has been increasing. According to the Constitution, and by the nature of the rights of man, and leaving out the interpretation that the Constitution only applies to Japanese citizens, foreigners staying in our country also are guaranteed fundamental human rights. However, in practice, our country has had issues originating in history towards the Zainichi North and South Koreans [sic–Chinese/Taiwanese etc. not included]. There are also various incidents of human rights problems with foreigners facing discrimination in the workplace, as well as being refused apartments, entry into eating and drinking establishments, and public baths [thanks]. This is due to differences in language, religion, and lifestyle customs [sic–not also race].

Our country effected the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in January 1996, which demands that we take further action towards the elimination of racial discrimination and discrimination by nationality.

As Japan’s internationalization is anticipated to further proceed from now on, it is desirable that we respect the customs of foreigners, and as a member of the international society we accept diversity.

The Ministry of Justice Bureau of Human Rights as an organization will develop enlightenment activities that will cultivate an awareness of human rights suitable for Japan’s international era, where all citizens (kokumin) here or abroad will deepen their understanding and awarenesss of all human rights problems.
========================

COMMENT: I’m not going to completely douse the fireworks here with acerbic comments (as it’s better that the GOJ is doing this than not, as long as they don’t claim to international bodies that this is enough–which they have a history of doing). But let’s do a quick roundup of the flaws in all the “human rights awareness” so ably called for by the BOHR:

a) Note how the BOHR still couches discrimination in terms of nationality, not as race or national origin. For what about the Japanese children with international roots, who face discrimination because they don’t “look Japanese”? This blind spot ignores one more facet of Japan’s true internationalization–where racial discrimination affects Japanese citizens too.

b) Note how the issue is still couched in terms of “us” and “them”–our citizens and those foreigners with their differences (which is not necessarily true–and this sort of thing is used more often as an excuse and a justification than an explanation). It’s not even clear that foreigners are even residents of Japan–only “staying” (zairyuu) as opposed to “residing” (zaijuu).

c) Still no call from the BOHR for an actual law outlawing racial discrimination–only for the “respect” for people (which, with 300 yen, might get you a cup of coffee; if the restaurant even lets you in).

d) And as I said above, the BOHR is famous for calling for action yet not effecting much (or any) action of its own–after all, as they will tell you at the very beginning of any interview you have with them over a human rights issue, they have no real power to stop a discriminator from discriminating, and (this they won’t tell you) have no legal obligation to call you back or tell you any results of any investigation (if any) they undertake (this is, they say, “for privacy concerns”). See what I mean at
https://www.debito.org/policeapology.html).

Glad to see that “discrimination against foreigners” is now up to eighth in the ranking. Now if we could get it rendered as “racial discrimination”, it would more reflect reality. And treaty obligation.

Arudou Debito in Sapporo
================
More Keystone Coppiness regarding GOJ human rights awareness:
“Human rights survey stinks: Government effort riddled with bias, bad science”
By Arudou Debito. The Japan Times, Tuesday, October 23, 2007
https://www.debito.org/japantimes102307.html
ENDS

Little Black Sambo dolls on sale at Rainforest Cafe, next to Tokyo Disneyland.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s something from John C, postmarked December 3, 2007. Plus what he did about the issue–successfully. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

==============================
Hey Debito.

This is the first time I have written something like this to your site.

I went into The Rainforest Cafe in iksepiri Maihama, Chiba (the shopping centre next to Disneyland) today with my son.

http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyofooddrinks/388/tokyofooddrinksinc.htm
Rainforest Cafe (Jungle theme)
Ikspiari, 1-4 Maihama, Urayasu-shi, Chiba-ken (tel: 047-305-5656). Open 11am-11pm daily.
Nearest stn: Maihama http://www.rainforestcafe.com

I was utterly disgusted to find these Little Black Sambo dolls…
sambodoll1.jpgsambodoll2.jpgsambodoll3.jpg

I spoke to one of the staff and asked her if she knew what it was and what it meant, she said “Yes” they knew and that they had told the manager that there may be problems. I asked to speak to the manager and was told that the Manager was off today but the asst mng was in, he came up and talked to me for a little bit.

I asked him if he knew what the problem was with these dolls, he said yes, but a month ago when they went on sale. A couple of Americans from Head office came over for a business trip, they saw the dolls on the shelf and said nothing about them. He also tried to win me over by saying that he had friends of African decent. I asked him to think of how he would feel if one of those friends called him “Nip” he said he wouldn’t like it much. I asked him how I should explain to my son (who is 1 part Japanese and 1 Part British) why mummy’s country can sell this crap. ( that was hard to put into Japanese!!)

I asked him to take them down and he mumbled something about he would talk to the mng. I told him that I had to leave but that I would be contacting head office in America to talk to them and that I would be sending the pictures to you.

I will be going back today or tomorrow to see what he has down, and with a better camera…

I would also like to say that the Maruzen bookshop in Nihonbashi sells the same book, I have asked them repeatedly to take it down, they always take it off the shelf while I am there but the next time I go in they have it back for sale. (I would like yours/writers permission to show them chibi kiroi nipu and ask if they would sell that.)
==============================

I OF COURSE GAVE HIM PERMISSION. SEE MY SITE ON JAPAN’S SELLING OF “CHIBI KURO SANBO”, AND MY PARODY BOOK, “CHIBI KIIRO JAPPU” (LITTLE YELLOW JAP), HERE.

Follow-up, full report, from the top:
==============================

My 4 year old son and I went into the rainforest cafe at about 2pm today, 3/Dec/2007 and while there found the L.B.S dolls on sale. (as you can see from the picture, “Tracy the Tree” is in the background, quality is low though cause taken on my mobile phone)

I asked the staff why the shop was selling these and if they knew the meaning and racial insult implied. One replied yes She knew and had previously thought and said they may cause problems.

I asked to speak to the manager, she went away to contact the manger, returned and said that it was the mangers day off, but the asst mng was there.

I asked to speak to him. To wit he arrived about 5 minutes later. I asked him what the dolls were and why they were on sale.

He said they had been on sale for over a month and during that time 2 Americans from Head office had come over to Japan and checked the merchandise etc and made no comments.

I told him that they were offensive and that I had many friends who were of African decent and would really hate to see them. He said that he too had friends who were from African decent.

I asked him how I should explain these to my son, who is British and Japanese… no reply…

I asked him how he would feel if one of his friends called him a “Nip” he replied that he would not like it at all. I told him that if someone called one of my kids that I would become extremely unpleasent ( I am not known for my loving personality)

Then I asked him to try calling one of his African decent friends a “nigaa” or “kuronbo” and see what they say.

I then had to take my son to his English class, so said “Please remove them from the shelf, look at this web site (gave Debito’s site) and that I would be back later or the next day to see if they were still on sale.

I went back at about 5:30 pm armed with a better camera, and found that the dolls were all off the shelves and no where to be found. I spoke to the asst mng again, and thanked him very much for taking such prompt action.

He said that the dolls would be returned to the supplier. I thanked him again and said that I would still be calling the US head office, and that I still planned to go in periodically to check. but that I would also be giving a good review of his prompt actions.

I got a call from Landry’s Restaurants America and they are checking on this incident now, they also said they were appalled by this, and that the Man who came over a month ago was African American and that they are sure he would have said something if he had seen them.

I sent them the pictures and said also that they were going to be posted on the net, but that they please commend the asst mng Mr. Yamamoto for his quick action.

I have now recieved a call from the Gentleman who came to Japan, he has heard about this very quickly and taken the time to call me and explain that his company in no way supports this type of thing. He said had already written to the Japanese partner to ask for pictures and an explanation of this product, but that he had not seen the dolls when he was here. ( so one lie was told by the shop…)

He did think that he may have missed this because he does not speak Japanese, but I told him that there is no way they could be missed, there was a box full of “gollywogs” next to “Tracy the Tree” (I hate these words, my arsehole father used stuff like this often when I was young (read: smaller than him))

I thanked him again and told him that I would like them all to commend Mr Yamamoto (asst mng) on his prompt actions.

He also asked me what website the pictures would be posted on, so I told him, and a little about Debito’s site.

I am still a bit wary that the dolls will return to the shelves, but deep down want to believe they won’t.
==============================
WELL DONE, JOHN.
ENDS

Manitoban: NJ FP etc. “The Land of the Rising Shun”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. An article in The Manitoban (Canada) using lots of information from Debito.org, dispersing what’s been going on in Japan vis-a-vis NJ in Japan legally, socially, and logistically over the past 50 years throughout the Canadian steppes. Mottainai. Best to also put it on Debito.org for a wider audience.

Article courtesy of the author, thanks. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

===============================
THE LAND OF THE RISING SHUN
THE MANITOBAN (Canada), November 14, 2007
By Trevor Bekolay
http://www.themanitoban.com/2007-2008/1114/127.The.Land.of.the.Rising.Shun.php

If you or anyone you know is planning to go to Japan, be advised that beginning Nov. 20, all non-Japanese people will be fingerprinted and photographed upon entering Japan.

Unlike other fingerprinting laws, such as the U.S.’s, Japan requires permanent residents (the equivalent of Green Card holders in the U.S.) to be fingerprinted and photographed every time they re-enter the country. Those fingerprints and photographs are kept on file for 70 years and can be made available to the police and other government agencies.

While one could argue that permanent residents should just apply for Japanese citizenship, obtaining citizenship is a long and arduous process, which requires residents to give up their current citizenship. Unless you are willing to make those sacrifices, you are a foreigner, and you must give up your biometric information every time you cross the Japanese border.

History of the fingerprinting law

This Japanese fingerprinting law is an updated version of a fingerprinting program implemented in 1952, after the American occupation of Japan following the Second World War. The original fingerprinting law met with firm opposition from foreign residents in Japan, especially the Zainichi. The Zainichi are ethnic Korean and Chinese people born and raised in Japan. Despite living most or all of their lives in Japan, and despite 90 per cent of Zainichi adopting Japanese names, the Zainichi must go through the same application process as other foreign residents to obtain citizenship.

The 1952 law was opposed on the grounds that it was an official expression of mistrust for all things foreign. It was an unnecessary humiliation and alienation of residents who had lived their whole lives alongside their Japanese peers — Zainichi children were often not aware that they were of a different ethnic background than their schoolmates until they were contacted at their school to have their fingerprints taken. Further, it associated all non-Japanese people with crime. By law, a Japanese person may only be fingerprinted if officially charged with a crime.

Eventually, people started refusing to submit to fingerprinting; first the Zainichi, then other foreign residents. Since this refusal meant jail for some, the number of legal battles skyrocketed — enough so that overseas media like Time Magazine and the New York Times picked up the story. In 1989, under heavy pressure, the government of Japan granted general amnesty, and by 1998 the law was completely abolished.

After the dust had settled, Immigration Bureau officials said that “the fingerprinting system appears to be ineffective in stopping or reducing the growing number of illegal immigrants and visa overstays in Japan.” The Ministry of Justice noted that “the practice could be construed as a violation of human rights.” Then why is this law being reinstated?

Fears of terrorism and foreign crime

Japan’s Ministry of Justice explains the motivation for reinstating the fingerprinting law: “By collecting personally identifying data, such as fingerprints and facial photos of visitors to Japan, we will be able to identify persons considered to pose security risks, such as terrorists, and persons travelling with passports that are not their own. This will help us prevent terrorist attacks.”

If Japan wishes to fight terrorism, then history tells us that it is the Japanese population that should be policed. The Sarin gas attack that took place on the Tokyo subway in 1995 was perpetrated by members of the Japanese religious group Aum Shinrikyo. In the 1970s, two Japan Airlines flights were hijacked by a terrorist group called the Japanese Red Army. There have been no terrorist attacks in Japan by non-Japanese in recent history.

The public support for the fingerprinting law could also be attributed to a fear of foreign crime among the Japanese. Since 2000, the National Police Agency (NPA) has been releasing updates on foreign crime every six months with detailed press releases. The media has been quick to report on these releases, and further support this with unbalanced reporting of foreign crime compared to Japanese crime. One study found that crimes by foreigners were 4.87 times more likely to be covered than crimes by Japanese. Even more frustrating is the way the NPA twists the statistics.

The semi-annual press releases note increases in foreign crime without a comparison to the state of Japanese crime. The increases in foreign crime do not take into account the increase in the foreign population; while the Japanese population has remained relatively static, the foreign population has been growing steadily over the past decade. Foreign crime is inflated by including visa overstays (a crime that a Japanese person cannot commit) with harder crimes. When proper statistical practices are used, foreign crime is rising in proportion to the rate of population increase, while Japanese crime has doubled within the past 10 years.

It is interesting to note that in 1999, before the first press release detailing foreign crime statistics, the NPA established the “Policy-making Committee Against Internationalization.” Would such a committee receive taxpayer money if foreign crime was on the decline?

If fears of terrorism and foreign crime are unfounded, then what is the main issue that surrounds the fingerprinting debate? It’s the same issue that has been the subject of many recent legal battles: racism and xenophobia.

Racism and xenophobia

By most accounts, since the Second World War, Japan has a good international record as a modern industrialized nation. Japan has the third largest economy in the world, manufacturing and designing goods for a worldwide market. Despite claims of homogeneity, Japan is home to over 2.5 million residents of non-Japanese ethnic backgrounds. Japan is a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Yet walking through Tokyo, you can find buildings with “Japanese only” signs posted on the front door. “Japanese only” signs have been found at bathhouses, bars, stores, hotels, restaurants, karaoke parlors, and pachinko parlors. How is this legal?

The unfortunate answer is that Japan has no law against racial discrimination. It is unconstitutional — article 14 of the Japanese Constitution states that there shall be no discrimination on the basis of race. Further, Japan signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 1996. So, in theory, racial discrimination should not be tolerated; in practice, the lack of a law forbidding racial discrimination allows discriminatory behaviour, such as the “Japanese only” signs, to continue.

And these signs are unarguably discriminating on the basis of race. Social activist Arudou Debito became a naturalized citizen in 2000, after being denied entrance to a public hot springs in Hokkaido. Upon returning to the establishment a Japanese citizen, he was still refused entry to avoid confusion from the other customers. He sued the owner of the hot springs for racial discrimination and was met with moderate success. While he won some judgments, he lost an important decision when his appeal to the Supreme Court was dismissed for “not involving any constitutional issues.” The story of the incident at the hot springs and the ensuing legal battle is chronicled in his book Japanese Only.

Debito is not the only person to take these matters to the courtroom. In 1997, Brazilian Ana Bortz was asked by a jewelry store’s owner to leave his store, which had a strict no-foreigners policy. The store owner accused Bortz of planning a robbery. Bortz sued the store owner for violating her human rights, using the security camera footage as evidence. The judge ruled in Bortz’s favour, sentencing the store owner to pay 1,500,000 yen (approximately C$12,300) in damages and legal fees. The judge cited two articles of the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, setting a good legal precedent for future discrimination cases.

Or did it? In 2004, Steven McGowan, a 41-year-old black man residing in Kyoto, was refused entry to an eyeglasses store in Osaka. Steve claims that the store owner said, “Go away. I hate black people.” Steve lost his case in a lower court because the judge did not believe that Steve’s Japanese language ability was good enough to accurately determine what the store owner said. Even after further investigation by McGowan’s Japanese spouse, the judge was not convinced that Steve was discriminated against because of his race, rather than his foreign status (the Japanese words for black person and foreigner are very similar). McGowan appealed to a higher court and was awarded 350,000 yen in damages; yet even at the high court, the judge remarked that the store owner’s remarks were “not enough to be considered racially discriminatory.” These decisions set the dangerous precedent that testimony by non-Japanese cannot be trusted if they are not completely fluent in Japanese. It also demonstrates the power one judge can have in Japan’s juryless court system.

A plea to Japan

In discussing these issues, it may seem that I have some disdain for Japanese culture. This can’t be farther from the truth — it is my fascination with and interest in Japanese culture that compels me to bring these issues to the forefront. It is only through open dialogue that conditions will improve for both Japanese and non-Japanese residents.

If Japan does not change its immigration policies, and birth rates continue at the current rate, Japan’s population will plummet from today’s 127 million to 100 million in 2050. It will become very difficult to maintain economic strength with such a reduced work force. Immigration is the easiest and most sustainable answer to Japan’s population crisis.

With increased immigration, there will have to be widespread changes in media and education. Though this seems prohibitively difficult at the moment, Japan’s rapid industrialization is proof that it is possible. By working together with its new generation of international citizens, I foresee Japan having a modernization of culture that will rival its rise to economic greatness.
—————————-

Trevor Bekolay studied Japanese language, history and culture at Tokyo’s Kokugakuin University in 2005.
ENDS

Der Spiegel: GRENZKONTROLLEN: Japans Furcht vor dem Fremden

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. It’s not as though I can read German (the author sent this to me), but he says it’s more media favorable to our cause. English translation here. Thanks to Christoph. Debito in Sapporo

==============================
SPIEGEL ONLINE – 26. November 2007, 16:30
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/reise/fernweh/0,1518,519596,00.html

GRENZKONTROLLEN
Japans Furcht vor dem Fremden

Von Christoph Neumann
Ein Japaner braucht noch nicht einmal einen Personalausweis – biometrische Daten von Ausländern jedoch werden für 70 Jahre gespeichert. Bürgerrechtler wittern Terrorhysterie und Rassismus, das Fremdenverkehrsamt fürchtet um das Image des Landes.

“Yokoso!” – Willkommen! In leuchtend roten Lettern auf riesigen Plakaten begrüßt das Japanische Fremdenverkehrsamt ausländische Besucher am Flughafen. Der japanische Zoll empfängt die Einreisenden etwas weniger überschwänglich: Seit vergangener Woche müssen Ausländer nicht nur wie bisher den Pass vorzeigen, sondern wie in den USA auch ihre Fingerabdrücke abgeben, Fotos von sich machen lassen und ein kurzes Verhör durchstehen. Die Regelung gilt nicht nur für Touristen und Geschäftsleute, sondern auch für in Japan wohnhafte Ausländer. Ausgenommen werden nur Diplomaten, Kinder unter 16 Jahren sowie die Familien der im II. Weltkrieg nach Japan verschleppten Koreaner.

JAPAN: PROTEST GEGEN DEN FINGERABDRUCK
Fotostrecke starten: Klicken Sie auf ein Bild (4 Bilder)
Yuki Ogawa vom Fremdenverkehrsamt empfindet die Maßnahmen erst einmal nicht als Widerspruch zum herzlichen Willkommen: “Genau wie wir sind ja auch die Zöllner sind angewiesen, ausländische Gäste warm und offenherzig in Japan zu empfangen. Und es gab eben gewisse Fälle…”

Die “Fälle” illustriert das japanische Justizministerium mit einem Informationsvideo. Zunächst werden Szenen vom einstürzenden World Trade Center und vom zerbombten Madrider Atocha-Bahnhof gezeigt. Danach begründet eine lächelnde Sprecherin die verschärften Einreisebestimmungen explizit mit der “ständig wachsenden Terrorgefahr”. Bei der Feier zur offiziellen Inbetriebnahme des neuen Systems am Tokioter Flughafen Narita hatte Justizminister Kunio Hatoyama versprochen: “Damit werden wir wohl verhindern, dass in Zukunft al-Qaida-Terroristen ins Land kommen.”

“Ich leiste meinen Betrag”

Eine sehr selektive Terrorhysterie treibt bereits seit einigen Jahren seltsame Blüten in Japan. Auf Tokios Megabahnhöfen wie Shinjuku oder Ikebukuro mit über einer Million Passagieren täglich sind nach wie vor keine Sicherheitskräfte zu sehen. Dagegen werden Fahrgäste selbst in Bummelzügen und auf einsamen Landbahnhöfen mit Durchsagen und Plakaten traktiert, unbeaufsichtigtes Gepäck sofort zu melden, “als Maßnahme zur Terrorabwehr”.

Die Mitarbeiterinnen der weit verbreiteten “Kiosk”-Verkaufsbuden trugen im vergangenen Winter eine Zeitlang Anstecker: “Auch ich leiste meinen Beitrag im Kampf gegen den internationalen Terrorismus.” Die Frage, wie sie, eingeklemmt zwischen Tee-Plastikflaschen, Sandwiches und Tageszeitungen, sich denn konkret ihren Beitrag vorstelle, bürstet die resolute Verkäuferin unwirsch ab: “Das müssen wir jetzt alle anstecken, aber ich hab jetzt keine Zeit, darüber nachzudenken, was die damit eigentlich meinen.”

Dabei hat Japan als reiche westliche Industriemacht und Verbündeter der USA im Irak-Krieg einigen Grund, Terrorattacken zu fürchten. In jüngerer Zeit war Japan auch bereits Opfer mehrerer Terroranschläge, so beim Nervengas-Angriff auf die Tokioter U-Bahn im März 1995. Nur hätte auch eine noch so scharfe Zollkontrolle keinen Einzigen der Anschläge verhindert, denn alle Attentate auf japanischem Boden wurden bisher ausschließlich von Japanern verübt.

Protest gegen Personalausweis

Von vielen der eigenen Bürger aber hat das japanische Justizministerium nicht einmal Fotos, geschweige denn Fingerabdrücke. Japaner weisen sich oft nur mit ihrer Krankenversicherungskarte aus. Manchen Handy-Providern im vertrauensseligen Japan genügt sogar nur die letzte Stromrechnung als Identitätsnachweis. Als die Regierung vor ein paar Jahren endlich, wie sonst auf der Welt längst üblich, einen Personalausweis einführen wollte, nur mit Foto und ohne Fingerabdrücke, rollte ein Aufschrei des Protestes durch das Land. 2006 erklärte das japanische Verfassungsgericht den Ausweis schließlich sogar für verfassungswidrig.

Die Fingerabdrücke und Fotos der Ausländer in Japan dagegen sollen 70 Jahre lang gespeichert und “unter bestimmten Bedingungen” auch mit “Behörden anderer Länder” geteilt werden. Im Bundeskriminalamt reibt man sich vielleicht schon die Hände, aber japanische Bürgerrechtler sind in Aufruhr. Arudou Debito, Autor eines Buches über Rassismus in Japan, nennt die neuen Bestimmungen einen “Teil eines offiziellen Putsches, um alle Ausländer zu Verbrechern zu erklären”.

Makoto Teranaka von Amnesty International Japan erklärte bei einer Protestveranstaltung: “Seit dem 11. September werden auch in Japan unter dem Vorwand der Terrorismusbekämpfung alle möglichen Menschenrechte kaltblütig verletzt. Dass unsere Regierung mit den Maßnahmen jetzt die Ausländer zur Zielscheibe macht, ist nicht anderes als Rassismus.”

Die konservativen japanischen Medien feiern derweil, dass in den wenigen Tagen seit der Einführung des neuen Systems bereits elf Ausländer, die wegen Visavergehens ausgewiesen worden waren, beim Versuch der illegalen Einreise überführt werden konnten.

Diskriminierung wird gesellschaftsfähig

Zwar sind die meisten Japaner Ausländern gegenüber nach wie vor neugierig, freundlich und hilfsbereit. Aber die 15-jährige Wirtschaftskrise und ein sichtbar steigender ausländischer Bevölkerungsanteil haben viele Japaner nervös und offene Diskriminierung erstaunlich gesellschaftsfähig werden lassen.

Viele Clubs, öffentliche Bäder und selbst Nudelküchen verbieten auf Tafeln am Eingang explizit “Ausländern” den Zutritt: “Japanese only”. Die Polizei der Provinz Nagano hängte an den örtlichen Geldautomaten Plakate auf, auf denen Trickbetrüger weißer Hautfarbe zu sehen sind, die Japanern ihr gerade erst abgehobenes Geld rauben. Und der populäre Spitzenpolitiker Shintaro Ishihara, Tokios Gouverneur, ist berüchtigt für seine rassistischen Ausfälle. Dabei hat er sich vor kurzem offiziell mit Tokio für die Ausrichtung der Olympiade 2016 beworben, des Symbols der Völkerverständigung schlechthin.

Und auch Frau Ogawa vom Fremdenverkehrsamt ahnt doch noch Schlimmes: “Wir sind von der Regierung gebeten worden, das Stimmungsbild der Touristen in den nächsten Wochen genau zu beobachten. Wenn sich das Image Japans tatsächlich drastisch verschlechtert, kann es durchaus sein, dass wir in unserem Abschlussbericht eine Aussetzung der Maßnahmen empfehlen.”

ENDS

Chuugoku Shinbun: Fingerprinting “a new form of discrimination”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Foreign residents oppose fingerprinting as “a new form of discrimination against foreigners”
Chuugoku Shimbun 2007/11/18
Translated by Stephanie Coop
Original Japanese at http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/News/Sp200711180227.html

Ahead of its implementation on Nov. 20, foreign residents in Japan are protesting the new immigration system requiring foreigners to be fingerprinted and photographed when entering Japan, arguing that “it’s a new form of discrimination.”

“I’m really sad that we will be forced to give our fingerprints even though we have committed no crimes. It’s just one more form of discrimination against foreigners,” a 29-year-old Turkish Kurdish man living in Tokyo said disgustedly. “Japan just meekly went along with what the U.S. wanted and got involved in the war in Iraq. I’d like to ask the government about the real reason for having to be worried about terrorism in the first place.”

“I’ve lived here for 15 years and was thinking of applying for permanent residence, but now I feel for the first time as if I’m being institutionally discriminated against. I feel really sad and angry about this,” said Australian national Stephanie Coop (38), a graduate student at a university in Tokyo. “I think that the previous attitude in Japanese society — being concerned about crime without automatically assuming that everyone is a criminal — is far safer and far more attractive [than the new system].”

Lawyer Chang Hannyon [note: not sure if this is the correct transliteration] (44), a third-generation Korean in Japan who was arrested under the Alien Registration Act in 1985 for refusing to give his fingerprints, is a special permanent resident. “If [the new system] is supposed to be an anti-terrorism measure, it’s strange that they are not also fingerprinting Japanese nationals and special permanent residents,” he said. “Why are only foreigners being treated like terrorists? There’s no rational reason for it, which means it is nothing but discrimination.”
ENDS

中国新聞:「新たな外国人差別」指紋採取に在住者反発

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

「新たな外国人差別」　指紋採取に在住者反発
中国新聞　2007/11/18
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/News/Sp200711180227.html
Thanks to Stephanie Coop

　「新たな差別だ」―。外国人に指紋と顔写真の提供を義務付ける入国審査制度が二十日から始まるのを前に、日本在住の外国人から反発の声が上がっている。

　東京都内に住むトルコ国籍のクルド人男性（29）は「何の犯罪もしていないのに、指紋採取を強制されるのは悲しい。外国人差別がまた一つ増えた」とやりきれない様子。「日本は米国に追従してイラク戦争に首を突っ込んだ。テロの心配をする必要があるのはなぜなのか、聞きたい」

　「日本で十五年暮らして永住も考えているが、制度的に差別されるのは初めて。とても悲しく、怒りを感じている」と話すのは、都内の大学院で学ぶオーストラリア国籍のステファニー・クープさん（38）。「人を見たら泥棒ではなく友達と思え。その上で犯罪は許さないという、これまでの日本社会の方が安全で魅力的だ」と嘆いた。

　一九八五年に指紋押なつを拒否し、外国人登録法違反容疑で逮捕された在日韓国人三世の張学錬チャン・ハンニョン弁護士（44）は特別永住者。「テロ対策というなら日本人も特別永住者も指紋を採らないとおかしい。なぜ外国人だけテロリスト扱いなのか。合理性がないということは、差別にほかならない」と怒りをあらわにした。
ENDS

NJ FP issue: Newsweek on damage done by model US-VISIT Program

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Only tangentially related to Debito.org, here is a Newsweek article quantifying the damages done by the US-VISIT Program, upon which Japan’s fingerprinting of NJ residents and tourists is based. As it says below, “The United States is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined in the midst of a global tourism boom.” Well, let’s watch Japan become the second country on that list.

It’s nice that we can have this dissent from a domestic outlet (unlike the completely stifled debate on, say, NHK), pity it took even an effervescent debate media like the US so long to start coming to its senses.

Points of interest in the article underlined. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

America the Unwelcoming
The United States is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined amid a tourist boom.

By Fareed Zakaria
NEWSWEEK Nov 26, 2007 Print Issue
Updated: 1:23 PM ET Nov 17, 2007
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70991
Courtesy of Shaney and others

As an immigrant, I’ve always loved Thanksgiving for all the corniest reasons. It’s a distinctly American holiday, secular and inclusive, focused on food, family and gratitude. But the one Thanksgiving tradition I try strenuously to avoid is travel. For those of you who must do it—and that’s 27 million people this year—brace yourselves for massive delays and frayed tempers. President Bush announced a few measures to ease congestion, describing this week as “a season of dread for too many Americans.” I only wish he would keep in mind that for foreigners now traveling to America, the dread is far more acute, and it’s lasted far longer than a few days in November.

Every American who has a friend abroad has heard some story about the absurd hassle and humiliation of entering or exiting the United States. But these pale in comparison to the experience of foreigners who commit minor infractions. A tourist from New Zealand, Rick Giles, mistakenly overstayed his visa in America by a few days and found himself summarily arrested for six weeks earlier this fall. Treaty obligations say his country’s embassy should have been informed of the arrest, but it wasn’t. A German visitor, Valeria Vinnikova, overstayed her visa by a couple of days and tried to remedy the situation—so that she could spend more time with her fiancé, the Dartmouth College squash coach. Instead she was handcuffed and had her feet shackled, then was carted off to be imprisoned. She now faces deportation and a 10-year ban on entering the United States. (Thanks to AndrewSullivan.com for drawing attention to these.)

According to the Commerce Department, the United States is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined in the midst of a global tourism boom. And this is not about Arabs or Muslims. The number of Japanese visiting the United States declined from 5 million in 2000 to 3.6 million last year. The numbers have begun to increase, but by 2010 they’re still projected to be 19 percent below 2000 levels. During this same span (2000–2010), global tourism is expected to grow by 44 percent.

The most striking statistic involves tourists from Great Britain. These are people from America’s closest ally, the overwhelming majority of them white Anglos with names like Smith and Jones. For Brits, the United States these days is Filene’s Basement. The pound is worth $2, a 47 percent increase in six years. And yet, between 2000 and 2006, the number of Britons visiting America declined by 11 percent. In that same period British travel to India went up 102 percent, to New Zealand 106 percent, to Turkey 82 percent and to the Caribbean 31 percent. If you’re wondering why, read the polls or any travelogue on a British Web site. They are filled with horror stories about the inconvenience and indignity of traveling to America.

For many, the trials begin even before they arrive. In a world of expedited travel, getting a visa to enter the United States has become a laborious process. It takes, on average, 69 days in Mumbai, 65 days in São Paolo and 44 days in Shanghai simply to process a request. It’s no wonder that quick business trips to America are a thing of the past. Business travel to the United States declined by 10 percent between 2004 and 2005 (the most recent data available), while similar travel to Europe increased by 8 percent. Discover America, a travel-industry-funded organization that tries to boost tourism, estimates that the 17 percent overall decline in tourism since 9/11 has cost America $94 billion in lost tourist spending, 200,000 jobs and $16 billion in tax revenues.

The administration and Congress say the right things, have passed a few measures to improve matters and keep insisting that the problem has been solved. But the data and loads of anecdotal evidence suggest otherwise. The basic problem remains: no bureaucrat wants to be the person who lets in the next terrorist. As a result, when one spots any irregularity—no matter how minor—the reflex is to stop, question, harass, arrest and deport. If tens of thousands of foreigners are upset, so what? But if one day a jihadist manages to slip in, woe to the person who stamped his passport. The incentives are badly skewed.

In his 2003 book “Courage Matters,” Sen. John McCain writes, “Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a terrorist. It’s still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave.” He added what seemed like a sound rule of thumb: “Watch the terrorist alert and when it falls below yellow, go outside again.”

Except that since 9/11, the alert has never dropped below yellow (which means an “elevated” level of risk from a terrorist attack). At airports, we have been almost permanently at orange—”high risk,” or the second highest level of alertness. Yet the Department of Homeland Security admits that “there continues to be no credible information at this time warning of an imminent threat to the homeland.” The department’s “strategic threat perspective … is that we are in a period of increased risk.” What is this “strategic perspective?” Is it the same as the “gut feeling” that Secretary Michael Chertoff cited when he warned, in July, that we were likely to be attacked during the summer? Or is it a bureaucratic mind-set, the technical term for which is CYA? [Cover Your Ass]

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/70991
ENDS

Peter Barakan to talk about NJ Fingerprinting etc. on NHK radio Dec 6 5PM

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Got this info from Japanese TV personality, music specialist, and all-around nice guy Peter Barakan. Edited for public consumption. Listen in if you can, even contribute your opinions… Arudou Debito in Sapporo

===============================
Hi Dave. It’s been quite a while since I met you at that Amnesty get together. I try to keep up with your posts as far as I can.

I’m writing today to let you know about a radio show on NHK’s AM radio in which I’ll be taking part. It’s “Iki-iki Hotline,” on Thursday Dec. 6th, from 5 to 6 pm, and is the fourth of five shows on topics related to foreigners in Japan.

The details are not yet up on NHK’s website, but the show I’ll be on is entitled:
外国人はどう望む?　日本社会での暮らし　（外国人の意見）

and the accompanying blurb goes:
均一傾向の強い日本人は、文化の異なる外国人との付き合いが得意でないといわれている。しかし国際化・グローバル時代を迎えた現在、様々な場面で多くの外国人と付き合わざるを得ない。外国人と共生していくための知恵と工夫を、外国人のサイドから考える。

I’ll be the only guest that day, but they take faxes, emails, and in some cases phone calls from listeners during the show, which is live. I met with the director today, and he said he would welcome input from foreign residents, so I immediately thought of [Debito.org].

I intend to talk about the new immigration fiasco, among other things, but something on human rights, for example, might be interesting. I’ll leave it to you. Please feel free to pass the word on to anyone else who might be interested.

Cheers
Peter Barakan
===============================
ENDS

Reminder: Documentary on J Child Abduction fundraiser Dec 11 Shibuya, RSVP by Dec 4

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Quick reminder about the “For Taka and Mana” film documentary:

FOR TAKA AND MANA
Documentary on Japan Child Abduction after Divorces
Fundraiser Party Dec 11 Shibuya, RSVP by Dec 4 (i.e. tomorrow)

Quick reminder about the “For Taka and Mana” film documentary fundraiser coming up on December 11 at the Pink Cow, Shibuya. See movie poster and map to the venue below, in this blog entry.
RSVPs please by December 4.

This is the issue: Divorce in Japan is extremely problematic. As Japan has neither joint custody nor visitation rights guaranteed by law, after a break-up, generally one parent loses all access to the children. This is especially difficult in the case in an international marriage, where the venue may be intercontinental (and access denied due to visa problems), and where there is NO precedent of a non-Japanese plaintiff being awarded custody of a child in Japanese court (quite the opposite, as the Murray Wood Case, the subject of this documentary, indicates–Japanese courts even overruled a Canadian provincial supreme court awarding custody to Murray shortly before the mother abducted their children to Japan).

Due in part to the vagaries of the Family Registry (koseki) system, which non-citizens do not have in Japan, foreigners essentially have NO family rights in Japan in a Family-Court dispute. It’s complicated, but as simply as possible: NJ are not officially registered as a member of a Japanese family after (or even before) a divorce, and cannot “keep” their children registered under their own Japanese family unit as a single parent.
https://www.debito.org/ayakoseki.jpg

With the increase of international marriage in Japan (from 30,000 couples to 40,000 couples per year since this century began), this situation warrants attention. This documentary is one way. I have been quite closely associated with this project for more than a year now (I’m interviewed in the film–see a trailer from the link below), and have a personal stake in the subject–since I too have not seen my own children for years following my marital separation and divorce. I encourage you to join us next week for the fundraiser (I’m flying down specially to be there), help out in any way you can, and even perhaps suggest venues we could appear at to get the word out.

An update for the fundraiser from directors Matt Antell and Dave Hearn follows. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

We will have at least one more new clip in addition to the current trailer at our website http://www.fortakaandmana.com.

We have a wide array of speakers lined up to show the depth of the problem of parental abduction in Japan including the well traveled, Debito Arudou.

Schedule of events in Powerpoint format downloadable from here.

Some of the stories you will hear are just amazing. The food is fantastic and the first two drinks come with the ticket price of 10,000 yen.

There are still some seats left so please e-mail Dave at: dave@fortakaandmana.com or call 0905-313-9702 RSVP by Dec. 4th.

We very much hope to see you there.

Matt Antell and Dave Hearn
fortakaandmanaposter2.jpg

REPORT: Racial Profiling at Toyoko Inns; suggest boycott (letter of complaint unanswered)

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants to Japan\Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association forming NGO\「ジャパニーズ・オンリー　小樽入浴拒否問題と人種差別」（明石書店）JAPANESE ONLY: The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japansourstrawberriesavatardebitopodcastthumb
UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
DEBITO.ORG PODCASTS now on iTunes, subscribe free

BRIEF
RACIAL PROFILING AT TOYOKO INN, HIROSAKI, AOMORI PREF: AGAIN
WHAT I DID ABOUT IT; BOYCOTT RECOMMENDED UNTIL THEY FOLLOW THE LAW
By Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan (debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org)
December 2, 2007, freely forwardable

(UPDATE: As of January 12, 2008, more than a month later, no answer to my official letter of complaint (sent naiyou shoumei) from Toyoko Inn.)

=====================================
SUMMARY: Toyoko Inn (http://www.toyoko-inn.com), a high-profile nationwide chain of hotels in Japan, have a clear policy of racial profiling at their hotels. They illegally demanded a passport from the author on the basis of his race alone on November 30, 2007, reflecting their history of even illegally threatening to refuse accommodation to NJ residents unless they provide Gaijin Cards at check-in. This systematic harassment of NJ clientele is unnecessary and unlawful, especially in the face of hotels increasingly refusing all foreigners accommodation across “Yokoso” Japan. Toyoko Inn’s continuing refusal to abide by the laws, despite advisements from NJ customers in the past, forces this author to conclude that NJ residents and international Japanese citizens, not to mention supporters of human rights in Japan, should take their business to hotels other than Toyoko Inn–until the chain at the national level agrees in writing to improve their services.
=====================================

BACKGROUND
I went down to Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture last weekend for a December 1 speech at Hirosaki Gakuin University (sponsored by Professor Todd Jay Leonard) on racial discrimination in Japan (download Powerpoint presentation in Japanese at https://www.debito.org/arudounewpresentationj.ppt). After a six-hour train ride from Sapporo, I was met by my hosts at 11PM AT Hirosaki Station, who accompanied me to the neighboring Toyoko Inn (#164 O-aza Ekimae 1-1-1, Hirosaki-shi, Aomori-ken, Ph 0172-31-2045) where they had made my reservation.

At the counter, a clerk (a Ms. Ishi-oka) gave me a check-in slip. After filling out my name in Kanji, and just before I was to write out my Japanese address in Japanese, the clerk said, “May I see your passport?”

Todd and his friends looked to each other, sighed, and said to themselves, “Oh boy. Here we go…”

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

BEING GIVEN THE THIRD DEGREE, BEYOND THE PALE

The conversation between the clerk and me proceeded something like this:

ME: Why do you need my passport?

CLERK: It’s required by hotel policy and by Japanese law.

ME: Let me see the laws.

CLERK: (producing a countertop stand with the text of the hotel request for passports in English, Korean, and Chinese) Japanese law requires that all foreigners at check in–
(see the letter of the law yourself–and download it–at https://www.debito.org/whattodoif.html#refusedhotel)

ME: Is there a Japanese version? (She pointed to the Japanese she had been reading from on the back of the stand.) Right, so as you can see here, it requires passports from people “without addresses in Japan”. I have an address in Japan, but you asked me before I even had a chance to write it.

CLERK: We have a policy of asking all foreigners for identification at check-in.

ME: That’s illegal. You can only ask tourists for ID. Or can’t you read the law in Japanese here? Also, how do you even know I am a foreigner?

CLERK: Because you wrote your name in Katakana–

ME: (displaying the check-in slip) I wrote my name in Kanji. Can’t you see?

CLERK: (taking a closer look and uttering a demurrer)

ME: I am a Japanese citizen. I do not have to show you a passport or any other form of ID.

CLERK: Do you have a driver licence to prove that?

ME: Do you require driver licences from other Japanese at check-in?

CLERK: It’s just that we have a policy of asking for identification from foreigners.

ME: Clearly I am not getting through to you. Call your manager.

CLERK: Our manager is not here at the moment.

ME: Then get him or her on the phone. You are racially profiling me. This is racial discrimination and a violation of Japanese laws. Give me your full name, please, and the name of your manager.

CLERK: (running behind a partition) Please wait a minute.

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

My friends and I then sat down in a connected anteroom for a glass of water and an animated discussion of the proceedings for about five minutes, before the clerk shouted down the hall that she had an answer for me.

CLERK: Our manager is too busy to come to the phone right now.

ME: Okay, then I’m not too busy to contact your headquarters (honsha), to tell them that your manager refused to discuss a serious issue of customer relations with a customer. Your full name please and your manager’s full name, please.

CLERK: (running behind a partition) Please wait a minute.

A few minutes later I was on the phone with a Ms. Obara, the assistant manager of this hotel. She opened with the standard apologies. I said she should hear me out before apologizing. The issues were: 1) deciding whether or not a customer was a foreigner or not solely based on face, therefore race, 2) enforcing a law, which applied only to tourists, upon all people deemed “foreign”, 3) enforcing a nonexistent law requiring proof of Japaneseness even after said customer says that he is Japanese. This was customer harassment on the basis of racial profiling, and done to an egregious and unprecedented degree in my experience at any hotel in Japan.

And given that Toyoko Inns in Sapporo have illegally required passport/Gaijin Card for reservations from NJ residents of Japan (in violation of the Hotel Management Law, Article 5, which does not permit refusals of customers on this basis), this chain’s systematic policy of targeting foreigners or foreign-looking people as suspicious is unnecessary and illegal.

Not to mention the fact, of course, that the clerk personally tried to shirk her duty of connecting a customer to the manager. This was irresponsibility that should not be allowed to pass without complaint.

Ms Obara indicated she understood the issue and apologized for the poor training of her employee. She said she’d like to see me face-to-face the next day for a personal apology. I said I would be out all day the next day, arriving late back from a house party at Todd’s after my speech, but would leave my meishi with keitai number at the counter should she wish to arrange a time for meeting. She said, no matter, she would wait until I got in. Then I went back to the anteroom for another hour of water and jawing with Todd and company over what had just happened.

Said they, “This has never happened to any of us before at a hotel in Japan. Why does this keep happening to you?” they said. “Never mind, we got to see Debito in action…”

////////////////////////////////////////////////////
DECEMBER 2, 2007, MIDNIGHT
ARRIVAL AT TOYOKO INN AFTER HOUSE PARTY

Todd gave a lovely house party, with booze galore plus some pretty crappy Iwate wine (which everyone got a least a half-hour’s mileage of jokes out of–especially for naffly putting a squirrel on the label). So lovely I tragically got a migraine at the very end. With head throbbing, I returned to the Toyoko, got my room key, and found the manager there waiting for me, even though it was past midnight. “You needn’t have waited up so long,” said I. “You said you’d be late, and I wanted to meet you and apologize properly,” said she.

And for the next hour, while I blinked my way through the mercury haze of migraine flashes, Ms Obara and I had a very good chat about what happened and why it shouldn’t happen again. Me: “I understand the laws, but until you have confirmed that a customer–any customer regardless of nationality–has no address in Japan, you legally cannot demand identification from them. Just confirm that, ask for ID from those who don’t, and we’ve got no issue here. But I don’t appreciate this interrogation, and demand for proof that I am even a Japanese, from an obstinate clerk late at night at check-in like this. It’s poor service.

Ms Obara was understanding, and tried to make an excuse that Aomori isn’t used to foreigners, but I pointed out that Aomori, with its Nebuta Matsuri, and Hirosaki in particular with its castle and Sakura Matsuri, is a magnet for international clientele. She conceded the point, and the conversation turned to why I was here speaking at Hirosaki Gakuin University. She even bought one of my books, thank you very much. In the end, the conversation went on too long for her to be ingenuine in her apologies (I’ve found that people who just want to apologize pro forma and be done with things exhaust a conversation after ten minutes), and I was satisfied that their hotel branch would do better in future.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////
SUGGEST YOU TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE ANYWAY

I am not, however, so optimistic about the Toyoko Inn chain in general. More than two years ago, as James Eriksson and Olaf Karthaus reported to The Community mailing list, Toyoko Inn Sapporo refused James’s reservation if he did not present his Gaijin Card at check in (https://www.debito.org/olafongaijincarding.html). Even today, and after demands for improved service are now years old, the Toyoko Inn chain is still not treating NJ customers with the appropriate respect. Until we get a written guarantee from the chain that they are aware of the laws and will improve NJ customer treatment (and I will still be writing headquarters about this incident), I suggest that NJ customers, and their friends and supporters, take their business elsewhere.

This is part of a surge in activity in Japan these days regarding Japanese hotels–their refusal to even accept any foreign clientele whatsoever. They blame it on language barriers–the fact they can’t speak English!–so Japanese lodgers only. This is illegal. I finally have enough time and information to make a full report on this, so I’ll get to it within the month.

Thanks for reading this brief. Prelude to a much deeper and ever-growing problem of exclusionism in Japan.
Arudou Debito in Sapporo
December 2, 2007
ENDS

(UPDATE: As of January 12, 2007, more than a month later, no answer to my official letter of complaint (sent naiyou shoumei) from Toyoko Inn.)

Reminder: Online Petition against NJ Fingerprinting

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Thanks to the FP issue, we get a huge turnover of posts. This one deserves a reminder:

Online Petition against NJ Fingerprinting. If anyone else is blogging in Japan or anywhere in the world, because the petition is for anyone with an interest in Japan, please do the same. Right now we don’t have enough names to make a difference. Please sign and get your voice heard!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fingerprints-japan/

Go sign if you haven’t. Tell your friends to sign if they haven’t. I have. Debito in Hirosaki

James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly on NJ Fingerprinting

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. They fingerprinted the wrong guy already… Given how critical Jim Fallows was when he lived in Japan more than a decade ago (famously writing “Containing Japan” for The Atlantic in 1989–something I read in grad school!), this was not long in coming… And as always he produces angles we never thought of–such as how if China instead had instituted this, the Western Media would be talking about “Big Brother in Beijing”. Touche. Arudou Debito in Hirosaki.

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

Not so thankful for this at Thanksgiving (Japan Big Brother dept)
The Atlantic Magazine online 24 Nov 2007 09:39 am
By James Fallows, courtesy of Yanpa
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/not_so_thankful_for_this_at_th.php

Flying from Beijing to Tokyo this morning — generally an invigorating experience! Japan looks startlingly neat and organized even if you’re arriving from Switzerland. And when you’re coming not from Switzerland but from China…. Anyhow I arrived excited at the prospect of a few days here.

Unfortunately Japan’s way of ushering in the Thanksgiving holidays has been to institute mandatory fingerprinting and photographing of all foreigners entering the country. Let me put this bluntly: this is an incredibly degrading, offputting, and hostility-generating process. The comment is not anti-Japanese: when the U.S. does this to foreigners, it’s wrong and degrading too (as many people, including me, have pointed out over the years). But Japan has just ushered in this procedure, and they deserve to take some heat for it.

Partly this is a nuisance because of the sheer time drag. Today’s flight time Beijing->Tokyo: 2 hours, 50 minutes. Today’s time spent in the passport clearance line for foreigners at Narita: 1 hour, 30 minutes. But mainly there is no getting around the insult factor of having entry to the country be like getting booked into County Jail.

In specific this means: you have to stick your left and right index fingers simultaneously into a scanner, and press them down until a signal shows that the system has captured both prints. A sign that flashes up in a variety of languages — Korean, English, Portuguese, Chinese, Spanish, etc — tells people that if “for whatever reason” they are “unable” to offer prints, then they can ask to see the supervisor. I assume that they’re talking about people who have no hands etc. (Or Japanese gangsters, yakuza, who often get fingers cut off as part of their careers? Oh, wait: they’re not foreigners.) I was considering saying that my “whatever reason” is that I objected to the policy. Then I realized how much good that would do, and stuck my fingers into the contraption.

Five seconds after the prints, a camera snaps a picture. As a long time admirer of Nick Nolte, and in a state of mind enhanced by the forced-fingerprinting, I made sure my photo looked very much like this:
nicknolte.tiff

Does this requirement make any practical difference to me? No. I’ll only be here a few days, and if I’m going to rob a bank in that time, I’ll put tape over my two index fingers so they’ll never catch me. Presumably most of the several million foreigners who are long-time permanent residents of Japan, and who will be required to go get prints and photos too, will avoid the practical consequences as well.

But it’s worth saying this is a bad policy, because:

– The reasoning is predictably fatuous. A video explains the change as an important anti-terrorist tool. Puh-leeze.

– It’s one thing, and wrong enough, for the U.S. to apply similar measures in the panicky, immediate, “we’re for anything that is called ‘anti-terrorist’ ” mood of the 9/11 aftermath, which is when the U.S. began discussing similar “biometric” measures. It’s even worse to do it six years later, after a chance for cold deliberation about the prices society is and is not willing to pay to keep itself “secure.”

– Fewer tourists are visiting the U.S. because we’ve made it such a nightmare for foreigners to get in. That is just deserts for a misguided policy on America’s side. Japan is repeating the same mistake — with eyes wide open.

– Think how the alarm bells would go off if China tried to impose a scheme like this! The editorials about “Big Brother in Beijing” practically write themselves. But now the two countries that apply the most intrusively big-brotherish surveiliance over those trying to visit are two liberal societies: the United States and Japan.

C’mon Japan, set a good example for America rather than imitating something stupid we do now. The people around me in the passport line — and, in 90 minutes, we had time to talk – were from a dozen different countries and many walks of life. But they were united in one sentiment as they moved toward the fingerprint machine, and it’s not one that Japan’s diplomacy is designed to foster.
ENDS

Speaking at Hirosaki Gakuin University this Saturday

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog, I will be speaking this weekend in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture.

Hirosaki Gakuin University, Faculty of Liberal Arts,
13-1 Minori-cho, Hirosaki-shi, Aomori-ken 036-8577 JAPAN
http://www.hirogaku-u.ac.jp/
Saturday, December 1, 2007, 1:00 – 2:45 PM
Topic: 「日本における外国人差別・人種差別」(speech in Japanese).

Sorry for the short notice. Been busy with the whole fingerprint thing. Attend if you like. Debito in Sapporo

Irony: Japan Post Office issuing “YOKOSO JAPAN” stamps January

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here’s your daily hohoemi–with irony. Courtesy of HG:

===========================
Hey Debito, Japanese Post is planning 10 commemorative stamps for Jan. 23, 2008 to promote the YOKOSO JAPAN campaign.

http://www.post.japanpost.jp/kitte_hagaki/stamp/tokusyu/2007/h190123_t.html

(Nothing on the stamps in English, of course. And nothing on the official YOKOSO JAPAN Blogs about the new Fingerprinting rules, of course.)

10 million foreign tourists by 2010? Say WHAT?

So far, less stringent measures (Green Card holders are exempt) in the US have led to a drop totalling 6 million tourists on a yearly basis since introduction of the FP requirement. Despite an ever weaker dollar (shall we now call it “North American Peso”?? *ggg*).

BTW, face value of the stamps is 80 yen each – domestic first class postage. So the foreign tourists are mainly left out of this… ;-).
===========================

Amazing. Stamps for tourists that tourists can’t even use to send a letter home? Provided the tourists want to come here anyway and be treated like terrorists and criminals. Makes you wonder if policymakers ever think things through. Debito

Japan Times: Mark Schreiber gives Immigration the finger at Narita

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Mark Schreiber from the Japan Times gives us an amusing account on what happened to him when he took a junket to Saipan, just to test the Fingerprinting machines on the way back… Debito in Sapporo
=============================

THE ZEIT GIST
Prints rejected, scribe accepted
Our writer attempts to give Immigration the finger at Narita
By Mark Schreiber
The Japan Times November 27, 2007
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20071127zg.html

The center of the little monitor — I’d guess about 20 cm from the looks of it — flashed the word “Yokoso” (welcome). Its colored border was festooned with a collage of images near and dear to visiting tourists’ hearts: “torii” gates, the shinkansen, Zen gardens, Mount Fuji . . .

“Please place your fingers on the pad,” ordered the immigration officer from behind the counter.

Before I relate more sordid details, let’s begin at the beginning. Having heard much emotional debate on the new fingerprinting system, I decided that I would leave and re-enter Japan for the express purpose of subjecting myself to this supposed indignity, and then deal with it in the most exhibitionistic manner possible: the article you are now reading.

It seemed reasonable to give Narita Immigration five days to get its act together, so I flew down to Saipan and entertained myself with a visit to Banzai Cliff. My return flight, Northwest Airlines 75, touched down at Narita at 6:50 p.m. on Nov. 24.

First and foremost, let me make it crystal clear where I stand on this matter: I don’t particularly like to give my fingerprints. Nevertheless, my strongest objection to the new system relates less to my human rights than to my wanting to exit the airport as expeditiously as possible. Since 9/11, air travel has become a nightmare, and after undergoing security checks up the kazoo and being cooped up in a stuffy tourist-class cabin for 12 hours on a flight from Chicago or Detroit, I’m in no mood for further torment.

One more thing: For more than 20 years, holders of re-entry permits were permitted to use the same gates as Japanese nationals, with no questions asked. I’ve always appreciated this privilege and felt aggravated that, through no malfeasance on my part, this consideration — a great time-saver — was apparently being withdrawn.

That said, if I were to report that I was forced to cool my heels in a long queue last Saturday, it would be an outrageous lie. The fact was, it was the mostly Japanese passengers who did the slow shuffle. At that particular time few foreigners were in evidence and as a result, fingerprinting aside, I was probably one of the first ones out of the place.

As soon as I made my approach, a senior official pounced on me like he’d been waiting there all day just for my arrival.

“Have you filled out one of these E/D cards?” he asked with an encouraging smile, waving one of those familiar entry/departure cards with its incomprehensible questionnaire on the back.

Indeed I had, so I was sent straight to the nearest vacant counter.

The young inspector was all friendly and smiley. He took one look at my passport and knew I was going to be a piece of cake: a permanent resident, papers in order, and nobody named “Mark Schreiber” on Interpol’s terrorist watchlist. (Little did he know, nya-ha-haa . . .)

Then the moment of truth arrived, and he requested me to place my left and right index fingers on the little glass pads. I sighed, set down my six-pack of duty-free macadamia and chocolate chip cookies on the floor, and followed his instructions.

The green lights beside my fingers changed to red. Something was not working properly.

“Um, I can’t seem to get a clear reading off your fingers,” he said, popping open a container of premoistened finger wipes. “Please use this to clean them and try again.”

I gave both fingertips a quick but thorough rubdown and repeated the process.

After several clicks from his keyboard he shook his head again.

He stood up, reached over, and used the same wipe to polish the glass surface of the fingerprint reader.

“OK, uh, this time, let’s try your middle fingers,” he encouraged, holding up his digit in an unintentionally rude gesture some people refer to as “flipping the bird.”

Once again I complied. Click-click-click. Click-click. Click.

“Please, would you mind not pressing down so hard on the pad?”

“But I’m not pressing down hard,” I countered.

From his exasperated reaction I got the distinct impression my middle fingers were not providing usable prints either.

“Well, anyway, let’s take a picture,” he grimaced, standing up and tilting the camera angle upwards to accommodate my 189 cm height.

And that was that. Confirming that I looked like the captured image, and that both resembled the mug shot in my passport, he waved me through.

“Gokuro-sama,” I told him — by which I meant “Sorry to give you such a rough time” — and headed for the baggage carousel.

But wait a minute: My prints didn’t take. Why wasn’t I dragged off into a separate room and interrogated? Why, after all the fuss, was I simply admitted on the strength of my passport, status of residence and re-entry permit?

It would seem that human officials, at their discretion, are empowered to overrule the almighty fingerprint thingamajig.

After relating my experience to a friend on Sunday, he directed me to a BBC News item dated Oct. 17, 2005, in which a fingerprint expert is quoted as saying that “Work such as laboring and typing (italics mine) wears down those ridges and affects the smoothness of the skin. It can make fingerprints very hard to read.”

So my first encounter left me chuckling that the government laid out ¥36 billion for something anyone can outwit by pounding a keyboard, as I do, for 14 hours a day.

Just think: four of my fingers, with no help from their owner, pulled off a courageous feat of passive resistance. In the ongoing struggle for foreigners’ rights in Japan, let them henceforth be known as the “Narita Four.”

On a separate note, there’s been much talk about a system that permits residents to pre-register their biometric data prior to departure, either at the main Immigration office in Shinagawa or in the departure areas at Narita.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I can’t see any point to this, either in terms of time savings or exemption from the big, bad biometric bogeyman. Pre-registration or not, unless you’re a Japanese national or a “special permanent resident” (and if you have to ask what that is, you’re almost certainly not one), you will still be obliged to give your fingerprints every time you enter the country.

So unless Japan suffers a drastic dropoff of foreign visitors and operators of hotels with single-digit occupancy rates begin screaming bloody murder to their Diet representatives, I suppose we’re stuck with this newfangled nuisance for the duration.

At least the government ought to consider a way to recover some of its outlays. Let’s turn the immigration gates over to a private operator and put the system on a paying basis. For instance, they could program the fingerprint and face scanners to detect things like razor nicks and chipped nails that invite commercial exploitation.

Upon giving one’s fingerprints, personalized messages would scroll across the monitor. “Yokoso to Japan, Mark Schreiber-sama. While here, check out our latest USB-portable multi-blade shaver.” Or, “Yo, Schreiber-kun. Pamper your fingers, and give their ridges the nutrients they need with Mother-of-Pearl Cream — for typists, pianists and . . .”

Yokoso, anybody?

Send comments on this issue and story ideas to community@japantimes.co.jp
The Japan Times: Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007

ENDS

Economist on NJ Fingerprinting

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Here’s The Economist (London) on the NJ Fingerprinting Debacle. FYI. Nothing really new (except a silly bit on butterflies), but ample airtime given to the critics and the controversy, thanks. NHK, take note. Debito

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

Japanese immigration control
Giving you the finger
Nov 22nd 2007 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10184633
A controversy over fingerprinting foreigners

IN 1641 Japan’s shogunate designated an artificial island in Nagasaki harbour as the only place foreigners could live. Japan has of late been more welcoming to gaijin. Yet this week it began to photograph and take digital fingerprints of all foreigners entering the country—residents as well as tourists and visiting businessmen. Privacy advocates deplore the emergence of a surveillance state. Pundits say it panders to anti-foreign sentiment in Japan, and undermines the country’s ambitions to increase tourism and make Tokyo a global financial centre. Angry expats expect long waits at immigration.

In defence, the government says the measures are simply to keep terrorists out. As an example, Japan’s justice minister, Kunio Hatoyama, a butterfly enthusiast, explained that a friend of a lepidopterist friend was an al-Qaeda operative, who for years travelled in and out of Japan on fake passports; the new measures would block the chap. Mr Hatoyama was quickly forced to backtrack lest it appear that ministers run around netting butterflies with terrorists. Yet the truth remains: terrorism in Japan has only ever been home-grown, most recently in 1995, when a sarin gas attack by a religious cult killed 12 in Tokyo’s subway.

The system mirrors America’s equally controversial US-VISIT programme. In principle, it should not cause such a fuss. All countries are moving towards the collection of “biometric” information: from next year, Britain will collect such data from visa-holders. The problem comes with implementation. America’s US-VISIT system is fraught with flaws and cost overruns. Technical problems have delayed Europe’s introduction of digital passports. For all Japan’s prowess in designing computers, the government is peculiarly inept at running them. This year, it admitted it had lost 50m electronic-pensions records.

Exempt from the new screening are diplomats, children under 16 and certain permanent residents (ethnic Korean and Taiwanese who have lived in the country for generations). Why only gaijin? Japan already has all sorts of ways to keep watch on its own people, such as “neighbourhood associations”. Foreigners are outside these social controls. Yet fingerprinting foreigners is just a first step to securing the biometric details of everyone entering and leaving: as it is, frequent travellers, Japanese as well as foreign residents, may save time by pre-registering to use an unmanned automatic gate at airports that takes photographs and fingerprints.

Mr Hatoyama says people should not be delayed more than the 20 minutes it already takes immigration officers to process visitors. This week some of the machines played up, but most travellers fell into line. Officials even claimed to have caught a handful of people who had already been deported at least once. They did not reveal whether they were butterfly collectors.

ENDS

Towards founding a “Permanent Residents/Naturalized Citizens” organization

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. With all the NJ anger regarding the new Fingerprint Laws–moreover the GOJ’s tendency of consistently showing indifference, if not outright antipathy, towards the needs and interests of Japan’s international residents–there have been comments in several Debito.org blog entries calling for the creation of a new organization to represent the Permanent Residents and Naturalized Citizens of Japan.

I agree the time is nigh. And I am very supportive of the founding of such an organization. We are talking as far as establishing a dues-paying registered NGO/NPO to that end, with the ability to lobby and lend support to other groups to pursue the interests of Japan’s international residents.

The organization is still in its embryonic stage. But let me create this separate special blog entry for people to discuss and pound out questions and concerns.

Steve Koya (who says he can take care of accounting, a job I detest) and I will meet sometime next week in Sapporo to chew things over. If you’d like to contribute your thoughts and feelings, please do so now.

My first thought: The very name in Japanese–which is fundamental to credibility in this country.
HIEIRI DANTAI NIHON EIJUU KIKA IMIN JUUMIN KYOUKAI

Translated literally as:
NPO Japan Association for Permanent Residents, Immigrants, and Naturalized Citizens
(JAPRINC)
Okay needs work. Anyone good with anagrams? Scrabble players?

I’ll leave you with some questions I got from John L. tonight. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

================================
　Hey…it’s John again writing you on a business trip in Shanghai.

My two conference calls this morning were canceled, so I decided put my time to use on homebound issues, such as this association which seems to have gained some significant – and surprising – traction over the past 24 hours.

I am submitting, for approval to post on your blog as a new and separate topic, a set of questions we should consider, a mission statement draft and, lastly, a small opinion piece.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have to go and sand down my fingerprints in anticipation of my return to Japan on Sunday.

Cheers,
– John

*****

It appears that the call for an association of resident foreigners is gathering steam. To that end, I have some questions and would like to take a stab at a mission statement here.

QUESTIONS:

1) Is this association for PRs only or for all foreign residents, regardless of status? If for all, how do we handle issues which may affect only certain segments of the foreign resident population, such as voting rights (which could be reasonably applied only to PRs)?
2) What are our membership requirements? (i.e. can anyone join, even if they are not living in Japan? In other words, for instance, can someone living in England who has a strong interest in Japan join?)
3) Related to 2) above, what different level of memberships could be available?
4) Can Japanese nationals join? (Of course they can, but we need to attend to other details, such as: are they given voting status in issues, can they hold official titles, etc.)
5) What is our stance on illegal immigrants? This is a policy debate that we can take up after we do form, but I want to put this on deck now so we can all start to consider the kinds of questions we will be tackling after forming.

MISSION STATEMENT DRAFT

The association is committed to protecting and enhancing the rights of foreign residents in Japan, abolishing systematic discrimination and changing the perception of foreign residents in Japan. We are committed to instituting persistent campaigns to educate, inform and motivate change at all levels of Japanese society in order to integrate new and progressive attitudes of foreign residents.

Our goals

– To promote the image of foreign residents of Japan to the indigenous population as well as globally.
– To highlight the benefits and positive impacts of foreign nationals to Japanese society
– To organize and campaign against negative or demeaning views of foreign residents as stated by certain politicians, pundits and media outlets.
– To educate foreign residents on the immigration laws of Japan
– To negate and diminish the negative views of foreign residents among the Japanese public
– To organize as a group and lobby for equal rights for resident foreigners under the law.
– To abolish systematic discrimination against the foreign community
– To participate in activities highlighting discriminatory practices against foreign residents

QUICK OPINION PIECE

The association is, by its very definition, an activist organization, but the activities must take on a multiple facets. Naturally, we must continue to highlight those instances where discrimination does exist and call with a unified voice for its removal. However, we should not focus only on the perceived wrongs committed by society as that tends to play us as victims and people tend to tune out after hearing complaint after complaint, but we should shed light on the positive aspects of resident foreigners in Japan. We know that the system can be rigged against us in many instances. We should concentrate on those who have overcome the difficulties, who have succeeded against the challenges. We can show that people can move to Japan and make a change for the better.

ENDS

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 28, 2007: FINGERPRINTING II

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

This post is available as a podcast.  See

[display_podcast]

Hello Blog. Just back from a nice conference in Tokyo for JALT (http://www.jalt.org), where I gave four speeches, two on fingerprinting (https://www.debito.org/wasedafingerprint102207.ppt) and two on pitfalls to avoid in job searches in the Japanese university labor market (https://www.debito.org/jaltjobpitfallsnov2007.ppt). Got another speech coming up next weekend in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture (see my blog later this week for details).

Meanwhile, contents of this very special Newsletter, which shows all the primary assumptions this policy is justified by–efficient and accurate data collection, secure storage, and effective checking against a database–are simply not true.

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 28, 2007
 SPECIAL ON FINGERPRINTING POLICY INAUGURATION NOV 20

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 FORWARD: ANGER IN THE BLOGOSPHERE

WHAT YOU HEARD:
 1) YOUTUBED NHK: KEEP CRITICS AND PROTESTS OUT OF BROADCASTS
 2) YOMIURI EDITORIAL: FP JUSTIFIED AS ANTI-FOREIGN-CRIME MEASURE
 3) SANKEI ON FINGERPRINTING SNAFUS
 4) YOMIURI & NIKKEI MISTAKENLY TRUMPET “FIVE CAUGHT IN NEW SYSTEM”,
 SANKEI CONTRADICTS

WHAT GOT MUFFLED:
 5) MAINICHI: REFUSERS TO BE INCARCERATED, FORCED TO BE FINGERPRINTED
 6) ASAHI: 38% OF US-VISIT DATABASE IS MISTAKES
 7) ASAHI: TOKYO & NARITA LOSE PERSONAL DATA FOR 432 NJ
 8) YOMIURI: SDF & MOFA LOSE COMPUTER DATA IN JAPAN, BELGIUM

WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD:
 9) MAINICHI ON AMNESTY/SMJ PUBLIC ACTION OUTSIDE MOJ
 10) PROTESTS WITH PARODY POSTERS, T-SHIRTS, POSTCARDS, MULTILINGUAL BILLETS
 11) FRANCE 24 TV INTERVIEW IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH: “JAPAN’S 1984”
 12) NYT: FINGERPRINTING “A DISASTER FOR J BUSINESS”

…and finally…
 13) ACCENTURE, MAKER OF THE FP MACHINES, NOW HIRING IN JAPAN,THRU TIGER WOODS!

CONCLUDING STATEMENT: PROGNOSTICATIONS FOR THE PRESENT COURSE:
 A HASTENED ECONOMIC OBSCURITY FOR JAPAN

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
By Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan (debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org)
Daily blog updates at https://www.debito.org/index.php
Podcasts of previous Newsletters (and soon this one) at
http://www.transpacificradio.com/category/debito/
Freely forwardable

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

FORWARD: ANGER IN THE BLOGOSPHERE

In all my twenty years of Japan, I’ve never seen the NJ communities so angry.

Not during the “gaijin all have AIDS” scare of 1986, the Otaru Onsens Case of 1999, the Ishihara anti-gaijin anti-crime “Sangokujin Speech” media campaigns of 2000, the “anti-hooligan” scare before and during World Cup 2002, the Al-Qaeda scare of 2005, the publication of the “Gaijin Hanzai Ura File” magazine last February, or the “foreign crime is rising” National Police Agency media campaigns every six months. This time, there’s a very “faith no more” element to it all.

I am receiving links to angry diatribes on the Fingerprint policy in the Blogosphere. Two that leave a lasting impression:

Running Gaijin Card Checks
http://www.keepingpaceinjapan.com/2007/11/running-in-fear.html

Oppose Japan’s bid for The Olympics
http://nofj16.googlepages.com/home

This one in particular inspired protests of hate speech and unsubstantiated accusations about Japan. Hmm, I guess when the shoe’s on the other foot, it’s not pleasant. Fancy that.

If you know of any more sites, please send links to the comments section at this site.
https://www.debito.org/?p=780
Angry, humorous, ironic, and/or poignant is fine, racist is not, so exercise discretion.

The point is, how else are NJ going to express their anger when they are this disenfranchised in Japanese society? Where the media machines for manufacturing consent will ultimately pit the entire Japanese society against the “gaijin”–through completely unfounded assertions of criminality, terrorism, and allegedly effective preventative measures that single people out for discrimination by race, nationality, and national origin.

How else? The Blogosphere. Vent away.

How things work over here to create “Team Japan vs. The World” has never come out as clearly as now. Especially when you consider what the Japanese media muffled:

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

YOUTUBED NHK: KEEP CRITICS AND PROTESTS OUT OF BROADCASTS
https://www.debito.org/?p=763

A reader wrote in to say:
===========================
NHK 7PM NEWS NOV 19TH
 Absolutely no mention of fingerprinting NJ entering Japan starting tomorrow. I’ll give them another chance tomorrow night, but that’s it. If they don’t find this new policy newsworthy, why should the foreign community pay for NHK?

Also notable that it is still hard to find a regular Japanese person who is even aware the policy is coming into effect. Not surprising really if NHK has nothing to say about it.
===========================

Vincent then uploaded the Nov 20 NHK 7pm Evening News segment about fingerprinting (2 min 52 sec, English dubbing) on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XZzPg9pk5U

Same with NHK Newswatch 9pm. Somewhat longer and more detailed than Evening News 7pm. Uploaded in Youtube (6 min 10 sec), and with a greater attempt at balance (but still far more airtime given to making the GOJ’s case). Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA9wYkwvaIQ

As for the Nov 20 11PM News shows (10PM’s News Station put it on as a blurb at the very end).

I watched Chikushi Tetsuya’s News 23 that day. They featured the FP story very prominently with an interview with critics (Amnesty’s Teranaka Makoto saying that FP has caught very few people, if any, and is in no way an effective measure) and even did a rupo at the AI/SMJ demonstration at noon that day. There were some interviews included with NJ who grumbled about the wait at the gates. Summary comments by anchors at the end questioned why Japan was instituting the program at all.

Also Zero News gave it about five minutes early in their broadcast, with some more coverage of machines not behaving properly, and very annoyed tourists (one elderly Korean using some really impressive angry English). The point of both was that this whole thing was a mess.

NHK BS 10:50 didn’t even bother to have it in their headlines.

As others have said, it makes one wonder why NJ would ever bother to pay any NHK fees. When something like this affects at least 1.5 million Japanese residents (millions more if you include their Japanese families), this is unignorable news. Whatever coverage there was basically toed the GOJ line and gave little, if any, coverage to the controversy. Very, very disappointing, NHK.

Contrast that with CNN, which devoted half of their article to the criticisms. Let me excerpt those only:
=====================================
JAPAN BEGINS IDENTIFYING FOREIGNERS
CNN, November 20, 2007
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/20/japan.foreigners.ap/index.html
https://www.debito.org/?p=763
Courtesy of Olaf Karthaus (excerpt)

…Critics, however, said the measures discriminate against foreigners and violate their privacy. A group of nearly 70 civic groups from around the world delivered a letter of protest Monday to Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama.

“We believe that your plans… are a gross and disproportionate infringement upon civil liberties, copying the most ineffective, costly and risky practices on border management from around the world,” the letter said.

Immigration officials say the bureau plans to store the data for “a long time,” without saying how long. It is unclear how many people will be affected; Japan had 8.11 million foreign entries in 2006…

Last month, Justice Minister Hatoyama came under fire over his assertion that a friend of his had an acquaintance who was a member of the al Qaeda terrorist group.
=====================================

Thanks. But the fix was in re domestic media coverage right from the start:

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

YOMIURI EDITORIAL: FP JUSTIFIED AS ANTI-FOREIGN CRIME MEASURE

Hoo-hah. Here’s the best argument yet for fingerprinting almost all foreign visitors, er, all foreigners (thus portrayed) all put together nicely for one-stop shopping. The Yom’s Nov 19 editorial was right on cue–with its fundamental association of extranationality with criminality and insecurity. Note how anti-crime was Trojan-Horsed into the arguments for anti-terrorism:

//////////////////////////////////////////////////
USE FINGERPRINTS, PHOTOS TO BOOST SECURITY
The Yomiuri Shimbun Nov 19, 2007
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/20071119TDY04310.htm
https://www.debito.org/?p=748
Courtesy of Thomas Bertrand (excerpt)

…The main objective of the revised law is to block terrorists and foreign criminals from entering the country. If it is proven to be effective, Japan’s reputation as a safe country will be bolstered…

The scanned fingerprint data will be cross-checked against a blacklist on a database in a few seconds. If the data matches that of suspected criminals on the police’s wanted list or information on terrorists obtained through the United Nations and Interpol, the Immigration Bureau will immediately reject their entry into Japan and notify the police… The new immigration checks will be useful in preventing such illegal entries into Japan…

The government needs to cooperate with other countries and constantly update the database… Fighting terrorism is a common task for the international society. These countries obviously recognize its importance.

Japan will host the Group of Eight summit meeting at the Lake Toya hot spring resort in Toyakocho, Hokkaido, next year. Together with strengthening immigration checks, we hope the government will take all possible means to ensure coastal security and prevent terrorism in this country.
=====================================
https://www.debito.org/?p=748

COMMENT: If you want the quintessential parroting of the xenophobes with their hands on the levers of power, the Yomiuri provides it. Thanks Yomiuri, I wonder why any NJ subscribes to your English paper.

But the primary assumptions remain: efficient and accurate data collection, secure storage, and effective checking against a database. All of these things, this newsletter will show, are not true.

For example, here’s a funny article:

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

SANKEI ON FINGERPRINTING SNAFUS

========================
 FIRST DAY OF NEW IMMIGRATION SYSTEM: CONTINUOUS TROUBLES
 Sankei Shinbun Nov 20, 2007
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/life/lifestyle/071120/sty0711201251002-n1.htm
(Translated by Arudou Debito, excerpt)

November 20, the day the new biometric system was inaugurated for foreigners at Immigration, has seen continuous troubles at every port of entry with taking prints and equipment failure.

There were errors with reading data for about 30 people at Hakata Port, and after redoing the procedure, only four people were recorded. The Immigration official in charge decided to waive the procedure and everyone in. The official claimed the equipment was not faulty, rather, “It seems there were a lot of elderly people whose fingerprints had been worn down after years on the farm.”

At Narita Airport, one Australian man’s fingerprints were unreadable, and the process took more than an hour. According to the Immigration Bureau at at Narita, there are cases where people’s fingertips were too dry to be read. At Shin-Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, there were reports of more failures, the cause seen as dry skin.

At Fushiki Toyama Port, Toyama Prefecture, three out of five portable fingerprint readers were inoperative right after the start of usage. After rebooting their systems, only one machine became operable, and it died after 30 minutes. Use was discontinued.
========================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=759

COMMENT: In my high school psychology class, we learned about a mental process called “projection”, where a batter blames the bat instead of himself for the strike-out.

Well, Immigration that day was a paragon of projection. Farmers and dry skin? Maybe the system is just no damn good from the start. Or maybe it’s just plain Karma.

So the compliant media turned its attention to damage control:

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

YOMIURI & NIKKEI MISTAKENLY TRUMPET “5 CAUGHT IN NEW SYSTEM”, SANKEI CONTRADICTS

Here is a link to three articles in Japanese trumpeting the success of the new Fingerprinting system–all done in the middle of the night so as to make the morning editions.
Original Japanese at https://www.debito.org/?p=770

========================
FIVE PEOPLE MATCH FINGERPRINT BLACKLIST; DENIED ENTRY AT THE BORDER
Yomiuri Shinbun November 21 2007 03:09AM
(Translated by Arudou Debito, excerpt)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20071121i401.htm

With the amendment of the Immigration and Refugee Control Act, as of November 20 all foreigners [sic] coming to Japan must be fingerprinted. As a result, 5 people were denied entry, as their fingerprints matched those on a “blacklist”.

Most of those people had been deported in the past, or had tried to come into Japan on fake passports. One person was immediately deported, while the remainder were issued orders to leave.

The blacklist includes data such as 1) 14,000 names created by Interpol (ICPO) with the Japanese police, 2) about 800,000 names of people who have been deported for overstaying their visas in Japan.

With the advent of the Immigration Act revisions, new entry procedures were enacted in ports of entry such as Narita, Kansai and Osaka Airports, and those five people matched the fingerprints on the blacklist…
========================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=774

“Hey, we caught ’em, see how the system is working and how much we need it?” Despite the fact that it was also reported on November 20 that nobody was refused at all?

That’s right, actually. Read beyond the following Sankei headline:

================================
FIVE PEOPLE REFUSED ENTRY TO JAPAN FOR “PREVIOUS HISTORY”
System to inspect fingerprints and facial photos
Sankei Shinbun November 21, 2007 02:02AM
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/affairs/crime/071121/crm0711210203000-n1.htm
(Translated by Arudou Debito, excerpt)

With the new Immigration system requiring facial photos and fingerprints from all foreigners over the age of 16 [sic–not completely correct as stated] being launched from November 20, five people’s fingerprints matched those of people who had been refused entry in the past in the database, according to the Ministry of Justice.

Of those five, it seems three were using altered or falsified passports, and were processed for deportation. The remaining two were given orders to leave. No foreigner was refused entry at the border for refusing to give fingerprints.

The Justice Ministry also announced that at Obihiro, Narita, Chubu International, and Fukuoka Airports, as well as at Hakata seaport, a total of 21 people’s fingerprints were impossible to read. The reason seems to be that they were elderly and thus had worn-down fingers.

Those 21 were given oral interviews by Immigration and allowed in. The Ministry added that “Under Immigration directives, if we can’t scan their fingerprints properly, we still will process them for entry into Japan.”…
================================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=774

COMMENT: In other words: Three of the five were caught for funny passports, the other two for other reasons left unclear but at Immigration’s discretion. Which means bagging these five was unrelated to the Fingerprint policy. In other words, this sort of thing happens on a daily basis and is not news. Unless there is a political reason for making it so.

One so political it generates a lie in the face of science and technology? As “Kimpatsu” commented to Debito.org:

================================
November 21st, 2007 at 11:15 am e
David, I can tell you for certain that this snagging of five people is completely unrelated to the fingerprinting. Know why? I bet you mistakenly think that the photos and fingerprints are processed in real time, and if Osama bin Laden tries to enter Japan, an alarm will sound and red light will flash, right?

Wrong. There is no computer powerful enough to process biometric data in real time. Instead, at the end of each working day, the data is infodumped to a centre in Tokyo for processing. There will inevitably be a backlog (because the centre is closed at weekends), and the best a computer can do is throw up possible matches, which must then be verified manually. (Forget CSI, in which the computer positively matches fingerprints before the next commercial break; that’s just fantasy.)

Consequently, Osama has enough time to enter Japan, blow up Tokyo, and depart, before his biometric data has been processed. The new system doesn’t make people safer; it only makes them FEEL safer–which is not the same thing… But then again, when dealing with the scientifically ignorant, we are dealing with an absolute majority…
https://www.debito.org/?p=774#comment-95234
================================

And as Olaf concurred:
================================
Look at the (long) FBI file here:
 http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/1996/aprl963.txt
 and this was 11 years ago. Real time data analysis is gaining speed.

[But you are right that there will be an inevitable backlog.] Even the FBI says that they have a 99.99% correct identification rate (forgot the source – have to look again). With 8 million processed data sets every year that means that there are 800 misidentified people per year – more than 2 a day! If this misidentification matches an innocent person as being on a criminal data base (with several million data sets worldwide this is likely to happen), this false positive match must be checked manually.

Checking the complete databases takes hours (one print per millisec; 8 million prints – do the math: 8000 seconds, or nearly three hours). Poor guy for whom the ‘hit’ comes early in the search, while he is still in transit at immigration. Detention, grilling, at worst deportation, at best a missed connection flight (and waiting Japanese family members on ‘the other side’ in utsukushii Nippon).

Of course this will never be reported in the press: ‘Faulty fingerprint ID: Tourist mistakenly deported’
https://www.debito.org/?p=774#comment-96473
================================

Two associations to make: fingertips and sandpaper. Meanwhile, the GOJ is already changing the force of law into the law of force:

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

MAINICHI: FP REFUSERS WILL BE INCARCERATED, FORCED TO BE FP

According to the Mainichi Nov 21, the Justice Ministry has now issued a “tsuuchi” directive (the GOJ bureaucrats’ way of minting laws without going through a legislative body) granting Immigration more powers.

People who refuse to get fingerprinted will not only be refused at the border, but also forced to have fingerprints taken. as well as a physical inspection and incarceration in the airport Gaijin Tank.

What this means in the event uncooperative Permanent Residents and their Japanese spouses, the article notes, is incarceration with “extra persuasion”–without, they say, the threat of force. With all this extralegality going on, fat chance.

================================
FOREIGN FINGERPRINTING: NONCOMPLIERS FORCED TO BE FINGERPRINTED: MOJ
Mainichi Shinbun November 21, 2007
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20071121-00000017-mai-soci&kz=soci
(Translated by Arudou Debito, Courtesy of Tony K)

As an anti-terrorism etc. measure under the new Immigration inspection system, requiring fingerprints from all foreigners coming to Japan [sic], the Mainichi has learned that The Ministry of Justice’s Immigration Bureau has issued a directive (tsuuchi) to all regional divisions, saying that foreigners who refuse fingerprinting and rejection at the border [sic] are to be forced to be fingerprinted.

Although the Ministry of Justice originally explained this system as an “offering” (teikyou) of fingerprints without coercion, they have now indicated that they will implement this measure with the option of compulsion (kyouseiryoku) against anyone who refuses. It is anticipated that this will strengthen criticisms that “this system is treating foreigners as criminals”.

This policy of collecting biometric data is being effected at airports and seaports whenever foreigners enter the country, compared on the spot with stored Immigration data of people with histories of being deported from Japan, or blacklisted overseas. If fingerprints match, entry into the country will be denied, as will people who refuse to cooperate with the collection of data.

If the person denied refuses to comply with the deportation order, Immigration will implement forceable deportation orders and render the person to a holding cell within the airport. Whether or not fingerprints will be taken during incarceration had until now not been made clear.

However, based upon an Immigration directive issued during the first week of this month, it is now clear that “for safety concerns, when necessary people may now have their bodies inspected (shintai kensa)”, and Immigration officers have now been empowered to take fingerprints from those who refuse to cooperate. The directive also demands video recording of the proceedings.

Afterwards, refusers will be rendered to the appropriate transportation authorities for deportation. However, in the case of Permanent Residents and their Japanese spouses who have livelihoods in Japan, what the “country of return” for deportation will exactly mean is bound to present a problem. Immigration officials reply, “We will sufficiently persuade (settoku) the refuser to cooperate, and endeavor not to do this by force.”

According to a source familiar with Immigration laws, Immigration searches are something done in the case when a foreign national is under suspicion for breaking the law, such as overstaying his visa. In principle, fingerprinting is a voluntary act, and forceable fingerprinting rarely occurs. The source adds, “If we just don’t let the refuser into the country, there’s nothing dangerous they can do.” He questions whether or not it is justifiable to forceably fingerprint the person and add them to a blacklist of deportees.

Ryuugoku University Professor Tanaka Hiroshi, a specialist on human rights involving non Japanese, adds, “This type of foreigner fingerprinting system was once in place and people refused to cooperate. But now in its place we have not only criminal penalties, but also the extreme measure of refusing them entry into the country. This ministerial directive has little legal basis in its extreme sanctions.”
===========================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=777
along with a much shorter (and milder) official translation in the Mainichi of the same article, for your comparison.

Now let’s look at the emerging “garbage in, garbage out” situation:

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

ASAHI: 38% OF US-VISIT DATABASE ARE MISTAKES

So much for the effectiveness of the US-VISIT system the current Japanese NJ fingerprinting regime is modeled upon:

======================================
AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO
 PUBLIC AFFAIRS SECTION, OFFICE OF TRANSLATION AND MEDIA ANALYSIS
 DAILY SUMMARY OF JAPANESE PRESS
 November 21, 2007 (excerpt)

(Item 8)
 US SYSTEM OF SCREENING VISITORS: MISTAKES, CONTRADICTIONS FOUND IN 38% OF THOSE CITED ON MONITORING LIST
 ASAHI (Page 2) (Excerpts)
 November 19, 2007

…The US-visit system was introduced in 2004. The system is almost the same as Japan’s. Anna Hinken, an officer of the US Department of Homeland Security, proudly said: “We have rejected the entry of more than 2,000 persons who were considered a security risk since the system was introduced.”

But a US government agency poses questions about the system’s technology and credibility. This July, the US General Accounting Office criticized the US-visit system as seriously fragile in view of information control. He pointed out the possibility that personal data, including fingerprint data, might be altered or copied by someone from the outside due to insufficient security measures.

In September, an auditor of the Justice Department emphasized how inaccurate US blacklists are. The auditor said that as a result of a sampling check of the terrorism-affiliates included in a monitoring list, mistakes or contradictions were found in 38% of those checked, with the names of some terror suspects left out of the list or innocent persons appearing on it.

The monitoring list was compiled by integrating those of such government agencies as the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration, and the list is not open to the public. As of April this year, the number of those listed was 700,000. The number reportedly increases by 20,000 per month.

American Civil Liberties Union member Barry Steinhardt said: “There should not be so many terrorists. The list is unreliable. In addition, since the list is classified and not publicized, it is impossible to check how effectively it has worked to prevent terrorism.”

The monitoring list has also affected civic life. There are cases in which citizens unrelated to terrorism appeared on the list or in which a person who has the same family and personal name as a certain suspect was stopped at an airport security check.

The US-visit system also tends to give travelers an unpleasant impression about the nation.
======================================
https://www.debito.org/?p=779

I might add that the original article has been unavailable online at Asahi.com, even shortly after it first appeared. No wonder. Thanks to the USG for archiving it.

Something else equally archivable, which I had on file for months waiting for just such an occasion:

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

ASAHI: TOKYO & NARITA LOSE PERSONAL DATA FOR 432 NJ

One of Immigration’s mantras has been how they will take proper care of all the biometric data they drag out of their gaijin patsies.

I’m not confident of that, in light of what happened last May. Incompetence in spades.

=======================
TOKYO IMMIGRATION BUREAU LOSES PERSONAL DATA FOR TOTAL 432 FOREIGNERS
Asahi Shinbun March 28, 2007
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0528/TKY200705280376.html
https://www.debito.org/?p=437
(Translated by Arudou Debito, full text)

TOKYO – Tokyo Immigration announced on March 28 that it had lost flash memory at its headquarters and Narita Airport Branch, regarding personal information for visa overstayers and deported foreigners. They say that no trace of it remains, and there is no danger of the data being misused.

The same agency said last December that an Immigration official in his thirties, based at headquarters, had lost saved memory–names, dates of birth, embarkation points, and other documented details–for 137 foreign overstayers currently being processed for deportation. Also last December, another official in his twenties based at Narita had lost saved memory in the form of a “deportation notebook”. In that, an additional 295 foreigners had had their names, dates of birth, reasons for deporting etc. recorded for deportation.
======================================

https://www.debito.org/?p=766

On a similar note:

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

YOMIURI: SDF & MOFA LOSE PERSONAL COMPUTERS IN BELGIUM

Courtesy of Michelle:
======================================
731 SDF APPLICANTS’ DETAILS LEAKED ONTO INTERNET
The Yomiuri Shimbun, November 18, 2007 (excerpt)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20071118TDY02309.htm

Personal details of 731 people who passed the first-stage entrance examination for recruitment by the Self-Defense Forces have been accidently uploaded onto the Internet, it has been learned.

 The Defense Ministry learned the list had been online for six weeks and has begun investigating how the information was compromised.

The list–confidentially created using spreadsheet software by Yokohama-based SDF Kanagawa Provincial Cooperation Office, which recruits self-defense officers in Kanagawa–included Kanagawa Prefecture-based applicants’ personal details including their name, sex, date of birth, address, cell phone number and parents’ names…

Families of examinees have expressed their dismay over the mishandling of the information.

“The situation, which saw detailed personal information made available online, is a serious error that caused problems for the examinees,” the man who told the office of the errors said. “They have to realize the severity of the situation.”

“I worked as an SDF officer. I think it was disgraceful,” the father of a male examinee said. “They let their guard down–now we’re afraid what the information could be used for. The Defense Ministry has been hit by so many scandals that even as a former officer, I find it hard to be proud of it.”

The Defense Ministry and SDF have been hit by a succession of information leaks. In February last year, confidential data on the MSDF destroyer Asayuki was leaked onto the Internet through members’ privately owned computers, which had been installed with a file-exchange program.

In April last year, the Defense Ministry prohibited the use of privately owned computers in the workplace, and barred personnel from handling business data on privately owned computers. Then, SDF members were visited at home by inspectors who checked whether personnel had stored business data on their computers…
======================================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=747

COMMENT: It’s nice for the Yomiuri to devote least a third of the article to those affected by the leaks. Criticism is okay as long as it comes from Team Japan. Another article, to show this is nothing new:

======================================
JAPANESE FINGER VIRUS FOR POLICE DOCUMENT LEAK
By John Leyden, The Register
Published Wednesday 7th April 2004 (excerpt)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/07/japanese_keystone_cops/

Japanese police are blaming a computer virus for a leak of information about criminal investigations.

Information from 19 documents – including investigation reports, expert opinions and police searches – found its way from the hard disk of an officer from Shimogamo Police Station in Sakyo Ward, Kyoto, onto the Net last month.

The names, birthdays, addresses and other personal data of 11 people were listed in the leaked documents, along with a detailed description of an alleged crime. Police have promised to notify the 11, including an alleged crime victim, to explain the cock-up…

The officer at the centre of the debacle created the leaked documents in 2002 while practicing how to fill out forms using real data instead of dummy entries.

He was on police box duty and authorised to use his own PC but not to save sensitive data on it, a violation in police procedures that has become the subject of disciplinary inquiry.
======================================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=747

And it’s not limited to stupidity within Japan:

======================================
NINE LAPTOP COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM JAPANESE EMBASSY IN BELGIUM
(Mainichi Japan November 5, 2007 (excerpt)
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071105p2a00m0na005000c.html

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Thieves broke into the Japanese Embassy in Belgium and stole nine laptop computers, including one belonging to the consul, embassy officials have announced.

The break-in is believed to have occurred between the evening of Nov. 2 and the predawn hours of Nov. 3. Officials said nothing besides the computers had been stolen. They added that no confidential diplomatic information had been leaked outside the embassy… Japanese officials have asked the government in Belgium to boost security in the wake of the incident.
======================================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=747

The Yomiuri, moreover, has it at eleven laptops, with details on their contents:

======================================
11 LAPTOP PCS STOLEN FROM BRUSSELS EMBASSY
The Yomiuri Shimbun, Nov 15, 2007 (excerpt)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20071115TDY02303.htm

…Some of the stolen computers held electronic data on matters such as the expats’ residence certification, overseas voting registration and passport information, according to the embassy.

The residence certification contains details such as a person’s name, birthdate, permanent address in Japan, occupation, family information and passport number.
======================================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=747

As contributor Michelle writes, if they can’t take care of personal information for their own citizens, how can they be expected to take care of foreigners’ information?

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

Now for the information you wouldn’t hear via the Yomiuri, Nikkei, or NHK:

MAINICHI ON PUBLIC ACTION OUTSIDE MOJ

======================================
 PROTESTERS ‘FLIP THE BIRD’ AT JUSTICE MINISTRY OVER FORCED FINGERPRINTING
 Mainichi Daily News Nov 20, 2007 By Ryann Connell (excerpt)
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071120p2a00m0na020000c.html

Protestors inflated a 3-meter-high yellow hand with an extended forefinger and thrust it toward the Justice Ministry’s offices in Tokyo on Tuesday to demonstrate against a controversial fingerprinting policy beginning at ports of entry across the country the same day.

About 80 protestors turned toward the ministry building and shouted in unison their opposition to the new policy, which requires all but a handful of foreigners to have their fingerprints and face photos taken to gain entry into Japan.

Representatives of human rights groups, labor unions, foreigners’ groups and individuals spoke out against the system–similar to the US-VISIT policy operating in the United States since 2004, but also targeting residents and not just tourists–calling it, among other things, “racist,” “xenophobic,” “retrogressive” and “an invasion of human rights and privacy.”

“It’s an expression of Japanese xenophobia. Japan is using this system as a tool to control foreigners. For the past few years, the government has been associating foreigners with things like crime and terrorism,” said Sonoko Kawakami, campaign coordinator for Amnesty International Japan, which organized Tuesday’s demonstration.

Lim Young-Ki, a representative of the Korean Youth Association in Japan, pointed out how ethnic Koreans had fought for decades until the 2000 abolition of fingerprinting on Alien Registration Certificates only to see the process revived through the back door now.

“This system is ostensibly an anti-terrorism measure, but it is extremely harmful to individuals and only applying the system to foreigners shows a lack of consideration for foreigners’ human rights. Even though the system of fingerprinting foreigners was completely abolished in April 2000, it’s infuriating that the Japanese government has reinstated this practice and this entry inspection system.”…

Another foreign woman who identified herself only as Jennifer said she is a permanent resident, having lived in Japan for 38 years and with a Japanese husband and Japanese national children… “They already have my photo and my fingerprint*many times over,” she said. “This step is quite unnecessary.”

But an official from the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau dismissed the protestors’ claims.

“This system was introduced to protect the lives and safety of citizens [sic] by preventing terrorism. There were rational reasons and necessities in introducing the system, which was approved by the Diet,” Yasuhiro Togo of the Immigration Bureau said, adding that the methods of fingerprinting differ from the abolished Alien Registration Certificate system.

“The aim of taking fingerprints is different–we’re fighting against terrorism–and we will not be forcing people to put their fingers into ink as used to be the case. The fingerprints will all be taken and stored electronically.”…

The government says the new system is aimed at combating terrorism, but has also said it will provide data to crime-fighting authorities upon request. The Immigration Bureau’s Togo said such information would be handled in accordance with the Private Information Protection Law. He added that information collected by immigration authorities would not be handed over to foreign governments.
======================================
Rest with photos at https://www.debito.org/?p=751

COMMENT: So, which is it, the GOJ will share its data with other governments or won’t it? The GOJ is taking fingerprints like before or isn’t it? The data is secure or isn’t it? It’s enough to make one laugh out loud at the absurdity and double-talk. To that end:

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

PROTESTS WITH PARODY POSTERS, T-SHIRTS, POSTCARDS, MULTILINGUAL BILLETS

Hilarious parody of the issue by Kaoru, showing maiko (apprentice geisha) in whiteface, with the caption:
==========================
OI WHITIES! GO AND GET FINGERPRINTED!
Kaoru: “I knocked up a quick mock-poster illustrating the ludicrousy. This was just for my own amusement of course (especially the inclusion of Yu Kikumaru of the Red Army saying ‘Keep Japan Safe!’), but I figure there has to be a t-shirt idea in there somewhere!”
==========================
https://www.debito.org/?p=757

Multilingual billets:
==========================
Hi there, the trilingual (Japanese, French, and English) tract against fingerprints policy is done!
More info on fingerprinting protest site reentry japan:
http://reentryjapan.blogspot.com/2007/11/here-is-tract-you-may-consider-using-to.html
Download it, print it, show it, put in your bar, restaurant, on your car, on your desk, give it to the immigration officer, to your friends…
==========================
https://www.debito.org/?p=787

More posters, “Yokoso Japan” T-shirts (which will be sent to you in time for your New-Year return to Japan), and video at
https://www.debito.org/?p=761

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

FRANCE 24 TV INTERVIEW IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH: “JAPAN’S 1984”

TV Network France 24 has a good report on the FP policy, with an interview with a national bureaucrat, Teranaka Makoto of Amnesty International, and yours truly.

==========================
English:
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Japan’s 1984: Japanese authorities have introduced American-style immigration law. Foreigners will have to be fingerprinted and photographed evey time they enter the country – a law that some regard as Orwellian. (Report: N. Tourret)
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/reportages/20071120-japan-society-immigration-law-fingerprint.html

Francais:
mardi 20 novembre 2007
Le Japon durcit les conditions de circulation: Le Japon a durcit sa legislation vis-a-vis des voyageurs etrangers. Disormais, photographies et empreintes digitales seront imposis dans les aeroports. Le sujet suscite un large debat.(Reportage : N. Tourret)
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/fr/reportages/20071120-japon-loi-immigration-empreinte-digitale-photographie.html
==========================

While I’m at it, here is a link to my previous podcast, up on Trans Pacific Radio. Yes, it has information on fingerprinting, of course.,,
http://www.transpacificradio.com/2007/11/22/debitoorg-newsletter-for-november-19-2007/

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

NYT: FINGERPRINTING A “DISASTER FOR J BUSINESS”

Much the same ground covered in this article as others. But good to see a write-up this thorough making a splash throughout the US East Coast this time–in the Old Grey Lady, no less. This is the paper the GOJ takes most seriously of all overseas publications. And they don’t pull punches–devoting most of the article to the criticisms.

================================
NEW JAPANESE IMMIGRATION CONTROLS WORRY FOREIGNERS
New York Times November 18, 2007 (excerpt)
By MARTIN FACKLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/asia/18japan-1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

TOKYO, Nov. 17– Japan has tried hard in recent years to shake its image as an overly insular society and offer a warmer welcome to foreign investors and tourists. But the country is about to impose strict immigration controls that many fear could deter visitors and discourage businesses from locating here.

On Tuesday, Japan will put in place one of the toughest systems in the developed world for monitoring foreign visitors. Modeled on the United States’ controversial U.S.-Visit program, it will require foreign citizens to be fingerprinted, photographed and questioned every time they enter Japan…

[T]he measures, part of an immigration law enacted last year, have been criticized by civil rights groups and foreign residents’ associations as too sweeping and unnecessarily burdensome to foreigners…

Some of the most vocal critics have been among foreign business leaders, who say the screening could hurt Japan’s standing as an Asian business center, especially if it is inefficiently carried out, leading to long waits at airports. Business groups here warn that such delays could make Japan less attractive than rival commercial hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore, where entry procedures are much easier…. [and] runs counter to recent efforts by the government to attract more foreign investment and tourism.

“If businessmen based here have to line up for two hours every time they come back from traveling, it will be a disaster,” said Jakob Edberg, policy director in the Tokyo office of the European Business Council. “This will affect real business decisions, like whether to base here.”…

However, some civil rights groups worry that the government is using terrorism to mask a deeper, xenophobic motive behind the new measures. They say that within Japan, the government has justified the screening as an anticrime measure, playing to widely held fears that an influx of foreigners is threatening Japan’s safe streets…

“Terrorism looks like an excuse to revive to the old system for monitoring foreigners,” said Sonoko Kawakami at Amnesty International in Japan. “We worry that the real point of these measures is just to keep foreigners out of Japan.”…
================================
Rest at https://www.debito.org/?p=768

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

…and finally…
ACCENTURE, MAKER OF THE FP MACHINES, NOW HIRING IN JAPAN, THRU TIGER WOODS!

Seems its not just former Yomiuri Pitchers anymore pitching this system.
https://www.debito.org/?p=735

Accenture (formerly the crooked and now defunct Arthur Andersen, accounting firm and book-cooker for Enron), is riding the wave of its cheap bid to build Japan’s biometric machines by expanding its operations in Japan! As reader Leslie writes:

================================
Debito, Saw this ad in the subway yesterday. Seems Accenture, the offshore company with the contract to collect biometric data on foreigners in Japan, is hiring!
https://www.debito.org/?p=782

I am also astounded that foreigners arriving in Japan and refusing to give MOJ/Accenture their data will now officially have physical force used against them to force the extraction of the personal data. Nightmarish. Leslie
================================

The profiteering never stops from companies like these, especially when the GOJ is under pressure from the local hegemon to contribute to the war effort.
https://www.debito.org/?p=693
No doubt buying American helps placate.

Perhaps Tiger Woods, pictured in the advertisement, would enjoy being treated as a potential terrorist and criminal next time he comes for a round of golf in Miyazaki?

See more about Accenture’s involvement in the biometric data market on Debito.org here:
https://www.debito.org/?p=345

Mark Says:
================================
November 24th, 2007 at 5:51 pm e
Perhaps it would be worth contacting Tiger Woods, through the agency that sells his likeness, to complain that he’s advertising for a company that is directly involved in these new Draconian measures that he himself would be subject to if arriving without fanfare.
The Interntational Management Group (IMG)
1 Erieview Plaza
Cleveland OH 44114
216-522-1200
================================
https://www.debito.org/?p=782#comment-96052

We’re also looking to recruit baseball’s Tuffy Rhodes, who has lived and played here for more than ten years, if he’s amenable. Imagine if he were to say, “The league has accepted me, the Buffaloes have accepted me, the fans have accepted me–but the government hasn’t.”

And as Mark in Yayoi notes, “He’s paid in a *lot* more tax money than any of us have!”

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

CONCLUDING STATEMENT: PROGNOSTICATIONS FOR THE PRESENT COURSE:
A HASTENED ECONOMIC OBSCURITY FOR JAPAN

With this new Fingerprinting policy, the Japanese government has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt anymore that it’s run by people who are either out of touch with just how internationalized Japan has become (with globalization and the Trainee Visa regime since 1990), or are just plain xenophobic (what with blaming foreigners for terrorism, disease, and crime). Even stupid (MOJ Minster Kunio “Friend of a Friend in Al-Qaeda” Hatoyama sexing up the justifications for the Fingerprinting policy).

And how if we don’t have a major change in leadership at the top (i.e. at least knock the LDP from it’s half-century in power), Japan will ultimately knock itself back into an economic backwater, no longer Asia’s representative to the world, what with the rise of China. That’s how I see the lay of the land at the moment.

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

That’s quite enough for this week. Thanks for reading and listening!
Arudou Debito, Sapporo, Japan
debito@debito.org, https://www.debito.org
DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 28, 2007 ENDS

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Fingerprinting protest tract for Immigration & new FP protest info website

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Thomas Bertrand writes:

==========================
Hi there, the trilingual (Japanese, French, and English) tract against fingerprints policy is done!

More info on fingerprinting protest site reentry japan:
http://reentryjapan.blogspot.com/2007/11/here-is-tract-you-may-consider-using-to.html

Download it, print it, show it, put in your bar, restaurant, on your car, on your desk, give it to the immigration officer, to your friends…

(click on image to expand in your browser)
ReentryJapanProtest.jpg

Thomas Bertrand and friends.
==========================

COMMENT: Well done. Pass it around online and make copies for distributing in the real world. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Community: Olaf & Tony on ironies of Fingerprinting & foreign crime in Japan

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. You’ve probably wondered why I’ve reverted back to my “one-a-day” blogging style, in the face of all this news. It’s because I’m doing this blog entirely by myself, and I don’t have the time and energy to work at the computer constantly for weeks (plus with speeches coming up just about every weekend these days, I haven’t had a full “day off” in several weeks); I even went to bed at 9PM last night and didn’t open my eyes until 7AM this morning. Guess I’m getting old.

Anyhoo, some good comments from The Community internet volunteer group this morning on the Fingerprinting policy and foreign crime in Japan:

Olaf wrote:
==============================
I just sent this out as a Letter to the Editor at the Japan Times:

The timing [of the Fingerprint Policy] couldn’t be more ironic. While Japan is ratifying and implementing laws to cut into the privacy of foreigners in Japan, forcing tax-paying, law-abiding, decade-long foreign residents to yield their fingerprints at immigration, Japanese gangsters are shooting and killing right and left. Hospital patients, city majors fall victims to Japanese criminals well known to the police. The police know their names, headquarters and that they own arsenals of deadly weapons. Instead of spying after innocent residents, the police should smoke out the gangster’s rat holes, arrest and persecute them. Only after that is done, I will consider giving my fingerprints.
==============================
Tony wrote:
==============================
It struck me this morning, watching the TOKUDANE programme coverage of the “accidental” hospital shooting, as one of the talking heads pointed out that ‘the police simply “designate” yakusa and members of “shitei bouryoku dan” and do nothing to actually round them up’; Organised crime syndicates get better treatment from the Japanese police than foreigners do! Maybe we should organise ourselves into a gang and then the police might leave us alone to get about our daily lives – no more “carding”, and we would get to ride our bicycles with impunity!

Debito, feel like changing your name again to “Don Debitone”??

Another comment in the same program that struck me as surreal – in the coverage of the disappearance of a Kikawa Ken grandmother and her two granddaughters, the neighbours have reported hearing a man shout “Hayou senka?” which is a local dialect phrase for “hurry up!” The reporter said in all seriousness that “since this was a little known west country dialect, it could be assumed that the perpetrators were probably not foreigners”.

I wondered to myself, has it really come to the stage that the default assumption in a serious crime is that foreigners are involved?
==============================

COMMENT: And I wondered to myself, the NPA still haven’t apprehended the prime suspect, Ichihashi Tatsuya (who last March reportedly fled barefoot from his apartment containing her body when 9 police visited) in the Lindsay Ann Hawker murder case. Yet the police will hold a person for a year without any physical evidence (no bail for foreigners, mind you) in the Idubor Case. And there’s still nobody arrested in the death last June of sumo wrestler Tokitaizan, who was savaged to death by his stablemates (and stablemaster Tokitsukaze, who even publicly admitted to bludgeoning him with a beer bottle the day before his death). Where’s the consistency? Why are criminal investigations drawn along nationality lines?

Funny old world out there. Pity it’s (increasingly incontrovertibly) stacked against the foreigner in Japan. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Asahi: US-VISIT database riddled with mistakes: 38% of entries

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Forwarded by a friend. So much for the effectiveness of the US-VISIT system the current Japanese NJ fingerprinting regime is modeled upon. First the source of the article (the table of contents), then the article with pertinent sections underlined. The article, btw, has long been unavailable online at Asahi.com. No wonder. Which is why I had to wait until I got this source. Arudou Debito

======================================
AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO
PUBLIC AFFAIRS SECTION
OFFICE OF TRANSLATION AND MEDIA ANALYSIS
INQUIRIES: 03-3224-5360
INTERNET E-MAIL ADDRESS: otmatokyo@state.gov
DAILY SUMMARY OF JAPANESE PRESS
November 21, 2007

INDEX:
(1) US needs to see progress in nuclear, abduction issues for N. Korea delisting: Bush [Sankei] 2
(2) Fukuda diplomacy takes first step toward “synergy”: Premier Wen reacts favorably [Asahi] 3
(3) Leaders of Japan, China, South Korea play up friendly mood, laying aside pending issues [Nikkei] 4
(4) Nukaga treated by Mitsubishi [Akahata] 6
(5) Editorial: Do we want to entrust the compilation of the state budget to Finance Minister Nukaga? [Asahi] 6
(6) Ruling, opposition parties to find way to reach agreement on bills [Asahi] 7
(7) US N-flattop unsettles local host communities [Tokyo Shimbun] 9
(8) US system of screening visitors: mistakes, contradictions found in 38% of those cited on monitoring list [Asahi] 10
(9) Policy watch: Face up to the economy slipping [Sankei] 11
(10) TOP HEADLINES 13
(11) EDITORIALS 13
(12) Political Cartoon 15
** Next Daily Summary will be issued on November 26. **
EXCERPT

(8) US system of screening visitors: mistakes, contradictions found in 38% of those cited on monitoring list

ASAHI (Page 2) (Excerpts)
November 19, 2007

Arriving foreign visitors form a long line at the immigration section at John F Kennedy Airport in New York to have their fingerprints taken from the index finger of each hand. Visitors have to wait for more than one hour when a number of flights arrive.

The US-visit system was introduced in 2004. The system is almost the same as Japan’s. Anna Hinken, an officer of the US Department of Homeland Security, proudly said: “We have rejected the entry of more than 2,000 persons who were considered a security risk since the system was introduced.”

But a US government agency poses questions about the system’s technology and credibility. This July, the US General Accounting Office criticized the US-visit system as seriously fragile in view of information control. He pointed out the possibility that personal data, including fingerprint data, might be altered or copied by someone from the outside due to insufficient security measures.

In September, an auditor of the Justice Department emphasized how inaccurate US blacklists are. The auditor said that as a result of a sampling check of the terrorism-affiliates included in a monitoring list, mistakes or contradictions were found in 38% of those checked, with the names of some terror suspects left out of the list or innocent persons appearing on it.

The monitoring list was compiled by integrating those of such government agencies as the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration, and the list is not open to the public. As of April this year, the number of those listed was 700,000. The number reportedly increases by 20,000 per month.

American Civil Liberties Union member Barry Steinhardt said: “There should not be so many terrorists. The list is unreliable. In addition, since the list is classified and not publicized, it is impossible to check how effectively it has worked to prevent terrorism.”

The monitoring list has also affected civic life. There are cases in which citizens unrelated to terrorism appeared on the list or in which a person who has the same family and personal name as a certain suspect was stopped at an airport security check.

The US-visit system also tends to give travelers an unpleasant impression about the nation.
ENDS

BBC: Japan visa regime “abuses foreign workers” with “forced labour”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. When things get busy (as they are right now, writing this from on-site at JALT), I’ll put up some backlogged articles that are still germane to Debito.org. Arudou Debito in Tokyo

================================
Japan scheme ‘abuses foreign workers’
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Tokyo, Wednesday, 3 October 2007, 11:24 GMT 12:24 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7014960.stm

Over the past 17 years, thousands of foreign workers have travelled to Japan, taking part in an official scheme to learn skills they cannot pick up in their own countries.

But this year the Japanese government’s own experts have admitted that in many cases trainees are used as cheap labour.

The US state department has gone further. In its annual report on human trafficking, it said that “some migrant workers are reportedly subjected to conditions of forced labour through [its] foreign trainee programme”.

Wang Jun came to Japan on the trainee scheme “because Japan is the most advanced country in Asia, and so that I can learn skills here then go back to my own country and get a good job”.

Mr Wang works at a small factory in a suburb of Tokyo. He is one of four trainees in the workshop, toiling alongside 11 Japanese workers.

He sounds like he is getting the kind of experience he is supposed to on this scheme. It was set up in 1990, in order, the Japanese government says, to help poorer countries learn from Japan’s mastery of the manufacturing process.

Toshikazu Funakubo, the factory owner’s son, said it could be difficult to communicate with the Chinese workers. “But they are learning the Japanese culture and language. It’s a very good thing for all of us.”

The owner of the business, Toshiaki Funakubo, said he employed the Chinese workers because he wanted to help China. But he admitted that labour shortages in Japan were another important consideration.

“To tell the truth I want Japanese people to join my company, but at the moment we have no choice but to depend on good workers from abroad.”

Cultural ‘integrity’

The problem is that widespread public aversion in Japan to the idea of immigration has contributed to a shortage of labour.

In the United States, foreign workers make up 15% of the workforce. In Japan the figure is little more than 1%.

The job description, the working hours are the same. But the salary and treatment are so different. I cannot understand this
Chinese trainee
A recent government report into its own foreign workers scheme found that, in reality, trainees are used as cheap labour and their working conditions are not properly monitored.

“The Japanese government and the ministries do not want Japan to become an immigration country,” said Martin Schulz, a research fellow at the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo.

“They do not want to change the cultural and social integrity of Japan, so they have a rather hands-off approach.”

That hands-off approach can lead to abuses. When the government made unannounced inspections to firms employing foreign trainees last year it found that 80% of them were breaking the laws on pay and conditions.

Some of those who are treated badly on the scheme find their way to the offices of the Zentoitsu (All United) Workers Union, in the Akiharbara district of Tokyo.

‘Sexual harassment’

One Chinese trainee said he discovered a disparity between his pay and that of other workers, but when he complained he was told that if he did not like it he could go back to China.

He did not want to give his name as he is afraid of reprisals.

“Chinese workers here do the same work as Japanese workers,” he said. “The job description, the working hours are the same. But the salary and treatment are so different. I cannot understand this.”

Hiroshi Nakajima, the union official helping him with his case, said a foreign worker came to ask for help almost every week.

“Basically they have many complaints about their labour conditions. For example, non-payment and sometimes threat of dismissal, and not only these things but sometimes sexual harassment and sometimes the company keeps their passport or alien card and insurance card too,” he said.

Japan International Training Co-operation Organisation (Jitco), which runs the scheme for the government, said it was aware of media reports about trainees’ troubles.

But said its own research showed foreign workers were satisfied with the way they were treated.

In a statement, Jitco told the BBC that individual cases should not be used to generalise about the whole scheme.

And yet the Japanese government’s own panel of experts has decided there is a need for stiffer penalties for companies that mistreat workers.

These will not be introduced for at least two years, though. It is an acknowledgement that the system is not working, but it seems there is no rush to fix it.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7014960.stm

Published: 2007/10/03 11:24:33 GMT

© BBC MMVII

John Spiri reviews Gregory Clark’s book “Understanding the Japanese”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

The Japanese and Ware Ware Non-Japanese
A review of UNDERSTANDING THE JAPANESE by Gregory Clark
By John Spiri, former Assistant Professor at Akita International University
(written for a mass media outlet, unpublished)

UNDERSTANDING THE JAPANESE: Gregory Clark. First published 1982 by Kinseido, Tokyo

It is difficult to imagine a book written by a Japan “expert” having as little of substance to say as Understanding the Japanese by Gregory Clark. The book, awash with trivial generalizations, simplistically attempts to dichotomize everything—brains, societies, and the entire world—while presenting “theories” that would be better left to barrooms and pubs.

The mother of all Clark’s dichotomies is between “Japanese” and “non-Japanese.” Clark writes, “For us non-Japanese peoples the identity of a nation lies in its ideas and culture.” Clark even goes so far as to title a section, “The Non-Japanese Nation” citing stereotypes about the French (who are happy to accept even millions of refugees and workers), Chinese (who have even refused to accept Western technology), and Americans (who exclude homosexuals since they are seen as a threat to Christian ideology). The conclusion is “culturally advanced non-Japanese peoples are more exclusive to foreign ideas and culture than they are towards foreigners” while Japanese are the reverse.

Later, after generalizing that Japanese have a “dual morality” (with his evidence being banal inconsistencies that exist within every human), Clark claims, “With non-Japanese it is not possible to admit to such a dual morality. Our behavior is supposed to be guided by law and principles.” One example of Japanese morality that Westerners supposedly lack is the “generosity” of booksellers who allow customers to read books for free. Clark might be a little shocked to see evidence of this “Japanese morality” in any Barnes & Noble bookstore in the United States, where customers sit around in lounge chairs reading unbought books.

Towards the end of the book readers are told the Japanese negotiate “heart to heart” while all the other peoples in the world negotiate “mind to mind.” “It is as if Japan were to insist on playing shogi while the rest of the world plays chess.” Oh, those Japanese are so, so, what’s the word?, different!

As the thin book wears on, we learn that “non-Japanese” might not really be meant to include everyone; only the “advanced” peoples are worthy of the ultimate comparison. After telling his readers again that “the Japanese seem to be very different from other peoples” Clark claims the reason is that all the other “advanced peoples” had protracted conflict with foreign nations. “Meanwhile,” readers are told, “the rest of us, for the past thousand years or much more, have been constantly involved in fighting each other.” Besides the historical falsity, Clark doesn’t bother to explain how the experience of warring samurai factions of generations past has failed to affect modern Japanese in the same way that warring knights in medieval Europe has supposedly affected modern Europeans.

Clark’s efforts to engage readers in Socratic dialog are juvenile: “Do the Japanese lack a sense of morality?” (answer No! their morality is different from ours), and, “Why does (Japanese flexibility) exist?” (answer: Japan is a nation without ideology!). Then, Clark resorts to citing “someone” to modify: “Someone once said that the ideology of Japan is Japanism!” One would think an “expert” would be held to higher standards.

However, readers learn that if a writer tosses around enough unsupported opinions and generalizations, some will resonate. My favorite was the section about the Japanese propensity for booms. Clark notes that when he first came to Japan there was a “hula hoop boom,” followed by the bowling boom. “The businessmen had convinced themselves,” he writes using his finest prose, “that the Japanese people wanted to do nothing else for the rest of their lives except throw large balls at distant pins, and the relics of their emotionalistic judgment still dot the nation in form of unused bowling parlors.” Hopefully, one day the same can be said of pachinko parlors.

The Japanese, according to Clark, are comparable to one other nation. The Chinese? Never! They are like Westerners. The Koreans? Perish the thought. The Mongolians? They’re not “advanced.” It may come as a surprise, but the one nation that resembles the Japanese are Cretes! Like Japan, the Cretes could “borrow the ideologies of the advanced rationalistic societies around it” and was also a “very durable civilization, lasting almost 1,500 years.” Of course, concrete comparisons are tough to make considering the fact Crete society perished 2,500 years ago in a massive volcanic eruption. “Perhaps there is a message there for Japan,” Clark tells readers, without elaborating.

Some of the stereotypes are downright mean-spirited. “Under the Christian ethic stealing is forbidden,” Clark tells readers, “But that does not stop taxi drivers from trying to short-change their passengers.” The recent stories of the New York city cabbies would undoubtedly surprise Clark. One returned a bag of diamonds; a second sped to the airport to return a forgotten wallet containing thousands of dollars.

The book, constantly hammering home the theme that “Japanese are unique,” is clearly trying to cash in on a writing style, and topic, that appeals to Japanese. Clark frequently tosses in yokeina (superfluous) Japanese: tanitsu minzoku, gyousei shidou, and nantai doubutsu, to either benefit the Japanese reader or put his knowledge of the Japanese language on display, and ends with 13 pages of notes in Japanese.

If Clark weren’t writing with apparent seriousness, the book might be amusing; the illustrations, however, give a hint that the book is not to be taken seriously. As Clark himself has (according to Brad Blackstone, a former associate professor at AIU) been heard to say, “I milked that baby (Understanding the Japanese book) for 20 years, going to speaking engagements around the country.” So, in a sense, it’s “hats off” to the author for getting away with elevating barroom blather to social theory and still maintain status as a culture commentator and Japan expert.
======================

More on Gregory Clark, columnist at the Japan Times, on Debito.org at
https://www.debito.org/gregoryclarkfabricates.html
https://www.debito.org/HELPSpring2001.html
ENDS

Accenture, producer of NJ fingerprinting machines, is hiring in Japan, thru Tiger Woods!

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Accenture ( formerly the crooked and now defunct Arthur Andersen, accounting firm and book-cooker for Enron), is riding the wave of its cheap bid to build Japan’s biometric machines by expanding its operations in Japan! As reader Leslie writes:

//////////////////////////////////////////////
Debito,

Saw this ad in the subway yesterday. Seems Accenture, the offshore company with the contract to collect biometric data on foreigners in Japan, is hiring!

(Click on image to expand in your browser)
accenture.jpg

I am also astounded that foreigners arriving in Japan and refusing to give MOJ/Accenture their data will now officially have physical force used against them to force the extraction of the personal data. Nightmarish. Leslie
//////////////////////////////////////////////

The profiteering never stops from companies like these, especially when the GOJ is under pressure from the local hegemon to contribute to the war effort (plus, buying American sure helps). Perhaps Tiger Woods, pictured in the advertisement, would enjoy being treated as a potential terrorist and criminal next time he comes for a round of golf in Miyazaki?

See more about Accenture’s involvement in the biometric data market on Debito.org here. Arudou Debito in Tokyo
ENDS

Fingerprinting: Anger in the Blogosphere

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Lots to do this weekend in Tokyo at JALT, so I’ll be brief:

In all my twenty years of Japan, I’ve never seen the NJ communities so angry.

Not during the “gaijin all have AIDS” scare of 1986, the Otaru Onsens Case of 1999, the Ishihara anti-gaijin anti-crime “Sangokujin Speech” media campaigns of 2000, the “anti-hooligan” scare before and during World Cup 2002, the Al-Qaeda scare of 2005, or the “foreign crime is rising” National Police Agency media campaigns every six months. This time, there’s a very “faith no more” element to it all.

I am receiving links to angry diatribes on the Fingerprint policy in the Blogosphere. Two that leave a lasting impression:

Running Gaijin Card Checks
http://www.keepingpaceinjapan.com/2007/11/running-in-fear.html

Oppose Japan’s bid for The Olympics
http://nofj16.googlepages.com/home

If you know of any more, please send links to the comments section below. Angry, humorous, ironic, and/or poignant is fine, racist is not, so exercise discretion.

The point is, how else are NJ going to express their anger when they are this disenfranchised in Japanese society? Where the media machines for manufacturing consent will ultimately pit the entire Japanese society against the “gaijin”–through completely unfounded assertions of criminality, terrorism, and allegedly effective preventative measures which single people out for discrimination by race, nationality, and national origin.

How else? The Blogosphere. Vent away.

How things work over here to create “Team Japan vs. The World” has never come out as clearly as now. Arudou Debito in Tokyo

France 24 TV & Trans Pacific Radio on Fingerprinting: “Japan’s 1984”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. TV Network France 24 has a good report on the FP policy, with an interview with a national bureaucrat, Teranaka Makoto of Amnesty International, and yours truly.

////////////////////////////////////////////
English:
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Japan’s 1984: Japanese authorities have introduced American-style immigration law. Foreigners will have to be fingerprinted and photographed evey time they enter the country – a law that some regard as Orwellian. (Report: N. Tourret)

http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/reportages/20071120-japan-society-immigration-law-fingerprint.html

Francais:
mardi 20 novembre 2007
Le Japon durcit les conditions de circulation: Le Japon a durcit sa législation vis-à-vis des voyageurs étrangers. Désormais, photographies et empreintes digitales seront imposés dans les aéroports. Le sujet suscite un large débat. (Reportage : N. Tourret)
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/fr/reportages/20071120-japon-loi-immigration-empreinte-digitale-photographie.html
////////////////////////////////////////////

While I’m at it, here is a link to my latest podcast, up on Trans Pacific Radio. Yes, it has information on fingerprinting, of course…

http://www.transpacificradio.com/2007/11/22/debitoorg-newsletter-for-november-19-2007/

Also, to people who have written me emails recently–they’re piling up in my in-tray at the moment, sorry. I will get to them when I have some time (and also translate a couple of favorable articles on the FP issue from the Hokkaido Shinbun), but I’ve got two speeches I’ve gotta work on coming up this weekend at JALT Tokyo, regarding job searches for their Job Information Center:

==========================
Getting a job in Japanese academia: Avoiding pitfalls
Arudou Debito

* Saturday, 4:10 pm – 5:10 pm, Room 102
* Sunday, 9:50 am – 10:50 am, Room 102

Japanese academia is in crisis. Although demand for language education is not in jeopardy, the number of secure jobs for both Japanese and non-Japanese is shrinking, as contracted work replaces tenure. The times require job searches with eyes wide open. This workshop will give some advice on how to avoid the potentially lousy jobs, some job-condition benchmarks, and some things to ask your potential employer before taking a job that could have no secure future.
==========================
http://conferences.jalt.org/2007/pd-workshops

Perhaps see you there. Jumping on a plane to Tokyo in a few hours, Arudou Debito in Sapporo

Mainichi: MOJ will force NJ refusers to be incarcerated, fingerprinted

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. According to the Mainichi today, the Justice Ministry has now issued a “tsuuchi” directive (the GOJ Mandarins’ way of minting laws without going through a legislative body) granting Immigration more powers. People who refuse to get fingerprinted will not only be refused at the border, but also forced to have fingerprints taken. as well as a physical inspection and incarceration in the airport Gaijin Tank.

What this means in the event uncooperative Permanent Residents and their Japanese spouses, the article notes, is incarceration with “extra persuasion”–without, they say, the threat of force. With all this extralegality going on, fat chance. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

FOREIGN FINGERPRINTING: NONCOMPLIERS FORCED TO BE FINGERPRINTED: MOJ
Mainichi Shinbun November 21, 2007
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20071121-00000017-mai-soci&kz=soci
Translated by Arudou Debito, Courtesy of Tony K

As an anti-terrorism etc. measure under the new Immigration inspection system, requiring fingerprints from all foreigners coming to Japan [sic], the Mainichi has learned that The Ministry of Justice’s Immigration Bureau has issued a directive (tsuuchi) to all regional divisions, saying that foreigners who refuse fingerprinting and rejection at the border [sic] are to be forced to be fingerprinted.

Although the Ministry of Justice originally explained this system as an “offering” (teikyou) of fingerprints without coercion, they have now indicated that they will impliment this measure with the option of compulsion (kyouseiryoku) against anyone who refuses. It is anticipated that this will strengthen criticisms that “this system is treating foreigners as criminals”.

This policy of collecting biometric data is being effected at airports and seaports whenever foreigners enter the country, compared on the spot with stored Immigration data of people with histories of being deported from Japan, or blacklisted overseas. If fingerprints match, entry into the country will be denied, as will people who refuse to cooperate with the collection of data.

If the person denied refuses to comply with the deportation order, Immigration will impliment forceable deportation orders and render the person to a holding cell within the airport. Whether or not fingerprints will be taken during incarceration had until now not been made clear.

However, based upon an Immigration directive issued during the first week of this month, it is now clear that “for safety concerns, when necessary people may now have their bodies inspected (shintai kensa)”, and Immigration officers have now been empowered to take fingerprints from those who refuse to cooperate. The directive also demands video recording of the proceedings.

Afterwards, refusers will be rendered to the appropriate transportation authorities for deportation. However, in the case of Permanent Residents and their Japanese spouses who have livelihoods in Japan, what the “country of return” for deportation will exactly mean is bound to present a problem. Immigration officials reply, “We will sufficiently persuade (settoku) the refuser to cooperate, and endeavor not to do this by force.”

According to a source familiar with Immigration laws, Immigration searches are something done in the case when a foreign national is under suspicion for breaking the law, such as overstaying his visa. In principle, fingerprinting is a voluntary act, and forceable fingerprinting rarely occurs. The source adds, “If we just don’t let the refuser into the country, there’s nothing dangerous they can do.” He questions whether or not it is justifiable to forceably fingerprint the person and add them to a blacklist of deportees.

Ryuugoku University Professor Tanaka Hiroshi, a specialist on human rights involving non Japanese, adds, “This type of foreigner fingerprinting system was once in place and people refused to cooperate. But now in its place we have not only criminal penalities, but also the extreme measure of refusing them entry into the country. This ministerial directive has little legal basis in its extreme sanctions.”

ENDS

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

OFFICIAL TRANSLATION BY THE MAINICHI, FOR YOUR COMPARISON:

Gov’t orders forced fingerprinting of foreigners refusing to give prints at entry ports
Mainichi Shinbun Nov 21, 2007
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071121p2a00m0na033000c.html

The Justice Ministry has instructed regional immigration bureaus to forcibly take fingerprints from foreigners who refuse to be fingerprinted or to leave the country, sources close to the ministry said.

The ministry’s Immigration Bureau sent the directive to regional immigration bureaus prior to the introduction of a system on Tuesday, under which all foreigners who enter Japan, except for a limited number of people such as special permanent residents and visitors under the age of 16, must be photographed and fingerprinted at airports and ports.

The ministry had explained that it had no intention of forcibly taking fingerprints from foreigners who visit Japan.

The directive cites a clause in the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law, which empowers immigration officers to conduct body checks on foreign visitors if such measures are necessary for safety reasons. It then urges immigration officers to forcibly take fingerprints from those who refuse to cooperate and film them on video.
ENDS

毎日：＜外国人指紋採取＞「拒否者には強制力行使も」…法務省通知

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

＜外国人指紋採取＞「拒否者には強制力行使も」…法務省通知
11月21日2時31分配信 毎日新聞
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20071121-00000017-mai-soci&kz=soci
Courtesy of Tony K

　テロ対策などのため、２０日始まった来日外国人に指紋提供を義務付ける入国審査制度で、法務省入国管理局が、指紋提供と退去を拒否する外国人は収容し強制的に採取するよう地方の各入国管理局に通知していたことが分かった。同制度について、法務省は強制的に指紋採取はしないとして「提供」と説明してきたが、拒否者に対して強制力で臨む措置を指示した形だ。「外国人を犯罪者扱いする運用」との批判が強まりそうだ。

　指紋の採取や顔写真の撮影は、空港、港での入国審査時に実施し、その場で入管が保有する過去の強制退去者、国際指名手配犯などのリストと照合。一致した者は入国拒否され、提供拒否も国外退去となる。退去命令にも従わない場合、入管は強制退去手続きに移行し、身柄を空港内の収容場に収容する。その際に指紋を採るかどうかは明らかにされてなかった。

　ところが、今月上旬に出た法務省入管局警備課長通知は「保安上の必要がある時は身体検査できる」などの入管法の規定を根拠に、入国警備官に強制力をもって拒否者から指紋を採取するよう指示。同時にビデオ撮影することも求めている。

　その後、拒否者は運航業者に引き渡し、強制退去させる流れとなるが、永住者や日本人の配偶者がいるなど国内で生活する人は「戻る国」がなく、対応が問題になりそうだ。入管局幹部は「拒否者にも十分に説得を重ね、強制しなくてもすむよう努める」と話す。

　入管法に詳しい関係者によると、不法残留容疑などで外国人の違反調査を行い、指紋を採るのは任意が原則で、強制採取はほとんどないという。関係者は「拒否者は入国できない以上、危険が国内に持ち込まれることはない。さらに指紋を強制的に採取し強制退去者リストに保存する正当性はあるのか」と批判する。

　外国人の人権問題に詳しい田中宏・龍谷大教授は「全廃された外国人登録の際の指紋押なつ拒否についても、刑事罰のうえに再入国不許可という過剰な制裁を加えていた。今回の通知内容も法的根拠に乏しく、同様の発想による過剰制裁だ」と話している。
ENDS

Primary source info: Application Form for NJ preregistry of fingerprints

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. No matter where you are in Japan, if you want to play ball and preregister your biometric data, go to Tokyo. More on the difficulties involving that procedure here, from somebody who made the trip from Kobe and had a pretty lousy time once there.

Never mind–even permanent residents are still gaijin and potential terrorists, so lump it. It’s for our safety–“our” especially meaning us “kokumin”. How many more hoops will Japan make its residents jump through before it realizes this will lead to an exodus of business and money? Text courtesy of Shaney. Arudou Debito

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

Please find the attached “Application Form for User Registration of the Automated Gates” and “User’s guide”. If you wish pre-registration, please complete the application form and bring in the application counter.

To: All foreign national employees,

We would like to advise you of an important change in immigration procedures for foreign nationals.

The change is intended to prevent terrorism and is due to a partial amendment of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.

With effect from 20 November 2007, fingerprints and a facial photograph will be taken as mandatory requirement when foreign nationals enter Japan.

This will not only apply to tourists but also to holders of foreign registration card holders and/or re-entry permit.

If foreign nationals refuse to provide fingerprints and a facial photo, the entry will be denied and such person will be asked to leave Japan.

For details, please view the video “Landing Examination Procedures for Japan are Changing!” available in English, Chinese and Korean.

The video runs for approximately five and a half minutes.

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

For Chinese http://nettv.gov-online.go.jp/prg/prg1204.html

For Korean http://nettv.gov-online.go.jp/prg/prg1205.html

Also here is the link in English & Japanese.

English: http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/english/keiziban/happyou/video.html

Japanese: http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/keiziban/happyou/biometric.pdf

At the same time, from 20 November 2007, Narita airport will implement an automated gate system.

The system is designed to simplify and accelerate emigration and immigration procedures.

Foreign nationals who wish to go through the automated gate are required to pre-register by submitting their ID (face photograph & fingerprint).

The application for registration will be accepted at Tokyo Immigration Bureau in Shinagawa or Tokyo Immigration Bureau Narita Airport Branch.

You will be asked to submit your passport and the registration application form, and your face will be photographed and both index fingers be fingerprinted.

Please find attached the English translation of the official document by Ministry of Justice. 
ENDS

Yomiuri & Nikkei trumpet 5 NJ snagged by Fingerprinting system. Sankei says FP system not snagger.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Here is a link to three articles in Japanese trumpeting the success of the new Fingerprinting system–all done in the middle of the night so as to make the morning editions. Hey, we caught ’em, see how the system is working and how much we need it? Despite the fact that it was also reported yesterday that nobody was refused at all.

That’s right, actually. Read beyond the Sankei headline. Three of the five were caught for funny passports, the other two for other reasons left unclear but at Immigration’s discretion. Which means bagging these five was unrelated to the Fingerprint policy. In other words, this sort of thing happens on a daily basis and is not news. Unless there is a political reason for making it so. Guess what that political reason is. The fix is really in.

Anyway, two of the articles follow in translation. Two associations to make: fingertips and sandpaper. You’ll see what I mean in the Sankei article. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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

FIVE PEOPLE REFUSED ENTRY TO JAPAN FOR “PREVIOUS HISTORY”

System to inspect fingerprints and facial photos

Sankei Shinbun November 21, 2007 02:02AM

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/affairs/crime/071121/crm0711210203000-n1.htm

(Translated by Arudou Debito)

With the new new Immigration system requiring facial photos and finger from all foreigners over the age of 16 [sic–not completely correct as stated] being launched from November 20, five people’s fingerprints matched those of people who had been refused entry in the past in the database, according to the Ministry of Justice.

Of those five, it seems three were using altered or falsified passports, and were processed for deportation. The remaining two were given orders to leave. No foreigner was refused entry at the border due to them refusing to give fingerprints.

The Justice Ministry also announced that at Obihiro, Narita, Chubu International, and Fukuoka Airports, as well as at Hakata seaport, a total of 21 people’s fingerprints were impossible to read. The reason seems to be that they were elderly and thus had worn-down fingers.

Those 21 were given oral interviews by Immigration and allowed in. The Ministry added that “Under Immigration directives, if we can’t scan their fingerprints properly, we still will process them for entry into Japan.”

Only one machine was completely inoperative, at Fushiki Toyama Port. Immigration said, “We had problems for a little while and there were cases of delays in processing, and our standards slipped due to all the rush.”

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

FIVE PEOPLE MATCH FINGERPRINT BLACKLIST; DENIED ENTRY AT THE BORDER

Yomiuri Shinbun November 21 2007 03:09AM

(Translated by Arudou Debito)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20071121i401.htm

With the amendment of the Immigration and Refugee Control Act, as of November 20 all foreigners [sic again] coming to Japan must be fingerprinted. As a result, 5 people were denied entry, as their fingerprints matched those on a “blacklist”.

Most of those people had been deported in the past, or had tried to come into Japan on fake passports. One person was immediately deported, while the remainder were issued orders to leave.

The blacklist includes data such as 1) 14,000 names created by Interpol (ICPO) with the Japanese police, 2) about 800,000 names of people who have been deported for overstaying their visas in Japan.

With the advent of the Immigration Act revisions, new entry procedures were enacted in ports of entry such as Narita, Kansai and Osaka Airports, and those five people matched the fingerprints on the blacklist.

On the other hand, there were several problems with people not having their fingerprints readable.

At Hakata seaport, several tourist groups from Pusan, Korea, had trouble having their fingerprints scanned upon entry. So four people were waived through with a passport check. According to Immigration at Fukuoka Hakata, “They were elderly whose fingerprints are hard to read.”

According to the Ministry of Justice Immigration Bureau, there were a total of 21 cases where people’s fingerprints were unscanable, at places such as Hakata, Narita, and Chubu International. Also, at Toyama Port, one of five scanning machines was inoperable and decommissioned.

ENDS

読売・産經・日経：「５人強制退去」だが、指紋採取制度と無関係

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

ブロブの皆様、きのう「誰も断らなかった」が報道されたが、こうやってメディアは正当化するね。特にこの新聞は早い者勝ちしているのは意外ではないね。しかし、見出し以外を読むと、「うち３人は偽造・変造パスポートを使用したとみられ、強制退去の手続きに入った。残る２人にも退去命令が出される見通し。　指紋や顔写真の提供を拒んで入国拒否となった外国人はいなかった。」（産經）。つまり、これは新制度と無関係だった。これは毎日の出来事みたいで、なぜニュースになったのでしょうか。有道　出人

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５人に「前歴」　強制退去へ　指紋・顔写真の新入国審査
産經新聞　2007.11.21 02:02
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/affairs/crime/071121/crm0711210203000-n1.htm

　１６歳以上の外国人に入国審査で指紋、顔写真の提供を義務付ける新制度の運用が２０日始まり、法務省によると、計５人の指紋が、過去に強制退去となって来日が許可されていない人物のデータベースと一致した。

　うち３人は偽造・変造パスポートを使用したとみられ、強制退去の手続きに入った。残る２人にも退去命令が出される見通し。　指紋や顔写真の提供を拒んで入国拒否となった外国人はいなかった。

　法務省はまた、この日帯広、成田、中部国際、福岡の４空港と博多港で、計２１人の指紋がスキャナーで読み取れなかったと発表。高齢で指紋がすり減るなどしたのが理由とみられるという。

　この２１人は口頭での審査を経て入国。同省は「省令などに基づき、指紋が読み取れない場合でも入国審査手続きを進めることができる」としている。

　不具合で使用できなかった指紋読み取り装置は伏木富山港の１台だけ。法務省入管局は「一時的なトラブルで審査時間が延びたケースがあったことは反省すべきだが、大きな混乱はなく順調な滑り出し」としている。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

入管指紋採取でブラックリストと一致、５人の入国認めず
（2007年11月21日3時9分 読売新聞）
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20071121i401.htm

　改正出入国管理・難民認定法の施行初日の２０日、来日外国人に義務づけられた指紋採取の結果、５人について、入国が認められない「ブラックリスト」の人物の指紋と一致したことが明らかになった。

　過去に日本から強制送還となり、偽造パスポートなどで入国しようとした人物が大半と見られる。法務省入国管理局は１人を強制送還とし、４人に退去命令などを出す方向だ。

　リストは、〈１〉国際刑事警察機構（ＩＣＰＯ）と日本の警察が指名手配した約１万４０００人〈２〉不法滞在するなどして強制送還となった約８０万人――らの指紋のデータが含まれている。

　改正入管法の施行に伴い、成田、関空両空港や大阪港などで新たな入国管理が実施され、このうちの５人の指紋がブラックリストと一致した。

　一方、各地の空港や港などで指紋が採取できないなどのトラブルが相次いだ。

　博多港では、韓国・釜山からの数十人の団体客が入国審査を受けた際、指紋採取にトラブルが発生したため、４人の指紋採取を断念、旅券審査などを行った上で、入国を許可した。福岡入国管理局博多港出張所は「高齢の方で指紋が読み取りにくくなり、採取できなかった」としている。

　法務省入国管理局によると、指紋が採取できなかったケースは博多港、成田空港、中部国際空港などで計２１件あった。また、富山港では５台ある指紋採取用の機器のうち１台が不調となり、使用を中止した。

（2007年11月21日3時9分 読売新聞）
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Nikkei112007.jpg

ENDS

NYT on Fingerprinting: “Disaster for J business”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Much the same ground covered in this article as others. But good to see a write-up this thorough making a splash throughout the US East Coast–in the Old Grey Lady, no less (a paper the GOJ takes most seriously of all overseas publications). Debito in Sapporo

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

New Japanese Immigration Controls Worry Foreigners
New York Times November 18, 2007
By MARTIN FACKLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/asia/18japan-1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

TOKYO, Nov. 17 — Japan has tried hard in recent years to shake its image as an overly insular society and offer a warmer welcome to foreign investors and tourists. But the country is about to impose strict immigration controls that many fear could deter visitors and discourage businesses from locating here.

On Tuesday, Japan will put in place one of the toughest systems in the developed world for monitoring foreign visitors. Modeled on the United States’ controversial U.S.-Visit program, it will require foreign citizens to be fingerprinted, photographed and questioned every time they enter Japan.

The screening will extend even to Japan’s 2.1 million foreign residents, many of whom fear they will soon face clogged immigration lines whenever they enter the country. People exempted from the checks include children under 16, diplomats and “special permanent residents,” a euphemism for Koreans and other Asians brought to Japan as slave laborers during World War II and their descendants.

The authorities say such thorough screening is needed to protect Japan from attacks by foreign terrorists, which many fear here because of Japan’s support for the United States in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the measures, part of an immigration law enacted last year, have been criticized by civil rights groups and foreign residents’ associations as too sweeping and unnecessarily burdensome to foreigners. They note that the only significant terrorist attack in Japan in recent decades was carried out by a domestic religious sect, which released sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995, killing 12 people.

Some of the most vocal critics have been among foreign business leaders, who say the screening could hurt Japan’s standing as an Asian business center, especially if it is inefficiently carried out, leading to long waits at airports. Business groups here warn that such delays could make Japan less attractive than rival commercial hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore, where entry procedures are much easier.

The business groups also contend that the screening runs counter to recent efforts by the government to attract more foreign investment and tourism.

“If businessmen based here have to line up for two hours every time they come back from traveling, it will be a disaster,” said Jakob Edberg, policy director in the Tokyo office of the European Business Council. “This will affect real business decisions, like whether to base here.”

Business groups also fault the government for bungling the few attempts it has made at explanation. Two weeks ago, the justice minister created a commotion when he defended the new measures by stating that “a friend of a friend” who belonged to Al Qaeda had entered the country repeatedly using forged passports. The government scrambled to say that the minister, Kunio Hatoyama, had never had direct contact with the alleged Qaeda member.

However, some civil rights groups worry that the government is using terrorism to mask a deeper, xenophobic motive behind the new measures. They say that within Japan, the government has justified the screening as an anticrime measure, playing to widely held fears that an influx of foreigners is threatening Japan’s safe streets.

These groups also note that fingerprinting of foreigners is not new here. Until fairly recently, all foreign residents were routinely fingerprinted. That practice was phased out after years of protest by foreign residents and civil rights groups.

“Terrorism looks like an excuse to revive to the old system for monitoring foreigners,” said Sonoko Kawakami at Amnesty International in Japan. “We worry that the real point of these measures is just to keep foreigners out of Japan.”

One request made by the European Business Council, the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan and other business groups is to add special lines at airports for foreign residents, and especially frequent business travelers.

Until now, foreign residents have been allowed to use the same lines at airport immigration as Japanese citizens, speeding their entry. But the new law will bar them from doing so.

Only the Tokyo area’s main international airport at Narita has agreed to set aside lines for foreign residents. Others, including the nation’s second-largest airport, Kansai International near Osaka, will force these residents to line up with other foreigners, who even before the new screening often waited an hour or more to pass through immigration.

That irks Martin Issott, 59, a Briton and the regional director for a British chemical company who has lived in Japan for 20 years. Mr. Issott said he used the Kansai airport two or three times a month for business trips. He uses the immigration line for Japanese citizens and never waits more than five minutes. He said he feared that the change in rules would result in long waits at the end of every trip.

“I have no problem complying with the letter of this law,” said Mr. Issott, who lives in the western city of Kobe. “But I am utterly disgusted that they haven’t found a way to make this quicker and more painless.”
ENDS

Asahi: Tokyo Narita Immigration loses personal data for 432 NJ

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. Been a busy day, what with the Fingerprinting fiasco. This will be the last article (for tonight anyway) related to the issue.

One of Immigration’s mantras has been how they will take proper care of all the biometric data they drag out of their gaijin patsies.

I’m not confident of that, in light of what happened last May. This article has been sitting in my blog intray for months now, but I had a feeling it would become very relevant soon. Here it is. Incompetence in spades, these people. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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TOKYO IMMIGRATION BUREAU LOSES PERSONAL DATA FOR TOTAL 432 FOREIGNERS
Asahi Shinbun March 28, 2007
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0528/TKY200705280376.html
or
https://www.debito.org/?p=437
(Translated by Arudou Debito)

TOKYO – Tokyo Immigration announced on March 28 that it had lost flash memory at its headquarters and Narita Airport Branch, regarding personal information for visa overstayers and deported foreigners. They say that no trace of it remains, and there is no danger of the data being misused.

The same agency said last December that an Immigration official in his thirties, based at headquarters, had lost saved memory–names, dates of birth, embarkation points, and other documented details–for 137 foreign overstayers currently being processed for deportation. Also last December, another official in his twenties based at Narita had lost saved memory in the form of a “deportation notebook”. In that, an additional 295 foreigners had had their names, dates of birth, reasons for deporting etc. recorded for deportation.
ENDS

朝日：外国人計４３２人分の個人情報を紛失　東京入管

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

ブログの皆様、入管は「指紋などのデータを大事にする」というものの、こういうことも今年５月にあったことです。きちんと管理することに自信はありません。有道　出人

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外国人計４３２人分の個人情報を紛失　東京入管
朝日新聞　2007年05月28日18時47分
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0528/TKY200705280376.html

　東京入国管理局は、外国人の不法残留者や強制送還対象者の個人情報が書き込まれた小型記録媒体（フラッシュメモリー）を本庁舎と成田空港支局内でそれぞれ紛失した、と２８日発表した。現時点では情報が悪用された形跡はないという。

　同局によると、昨年１２月、本庁舎内で３０代の入国警備官が不法残留・滞在などで退去手続き中の外国人１３７人分の氏名や生年月日、入国の経緯などの調査書類を保存したメモリーを紛失した。成田支局でも昨年１２月、２０代の入国警備官が「送還台帳」を保存したメモリーを紛失。強制送還対象の外国人２９５人分の氏名や生年月日、送還理由などが記録されていたという。
ENDS

Kobe Regatta Club Prez Dr Sadhwani on NJ Fingerprinting debacle

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Hi Blog. This is a letter from Dr Deepu Sadhwani, President of the oldest group of long-term NJ in the Kansai, Kobe Regatta & Athletic Club. These are his thoughts on the NJ Fingerprinting policy, blogged with permission. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Hi All,

An unedited version of an article that will go in our monthly mag. this weekend. It also goes out electronically to hundreds on our list both here and abroad.

Regards, Deepu

Many of you will probably be travelling out of the country during the next few weeks. When you return you will find that you will be treated as a second class citizen or worse. The new immigration law that came into effect on November 20th. 2007 treats all expatriates as such. You will be finger-printed and photographed each time you re-enter Japan. George Orwell would say, i told you so!!

The local authorities even contradict their own laws and resolutions by not installing proper equipment in all the airports and therefore it will take you hours before you can exit the terminal due to the long queues you will have to face. Narita airport being the exception. In a country that has had the Alien Registration system in place for years, a system that was already regarded as being insulting, why would the authorities need to verify information they already have?

It may be understandable in today’s difficult world that a first time visitor be obliged to go through this procedure. But for one who has all the proper documentation, for one who has visited on numerous occasions or lived here for a long time and for those who have Japanese partners and/or permanent residency, how can you sit back passively and see these perverted laws being enacted before your very eyes? It is time for each and everyone of us to make a stand. You have all recently been forwarded mail received from Mr. Debito and Mr. Issott, two concerned people who are really trying, mail that gives plenty of information and suggestions as to what we can do.

The way the authorities are going about welcoming expatriates to Japan is the equivalent of International political Hara-Kiri. Why would any expatriate business people who travel a lot want to be based in Japan? Most of the other countries in South East Asia offer simplified procedures that allow for easy travel and or transit. With the way it’s going now, i fear that we will lose many more expatriates and Kobe most of all can least afford that scenario.

We can all sit back and say, well if they’re going to get you they’re going to get you. Just like Asashoryu, they’re going to get you. We can also make a stand and express our grievances starting with our embassies. Isn’t that what they are there for? Don’t let them pass the buck. It is their duty, one where they must act in the interest of all the expatriates.

The new law is not the only area of major concern. In case you missed it, Mr. Debito wrote a very informative article in the Japan Times regarding the laws on checking of Alien Registration cards and with his permission, for which i am very thankful, reproduce some of the pertinent facts.

“The police have now deputized the whole nation to check on our cards and they get away with it as most of us do not know our rights and or the laws. When a cop demands to see your card on the street, you are not required to show it unless the officer shows you his ID first under the Foreign Registry Law (Article 13). Ask for the officer’s card and write it down. Furthemore, under the Police Execution of Duties Law (Article 2), cops aren’t allowed to ask anyone for ID without probable cause for suspicion of crime. Just being a foreigner doesn’t count. Point that out. And as for gaijin-carding by employers, under the new law (Article 28) you are under no obligation to say anything more than what your visa status is, and that it is valid.”

So you see dear readers, there’s possibly much more to come if we don’t utilize all of our forces at our command now to point out these fallible procedures and laws. Please send your comments to the General Committee to give us more strength in conveying this message to the authorities. Tell everyone you know to write to any figure of authority. Any help from you will make this wave of protest that much stronger. Do not remain silent.

Yours sincerely,
Dr. Deepu Sadhwani
President
KR&AC
ENDS

NHK 7PM on Fingerprinting (You Tube), plus 11PM news programs and CNN

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

mytest

Vincent has uploaded the Nov 20 NHK 7pm Evening News segment about fingerprinting (2 min 52 sec, English dubbing) on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XZzPg9pk5U

Same with NHK Newswatch 9pm. Somewhat longer and more detailed than Evening News 7pm. Uploaded in Youtube (6 min 10 sec), and with a greater attempt at balance (but still far more airtime given to making the GOJ’s case). Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA9wYkwvaIQ

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As for the Nov 20 11PM News shows (10PM’s News Station put it on as a blurb at the very end).

I watched Chikushi Tetsuya’s News 23–they featured the FP story very prominently with an interview with critics (Amnesty’s Teranaka saying that FP has caught very few people, if any, and is in no way an effective measure) and even a rupo at the AI/SMJ demonstration at noon today. There were some interviews included with NJ who grumbled about the wait. Summary comments by anchors at the end questioned why Japan was even instituting the program at all.

Also Zero news gave it about five minutes early, with some more coverage of machines not behaving properly, and very annoyed tourists (one elderly Korean using some really impressive angry English). The point of both was that this whole thing was a mess.

NHK BS 10:50 didn’t even bother to have it in their headlines. As others have said, it makes one wonder why NJ would ever bother to pay any NHK fees. When something like this affects at least 1.5 million Japanese residents (millions more if you include their Japanese families), this is unignorable news. Whatever coverage there was basically toed the GOJ line and gave little, if any, coverage to the controversy. Very, very disappointing NHK.

Finally, CNN, courtesy of Olaf:
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Japan begins identifying foreigners
CNN, November 20, 2007
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/20/japan.foreigners.ap/index.html
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Diplomats, government workers, permanent residents exempt from practice
Japan is second country after U.S. to implement practices
Tokyo says move made to combat international terrorism
Critics say practice is discriminatory and violates privacy

NARITA, Japan (AP) — Japan started fingerprinting and photographing arriving foreigners Tuesday in a crackdown on terrorists, despite complaints that the measures unfairly target non-Japanese.

Nearly all foreigners age 16 or over, including longtime residents, will be scanned. The only exceptions are diplomats, government guests and permanent residents such as Koreans who have lived in Japan for generations.

Tokyo has staunchly backed the U.S.-led attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, raising fears Japan could be targeted by terrorists.

Officials said the new security measures, while inconvenient for visitors, were necessary.

“There are people who change their names, use wrongly obtained passports, and pretend to be other people,” said Toshihiro Higaki, an immigration official at Narita International Airport near Tokyo. “The measure also works as a deterrent.”

The fingerprints and photos will be checked for matches on terrorist watch lists and files on foreigners with criminal records in Japan. People matching the data will be denied entry and deported.

Japan is the second country after the United States to implement such a system, said Immigration Bureau official Takumi Sato.

He said there had been no reports of trouble since the checks began Tuesday morning.

Critics, however, said the measures discriminate against foreigners and violate their privacy. A group of nearly 70 civic groups from around the world delivered a letter of protest Monday to Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama.

“We believe that your plans … are a gross and disproportionate infringement upon civil liberties, copying the most ineffective, costly and risky practices on border management from around the world,” the letter said.

Immigration officials say the bureau plans to store the data for “a long time,” without saying how long. It is unclear how many people will be affected; Japan had 8.11 million foreign entries in 2006.

Concerns about extremists coming into Japan spiked when reports emerged in May 2004 that Lionel Dumont, a French citizen with suspected links to al Qaeda and a history of violent crime, repeatedly entered the country on a fake passport.

Dumont, who was later sentenced to 30 years in prison in France, was reportedly trying to set up a terror cell when he lived undisturbed in Japan in 2002 and 2003.

Last month, Justice Minister Hatoyama came under fire over his assertion that a friend of his had an acquaintance who was a member of the al Qaeda terrorist group.
ENDS