Search Results for: lawsuit

Reuters: Visible Minorities (“Foreign-born residents”) file lawsuit against government for police racial profiling. Good. Go for it.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Reuters: Three foreign-born residents of Japan filed a lawsuit on Monday against the national and local governments over alleged illegal questioning by police based on racial profiling. It is the first such lawsuit in Japan, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, and comes amid a sharp rise in the number of foreign workers coming to the country to help stem labour shortages as its population ages and declines.

The three men filed the lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court demanding that the national, Tokyo Metropolitan and Aichi Prefecture governments recognise that it is illegal for police officers to stop and question people solely on the basis of their race, nationality or ethnicity.

COMMENT: This has made big international news, the likes I haven’t really seen since the Otaru Onsens Case.  Good. Debito.org has reported at length on how racial profiling is standard operating procedure for the Japanese police, so it’s an issue that deserves to be pursued in court. We’ve also sued the government before, and think it’s unlikely they’ll win (we didn’t). But it’s worth doing for the awareness raising. If we can get it on the record that the judiciary recognizes this as “racial profiling”, or even that “racial profiling” actually exists in Japan as a term and a phenomenon, this will be a big step ahead. Plaintiffs, go for it, and good luck, says Debito.org.

Senaiho’s final update on Yamanashi School Bullying Lawsuit: They basically lost, because bullying is an “expected and normal” part of Japanese Education (UPDATED with full court decision text)

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Senaiho: We received a judgment from the Yamanashi Circuit Court in our case against the bullies of our daughter resulting in the school cutting her hair and her dropping out of school. In a Readers Digest version of the judgment, we lost. The court ruled that while recognizing the fact that bullying was present, it did not amount to enough abuse that would merit awarding any damages. A certain amount of teasing is expected and a normal part of the Japanese educational system, in the court’s opinion, so zero amount is awarded.

There is no hiding our disappointment in this judgment, so I won’t try to white-wash it. It sends the message that it is OK to bully others for whatever reason in Japanese education, as long as there are no serious physical effects, such as severe injury, death, or suicide. There was no mention whatsoever of anything related to racial motivations in our case.

Followup: Mark proposes a class-action lawsuit, against Japan Govt for Foreign Resident Travel Ban, to Human Rights Watch Japan

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Mark: I would like to point the fact that foreigners in Japan (including me) have been severely affected by a political decision implemented in the form of a travel ban. As a consequence, thousands of families in Japan have been divided and many have suffered mental distress. As a majority of foreign residents in Japan have low socioeconomic status, it is almost impossible for most “gaikokujin” to challenge the Travel Ban in courts in Tokyo (due to lawyer’s expenses).

I have been in contact with some academics and lawyers in Japan and one of them suggested the idea of filling a “Class Action Lawsuit” in Tokyo because the “Travel Ban” violates Article 14 of Japan’s Constitution:
第十四条　すべて国民は、法の下に平等であつて、人種、信条、性別、社会的身分又は門地により、政治的、経済的又は社会的関係において、差別されない。
Article 14. All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.

An American Lawyer at an International Firm in Tokyo privately agreed but recommended proceeding in court via an NGO. Would it be possible for Human Rights Watch Japan to fill a “Class Action Lawsuit” to protect migrants, refugees and all the foreign community in Japan? Others are welcome to contact Human Rights Watch Japan and offer their support.

UPDATE AUG 10, 2020 FROM MARK:
Debito.org readers are welcome to write how the travel ban affected you and your family. Please send a copy of your experience in your native language to: debitoorg.classaction.petrographers@protonmail.com
We are collecting evidence for a lawsuit and need your help! Any language is acceptable; English, Japanese, Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian), Chinese, Korean, etc.

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

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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

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

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

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

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

The district court ruled in September 2016 that Zaitokukai had made the statements with the intent to incite and intensify discrimination against Korean residents of Japan, and ordered the group to pay Lee 770,000 yen in damages. According to Lee’s attorney, in June 2017, the Osaka High Court became the first court to recognize that a plaintiff had been subjected to “composite discrimination” — in Lee’s case, ethnic and gender discrimination.  However, the high court upheld the lower court’s compensation amount of 770,000 yen. Zaitokukai appealed, but the Supreme Court’s Second Petty Bench turned down the appeal late last year, finalizing the Osaka High Court’s decision.

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

Debito comments:  The mistranslation is very indicative.  My take is that one of three things happened:

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

Asahi: Japanese living abroad plan unprecedented lawsuit demanding dual citizenship. Bravo!

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Here’s something interesting and something to support if you are a Japanese living abroad — the maintenance of your legal identity in the form of dual nationality.

The Asahi reports that several Japanese citizens in Europe unprecedentedly plan to sue the government to abolish the law forcing Japanese to pick one nationality if they take another. Some emigres also want to undo the damage and restore their Japanese nationality.

Naturally, Debito.org wholeheartedly supports this effort.  For too long the embedded binary of “you’re either Japanese or you’re not” (an Ichi-ro or a Ze-ro) has done untold social damage to people of multiple ethnicities and identities.  Nobody in power has ever really listened to them, so now it’s time for the monoethnic Japanese abroad, who want inclusivity for their newfound diversity, to take up the charge.  

Here’s hoping they get heard.  Because others who have championed this sort of thing (such as MP Kouno Taro nearly a decade ago) got nowhere even in their own ruling political party.  Enough Japanese already have dual.  Let’s have the law reflect reality (and not institutionalize identity policing) at last.

Plaintiff Ibrahim Yener provides Debito.org with details on his successful lawsuit against “Japanese Only” Nihon Autoplaza car company

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

As mentioned in the previous blog entry, Osaka resident Ibrahim Yener won his court case against a car company that refused him on the grounds (the company claims after the fact in court) of being a foreigner with insufficient Japanese language. However, Mr. Yener has just written in to Debito.org with more detail on his case, making it clear that arbitrary language barriers were merely a ruse to refuse all “foreigners” (even those with Japanese citizenship) their business. Fortunately, the exclusionary Defendant’s reasoning didn’t wash in court.

The Defendant, not mentioned in the Asahi article in the previous blog entry, is Nihon Autoplaza, and they offer services such as buying used cars on Japan’s very vibrant second-hand automobile auction market. (I have bought cars through that auction system before, and lack of access to it will have a significant impact on your ability to get a used car affordably in Japan, something quite necessary for people in Japan’s ruralities or for small businesses.) One more takeaway from this case is that, according to Mr. Yener, the Defendant acted even more idiotically in court, angering the judge. So I’m worried that this case might not have been as slam-dunk as it might seem for future victims of “Japanese Only” businesses who want to sue (because a lawsuit is the only real option Japan’s international residents have to protect themselves against discrimination).

NJ Osakan Ibrahim Yener wins lawsuit against “Japanese only” car dealer

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Another NJ wins in court against a “Japanese Only” establishment, this time a car dealer who wouldn’t send Osakan Plaintiff Ibrahim Yener information about their goods because he’s a foreigner.  Yener joins the ranks of Ana Bortz, the Otaru Onsen Plaintiffs, and Steve McGowan, all of whom won and/or lost in court in varying degrees.  

The positive thing to note here is that Mr. Yener filed suit all by himself, without legal representation, and still won.  He no doubt had the company dead to rights because he had their refusal in writing.  That means that anyone else with a case as watertight as his can also take it to court and win, and I advise people to do so whenever possible. The negative thing to note here is that once again the award amount has been reduced.  In the Bortz Case, the award was 2 million yen, in the Otaru Case it was 1 million yen per plaintiff, and in the McGowan Case, after a ludicrous defeat in lower court, it was eventually only 350,000 yen on appeal, which didn’t even come close to covering his legal fees.  In the Yener Case, it’s now been reduced to a paltry 200,000 yen, which means it’s a good thing he didn’t seek legal representation.  

Anyway, glad that Mr. Yener won.  It’s just a pity that after all this time and effort, there isn’t any deterrent of punitive damages against racial discriminators.  That’s why we need a criminal law against racial discrimination in Japan — because the excuse the Japanese government officially keeps making (that laws are unnecessary because there is a court system for redress) becomes less compelling with every lawsuit filed.

Paul Toland Case Update: Japan as a “black hole” for parental child abductions — Family Court lawsuit & press conference to raise awareness of issue

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Japan Times: A U.S. man seeking access to his daughter said Monday that the case is an opportunity for Japan to prove to the world it no longer tolerates parental child abduction. U.S. Navy Cmdr. Paul Toland is suing the mother of his Japanese ex-wife for denying access to his 13-year-old daughter. His former wife left with the child in 2003, at the age of 9 months, after their marriage failed. The woman committed suicide four years later.

Toland said his situation would amount to a “felony crime” in other countries with up-to-date family laws. “In Japan, this abduction by a nonparent is not only accepted, but it is condoned. I’m the only parent in the world to (my daughter),” Toland said, who is in Japan for the first time since the trial at the Tokyo Family Court kicked off in July. Toland said if the case is resolved it would demonstrate to the world that Japan is turning over a new leaf after years of notoriety as a “safe haven” for parental child abduction. If his daughter is not returned to him, he said, it will only alienate the nation further.

Interesting lawsuits: French “Flyjin” sues employer NHK for firing her during Fukushima Crisis, 8 US sailors sue TEPCO for lying about radiation dangers

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Here’s a couple of interesting lawsuits in the pipeline: A French woman being fired from NHK (despite 20 years working there) apparently for leaving Japan during the Fukushima crisis, and eight US Navy sailors suing TEPCO (from overseas) for lying about nuclear fallout dangers and exposing them to radiation.

No matter what you think about the act of litigation (and there are always those, such as House Gaijin Gregory Clark or tarento Daniel Kahl (see Komisarof, “At Home Abroad”, p. 100) who decry anything a NJ does in court, saying “they’re suing at the drop of a hat like the litigious Westerners they are” — even though millions of Japanese in Japan sue every year), these cases have the potential to reveal something interesting: 1) Blowing the lid off the Flyjin Myth of “fickle NJ leaving their work stations” once again, this time in the Japanese judiciary; and 2) showing whether international effects of GOJ negligence (and irradiating the food chain both domestically and internationally counts as such) is something that can be legally actionable from afar.

Kyodo: A French woman on Tuesday sued public broadcaster Japan Broadcasting Corp., or NHK, for dismissing her after she left Japan in response to a French government warning issued during the Fukushima nuclear crisis. Emmanuelle Bodin, 55, who had engaged in translation and radio work, said in a complaint filed with the Tokyo District Court that she had told her boss that she would return to work on March 30, 2011, but received a termination letter on March 22. Two days after the earthquake-tsunami disaster triggered the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant on March 11 that year, the French government advised its citizens to leave the Tokyo area.

Bloomberg: Tokyo Electric Power Co. is being sued for tens of millions of dollars by eight U.S. Navy sailors who claim that they were unwittingly exposed to radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant meltdowns and that Tepco lied about the dangers. The sailors aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan were involved in the Operation Tomodachi disaster relief operations following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region and led to the nuclear catastrophe, according to their complaint filed in U.S. federal court in San Diego on Dec. 21.

Japan Times on reaffirmed J workers’ “right to strike”, thanks to judicial precedent set by defeated 2012 nuisance lawsuit from eikaiwa Berlitz Inc.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

In one important NJ legacy, Japan’s courts have, according to the Japan Times, reaffirmed the right to strike for “laborers” (roudousha) in Japan’s private sector. Note that the right to strike has been denied to public-sector laborers — a legacy of SCAP’s “Reverse Course” of 1947-8 (Akira Suzuki, “The History of Labor in Japan in the Twentieth Century”, in Jan Lucassen, ed. “Global Labour History”, pg. 181), when the American occupiers were worried about Japan “going Red” like China and North Korea; to maintain administrative order, bureaucrats were explicitly denied the right to strike or engage in political activities (fortunately, they retained the right to vote; thanks for small favors). But in the face of eroding labor rights over the past few decades (when, for example, the rights of permanently-contracted workers to not have instant termination without reason, were being abused by unilateral contract terminations of NJ educators), a nuisance lawsuit by Berlitz against its eikaiwa workers fortunately ended up in the reaffirmation of their right to strike last February. Since we have talked about it on Debito.org at great length in the past, I just wanted to note this for the record. And say thanks, good job, for standing your ground for all of us.

Japan Times: Over 100 Berlitz Japan teachers struck over 3,000 lessons between December 2007 and November 2008 in order to win a 4.6-percent pay hike and one-off one-month bonus. The language school claimed the strikes were illegal mainly because the union gave little notice of the impending strikes… Tokyo District Court dismissed the entire case in its Feb. 27, 2012, verdict, reaffirming the powerful guarantee of the right to strike in Japan.

Mark Austin reports that Otaru, site of the famous onsen lawsuit, still has a “Japanese Only” establishment, “Monika”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Mark Austin: On Monday evening, after I’d visited the onsen at the Dormy Inn, where I was staying, I asked a receptionist at the hotel if she could recommend a pub or bar where I could have a beer and something to eat. She pointed me in the direction of the area west of the railway. I walked there and found loads of “snack” bars, which I didn’t want to enter. Then I found Monika and was told by a Mr. XXXXX that I wasn’t welcome there.

I pointed out to Mr. XXXXX (in Japanese) that his refusal to serve me constituted racial discrimination (I used the phrase “jinshu sabetsu”) and he agreed that it was, and defended this by merely saying, “Ma, sho ga nai.”

After about 10 minutes, I gave up (politely) arguing with Mr. XXXXX and left…

As an employee of the Otaru Tourism Association, I’m sure you’ll agree that your job description is to try to boost the local economy as much as possible by advertising the many attractions of Otaru, a beautiful city with a rich history in which foreigners played an important part from the late 19th century, to Japanese and non-Japanese people alike. In Otaru, foreigners (residents and tourists) and Japanese spend the same currency–yen. Is it asking too much that we be treated the same, as far as possible?

Saturday Tangent: How the US deals with Arizona racial profiling: Federal lawsuits and Jon Stewart humor

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

We’ve recently been discussing racial profiling on this blog, comparing what’s happening in Arizona with new immigration laws vs what goes on as SOP in Japanese police law enforcement and gaijin harassment.

What’s interesting for me is how the US deals with it: They actually discuss it. First watch this Jon Stewart Daily Show excerpt (courtesy of Dave Spector) on the subject and then we’ll woolgather:

Let’s recount the important differences apparent in this video:

1) In the US, they have not only a presidential administration making clear statements against racial profiling, but also a judiciary filing federal suit against errant state policy that would condone that. Imagine either of those happening in Japan.

2) In the US, the voices of minorities are actually being heard — and listened to — somewhere. Imagine THAT happening in Japan!

3) In the US, police training materials and the actual text of law enforcement are coming under scrutiny! Imagine… oh you get the idea.

4) In the US, they have things such as satire and sarcasm to enable people to take this apart with the very powerful tool of humor, and an investigative media that can hold people accountable for what they say and do! (God bless the Daily Show!)

Otaru Onsens 10th Anniv #6: How the J media whipped up fear of foreign crime from 2000 and linked it with lawsuit

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

In Part Six of this retrospective on the Otaru Onsens Case a decade on, I talk about how the J media misinterpreted the issues revolving around the “JAPANESE ONLY” signs up at Otaru Onsen Yunohana et al., and how they wound up fanning the fires of exclusionism by spreading fear of foreigners (particularly vis-a-vis foreign crime).

As I chart in book “JAPANESE ONLY”, when we first started this case in September 1999, NJ were seen as “misunderstood outsiders”, impaired by “culture” as their monkey on their back. But following GOJ policy putsches by politicians like then-PM Koizumi and Tokyo Gov Ishihara (who in April 2000 famously called upon the Nerima SDF to prepare for “foreigner roundups” to prevent riots in the case of a natural disaster), NJ became a public threat to Japan’s safety and internal security (even though NJ crime was always less than J crime both as a proportion and of course in terms of absolute numbers). Then more doors slammed shut and more signs barring NJ from entry went up — some of them direct copies of the signs in Otaru. Hey, as those onsens indicated, exclusionary signs are not illegal.

Thus, although we made progress in the first six months of the Otaru Onsens Case, getting signs down in two of Otaru’s three exclusionary onsen, we could not compete with the national government and media saturation, and lost all the ground we gained and then some. The media’s overfocus on NJ crime to this day affects the debate regarding assimilation.

Embedded videos of how the media could not escape linking NJ rights with foreign crime follow.

Otaru Onsens Case 10th Anniv #4: J Media reportage of the Feb 1, 2001 Lawsuit Filing in Sapporo District Court

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

In Part Four of this retrospective on the Otaru Onsens Case a decade on, I talk about how the J media received and reported on our filing of the lawsuit against Otaru Onsen Yunohana on February 1, 2001. The answer: Not well. Comment from me follows embedded videos about the disingenuousness of Otaru Onsen Yunohana, the City of Otaru, and the very media itself.

4) HBC NEWS (Locally broadcast March 27, 2001) on the OTARU ONSENS LAWSUIT FIRST HEARING (3 minutes). Otaru City claims impunity from CERD responsibilities due to local govt. status, while Yunohana Onsen tries to claim it was the victim in this case.

5) VARIOUS NEWS AGENCIES (Dosanko Wide, Hokkaido News, STV, and HBC) with various angles on OTARU ONSENS LAWSUIT FILING (Locally broadcast February 1, 2001) (15 minutes total). NB: HBC contains the only public interview given by Defendant Yunohana Onsen owner Hashimoto Hiromitsu. This interview was given live (the only way Hashimoto would agree to be interviewed, so that his comments would not be edited, according to reporter sources), where he states that he has never met us (of course; he always refused to meet us; the only time we would ever cross paths would be November 11, 2002, in the courtroom, when the Sapporo District Court came down in Plaintiffs’ favor).

THE OTARU ONSENS LAWSUIT, TEN YEARS ON: Article for Japonesia Review

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Today is the tenth anniversary of our visit, on September 19, 1999, to “Japanese Only” Yunohana Onsen et al in Otaru, a life-changing event that to this day has not been fully resolved — mainly because we still don’t have a law against racial discrimination in Japan. This situation remains more than 13 years after Japan effecting of the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, where it promised to take “all measures, including legislation” to effectively eliminate all forms of RD. And it deserves comment and reflection after years of protests, two books, countless articles, and successful lawsuits against the onsen (albeit not against the negligent City of Otaru).

My thoughts on this day are bittersweet. I know we did the right thing (as Olaf noted, when I called him today, people are still talking about the case), and we had a good outcome in court. But I judge things like this based upon whether or not they could ever happen again. The answer is, unfortunately, yes. After all, all Yunohana Onsen has to do is put up another “Japanese Only” sign and we’d have to take them to court all over again just to get it down. There is no law to stop it, nothing for authorities to enforce. Ten years later, it feels more overdue now than in 1999.

TITLE: THE OTARU ONSENS LAWSUIT: TEN YEARS ON

What has and has not changed regarding human rights for Non-Japanese in Japan…

Japan Times Zeit Gist on Berlitz’s lawsuit against unions for “strike damage”

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Here’s a landmark case, dismissed by activists as a “frivolous claim”, which will affect unions profoundly in future if the right to strike (a right, as the article notes, which is guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution Article 28 under organization and collective bargaining) is not held sacrosanct by a Japanese court.

Language school Berlitz, shortly after a request was filed with the authorities for an investigation of its employment practices, sued Begunto labor union for damages due to strikes. Although the article stops short of saying the epiphany-inducing words “union busting activities”, Berlitz below seems to playing for time in court, not even offering their reasons for their lawsuit by the appointed court date. Keep an eye on this case, readers. Next Labor Commission hearing date Feb 20 in Tokyo. Excerpt:

According to Hideyuki Morito, an attorney and Professor of Law at Sophia University, “There are four checkpoints as to propriety of the strike.” The striking union must be a qualified union under the Labor Union Act and the strike must be related to working conditions. The means of the strike must also be legal, so striking union members can’t occupy offices or interfere with operations. “In short, all they can do is not work ,” says Morito. Finally, unions must “try to bargain collectively with the employer before deciding to go on a strike and give a notice in advance when they will strike.”

Tadashi Hanami, professor emeritus at Sophia University, outlined what the company must prove to win. “The outcome of the court judgment depends almost entirely on whether the company can provide enough evidence to convince the judge that some of the union activities were maliciously carried out in order to intentionally cause undue damage, by disturbing normal running of day-by-day school business, thus exceeded the scope of legally protected bona fide collective actions as a kind of harassment.”

Japan Times Zeit Gist followup on Dec’s Otaru Onsen lawsuit analysis

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Last month the Japan Times put a cat amongst the pigeons last December with a Zeit Gist column about the Otaru Onsens Case, decrying the court ruling against racial discrimination as something undermining Japanese society.

It caused quite a stir, according to my editor, with most of the comments coming in critical of the thesis. Some of the responses were worth a reprint as a follow-up column, and that came out last Tuesday. Have a read. And yes, I briefly responded too (although only on this site as a comment), which I paste at the very bottom. Choice excerpt from the published rebuttal:

“De Vries’ primary objection to the Arudou judgment is that “the case was fought and won on the issue of racial discrimination when the policy being employed by the Yunohana onsen could more accurately be described as the racial application of ‘group accountability.’ ”

“Racial application of group accountability” sounds so much nicer than boring old “racial discrimination,” doesn’t it? The question is whether there really is any difference between the two. Sadly, De Vries offers no logical reasons why we should see his preferred version of these two (identical) concepts as being anything other than a new name for the same old discredited idea. To deny access to public facilities to an innocent individual because of the color of their skin is simply wrong, regardless of who is doing it or what their motives are.”

Otaru Onsens Lawsuit 2002 Sapporo District Court decision translated into English

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

“Hi Debito-san, I just wanted you to know that the [Otaru Onsens Lawsuit] Sapporo District Court decision of 11/11/02 is now available in English for the Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal Vol 9:2. Please feel free to set up a link to the following url on your own website”: http://www.hawaii.edu/aplpj/articles/APLPJ_09.2_webster.pdf

Next Valentine Lawsuit Hearing Feb 12, 2008 1:30PM

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Mr. Valentine, a Nigerian national, is defending himself against the Tokyo Metropolitan Government after a police beating incident which took place in Shinjuku almost 4 years ago. This is an appeal, as the District Court not only exonerated the NPA for refusing him medical treatment for his broken leg for the duration of his interrogation (which resulted him in becoming crippled for life), but also did so on such spurious grounds as ignoring expert medical testimony of the degree of injury, and dismissed testimony because it came from a black person. Come see his High Court appeal Tues Feb 12, 2008, 1:30PM.

川崎いじめ訴訟で１００万円の賠償命令–Ethnically-diverse Japanese bullied in school wins lawsuit

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

朝日など：小学生時代のいじめが原因でＰＴＳＤ＝心的外傷後ストレス傷害になったとして生徒と両親がいじめた側に損害賠償を求めた裁判の判決で横浜地裁川崎支部はいじめた同級生の両親に１００万円の支払いを命じました。

The Australian/Japan Today on Kanagawa Police rape case lawsuit loss

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Re Kanagawa Police rape case investigation: “At the [police] station, she says, she was denied medical treatment during the first six hours, though bruised, scraped and suffering a whiplash injury from the force of the assault. The attitude of the policemen throughout was coarse and mocking. She says no attempt was made by the police to preserve bodily samples as evidence. “Not only the rapist but even the Japanese police contributed to an abridgement of my civil and human rights,” she says. “I begged to be taken to a hospital from the onset of reporting the incident, but my pleas were repeatedly denied.” Even after finally being taken to a nearby hospital about 9 a.m., she says she was returned to the station about midday for a further three hours of questioning… And, at the end of it all, the Kanagawa police decided against charging Deans…

Valentine Lawsuit: Next Hearing Nov 20 11AM Tokyo High Court, join his support group.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Hi Blog. Nov 20 promises to be a busy day. If you’re not attending the Amnesty/SMJ Protest against Fingerprinting, then consider attending this event–in fact you can probably squeeze both of them in, since they’re both in Kasumigaseki. About a person allegedly brutalized by the police, but undoubtedly denied medical treatment while incarcerated, and crippled …

Shuukan Kinyobi/J Times: Vietnamese worker lawsuit against JITCO & Toyota-related company

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Hi Blog. Another lawsuit against an employer for bad work practices. This time around, however, the plaintiffs are NJ. Let’s hope their efforts both make the labor laws more clearly enforceable, and highlight more of the problems created by treating NJ laborers as inferior. Thanks to Shuukan Kin’youbi and people at the Japan Times for …

Valentine Lawsuit: NPA denies medical treatment to suspect, Tokyo Dist. Court rules testimony invalid due to witness being African

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

NPA denies medical treatment to Nigerian in custody with broken leg, latter becomes crippled. Nigerian plaintiff sues, but Tokyo District Court rules against him. Also overrules Plaintiff’s friend’s witness testimony invalid because he is African, an Plaintiff’s doctor’s medical opinion on the egregiousness of Plaintiff’s injuries as “not rational”. Fact is, coupling this lawsuit outcome with the McGowan “I don’t like black people” Osaka Eyeglass Store Case, not only do NJ increasingly have different standards of evidence in J courts, but now The NPA clearly can do pretty much whatever they want to NJ in custody, even if it causes permanent damage. Case is under appeal.

NEWSFLASH: NTV interviews Arudou Debito re 2-Channel Lawsuit

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

NEWS FLASH I got interviewed earlier tonight with Nippon TV (Ch 5 in Sapporo, Ch 4 in Tokyo). Details as follows: ///////////////////////////////////////////// 2-CHANNEL INTERNET BBS LIBEL ISSUE INTERVIEW WITH ARUDOU DEBITO, PLAINTIFF “NEWS ZERO” NEWS PROGRAM STARTS FROM 11:05 PM TONIGHT, JANUARY 16, 2007 ///////////////////////////////////////////// I’d send you a link for background on the issue …

J Times Dec 7 06: UNHCR “Japan cannot stop immigration”, Kyodo same day: Lawsuit argues “unreasonable to prohibit dual-income immigrant families” (updated)

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Japan Times reports UNHCR’s Antonio Guterres visit to Japan, where he says that as more people migrate worldwide, Japan will not be able to stop immigration. He added his concern with how people are treated once they get here. Kyodo News article same day gives good example, with a man from Myanmar facing deportation after being caught working full time as a dependent on his wife’s visa filed a lawsuit Wednesday
seeking to stay. He argues it is unreasonable to prohibit immigrant families from having a dual income.

IJIME LAWSUIT: THE U HODEN CASE, 2000-present

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Hi Blog. Just got finished translating the following for a friend. Debito in Sapporo THE U HODEN CASE HEISEI 16 (WA) DAI 247-GO SONGAI BAISHOU SEIKYUU JIKEN YOKOHAMA DISTRICT COURT KAWASAKI BRANCH, CIVIL COURT B SEEKING DAMAGES FOR POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER Writeup based on Japanese original dated July 20, 2006, available at https://www.debito.org/kawasakiminzokusabetsu.htm Translation by …

2-CHANNEL WEBSITE LAWSUIT UPDATE Sept 14 2006

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

====== 2-CHANNEL WEBSITE LAWSUIT UPDATE =========== DEFENDANT STILL REFUSES TO PAY COURT-ORDERED DAMAGES FOR INTERNET LIBEL. LIBELOUS STATEMENTS REMAIN ONLINE TO THIS DAY ============================================== By Plaintiff Arudou Debito September 14, 2006 Freely Forwardable Table of contents: ============================================== 1) QUICK RECAP OF THE CASE 2) WHAT IS 2-CHANNEL? REFERENTIAL LINKS 3) THE ISSUE 4) THE UPDATE …

My SNA Visible Minorities column 71: “Karen Hill Anton’s Willful Ignorance of History” (Dec 1, 2025), on how a self-declared spokesperson on behalf of Japan’s Visible Minorities is hurting them by deliberately ignoring info counter to her narrative

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

If you’ve never heard of author and memoirist Karen Hill Anton, her accomplishments are impressive.  After five decades of living in Japan, Anton has been hired for diversity training consultancies at corporations such as Shinsei Bank, Corning Japan, Eli Lilly, and Citigroup.  A Freeman Foundation Fellow and Plenary Speaker at JALT 2022, Anton has also been a member of the Jun Ashida Educational Foundation, the Shizuoka Human Rights Association, and the Board of Overseers at Temple University, Japan.  Her gigs include 14 years writing the “Crossing Cultures” column for the Japan Times, and another 15 writing the “Another Look” column for the Chunichi Shinbun. She has even advised the highest levels of the Japanese government, serving on the Internationalization in Education and Society Advisory Councils of Prime Ministers Obuchi and Hashimoto. 

But in a recent essay, where she offered herself up as an example of how Visible Minorities live in Japan, she showed not only a willful ignorance of what other Visible Minorities have done to combat discrimination in Japan, but also essentially denied racial discrimination happens in Japan because it doesn’t rise to the level of racial discrimination in America. This needs to be called out, because when a prominent spokesperson for NJ in Japan tries to overwrite history (especially one I’ve painstakingly curated) as a self-promotion marketing gimmick, by minimizing, ignoring, denying or even deleting facts and other historical case studies because they don’t fit her narrative, that’s not just dogmatism.  That’s dishonesty.  And as people have been writing me since I first put this up on Debito.org, it’s hurting them.

It’s also one reason why it’s been difficult to get “Newcomer” Visible Minorities to unite and speak with one voice in the form of, for example, domestic anti-defamation leagues.  (The “Oldcomer” Zainichi ethnic Koreans and Chinese do it much better.)  Because spokespeople within the minorities’ own ranks undermine any potential social movement and self-disempower — by saying that all we have to do is cooperate and behave.  After all, it worked for these spokespeople.  They made a life out of it.

Denialism may be Karen Hill Anton’s survival strategy in Japan, but ultimately it’s not going to help Japan’s Visible Minorities, the very group she claims to speak for.  Current Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi recently rose to power in part by blatantly lying about foreigners kicking park animals, and Cabinet minister Kimi Onoda (who herself was a dual citizen of Japan and America until she too was called out) promises to find new ways to scapegoat NJ Residents for Japan’s ills.  All this pandering by the likes of Anton will mean little in the end. The powers-that-be will still treat you as second-class citizens and residents no matter how hard you try to assimilate. 

Here’s the issue: The onus is not on NJ to scrape for acceptance, as Anton essentially advocates.  The onus is on Japanese society and legal structures to treat all of its legal residents, regardless of citizenship, as human beings with equal rights. Karen Hill Anton’s methodology doesn’t lend itself to pushing for that.  It’s certainly been an effective survival strategy for her, as she’s accomplished a lot for herself.  But it should be seen for what it always has been:  An isolated sample size of one.  Not a template.  And as she keeps on keeping on, vigilance:  Anton should not be permitted to continue minimizing, ignoring, dismissing, or overwriting the history of other NJ in Japan.

Japan commentator Karen Hill Anton writes on “What Racism is — and isn’t — in Japan” (her Substack, Nov 12, 2025). I critique, as it’s under-researched and willfully ignorant of the historical record. UPDATE: Karen responds on her Substack to say anyone is “free to disagree” with her, then deletes all of our correspondence from her Substack (which I archive as screen captures here)

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Karen Hill Anton, a memoirist, writer, and longtime columnist and commentator on Japan I respect a great deal (and have met in person), recently wrote something on her Substack that I take great issue with. It’s not only poorly researched.  It misrepresents history, distorts the science, and even winds up disrespecting the activists who invested so much of their lives into this issue.

For example, she concludes her essay with: “There was an incident a some years ago in Japan when racism was charged in a civil suit against a shopkeeper who did not want a Brazilian woman in his jewelry store. The woman, who filed a discrimination lawsuit, and won — as well she should have — was described by a foreign journalist as “the Rosa Parks of Japan. Rosa Parks? Surely not the same Mrs. Rosa Parks, revered by Americans and people of conscience worldwide, for her courage and principled stance in literally sitting down while standing up to injustice. She succeeded in galvanizing a nation in challenging hundreds of years of oppression and institutionalized racism, protected by law, in the most powerful country on earth. That Rosa Parks? I don’t think so.”

Note what was left out by ending the essay there.  No mention of the Otaru Onsens Case, which we took all the way to Japan’s Supreme Court, and where lower courts unanimously ruled that “Japanese Only” signs ARE “racial discrimination” (jinshu sabetsu).  Or the Steve McGowan Case, where an African and African-American were refused entry to a store, and we caught the manager on tape expressly saying he refused Steve because he is black and he personally hates black people.  Or the Yener Case.  Or the Aigi Golf Club Case. Or any mention of the umpteen other lawsuits, many successful, regarding racial discrimination? How disrespectful to them!

I critique the rest of her essay in full because I don’t feel that an influential commentator should ignore and overwrite history just because it doesn’t fit her personal narrative on Japan.

UPDATE: I notified Karen that I critiqued her essay by posting to her Substack. She responded. But soon she just deleted my post to her Substack completely. All of that is substantiated with screen captures on this blog. My takeaway from this event is that willful omission is the MO behind this world view.  A deliberate short-sightedness.  No mention again in Karen’s response of the Otaru Onsens Case or anything any other case I mentioned beyond Ana Bortz.  To Karen, as long as you put in the effort to contribute to your community, anything bad that happens is I guess your fault because you didn’t put in enough effort somehow.  No amount of clear-cut examples to the contrary shall be factored in.  They’ll even be deleted.

But for someone who continuously holds herself up as a template for how to live in Japan, both in writing and in her public speeches to places like JALT, this is dangerous behavior.  I’ve already had one person contact me directly to say, “As a darker skinned minority whose kids were brutally bullied, who has experienced real racism, her platform and narrative allows real concerns to be dismissed.”

My SNA Visible Minorities column 70: “Takaichi’s PM Election Changes My Projections”, on how I have to recant my previous column because this new LDP party leader and probable PM is bad news (Oct 8, 2025).

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Excerpt: PM Ishiba has since resigned his post and the LDP has had new elections for party leader.  Stump speeches between successor candidates fell for the anti-foreigner hype and launched a foreigner-bashing olympics.  Eventually the extremist candidate won, despite her weird past policy positions, overtly racist statements, and lying about, of all things, foreigners assaulting deer in a park.

Say hello to Sanae Takaichi, the LDP’s new leader and likely Japan’s first female PM.  

But don’t celebrate Japan finally choosing a female.  In Japan’s long history of women vying for the PM post — from opposition party leader but panderer to the LDP Takako Doi, to outspoken reformer but alleged foreigner Renho — Takaichi has prevailed.  The problem is, her world view has been warped by Japan’s systemic sexism, and her policies ironically will only make things worse for her ilk.

Consider the Japanese metaphor (from the opening frame of “Barefoot Gen”) of how if wheat gets trampled down constantly, it eventually shoots back up with even stronger roots.  In a society where women of talent have to work twice as hard to get half of what men do, women like Takaichi emerge far more resilient and studious of the rules of engagement in male-dominated societies.  

That’s why Takaichi is particularly scary.  Not only because she clearly can play the game, but also because, in her thirst for power, she learned the authoritarian playbook better than most…
Rest at https://shingetsunewsagency.com/2025/10/08/visible-minorities-takaichis-pm-election-changes-my-projections/

My SNA Visible Minorities 68: “Viewing Trump’s ‘DOGE reforms’ from the inside”, where I interview a civil servant in the US Government on how the bureaucrat purge is affecting them (July 21, 2025)

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Intro: President Trump has been on a mission of sorts to reform the Executive Branch of the American Federal Government.  To do so, for a while he appointed billionaire CEO Elon Musk and a number of shady computer experts to fire as many civil servants as possible under a pseudo-department called DOGE, for “Department of Government Efficiency”.  SNA talked with one civil servant, whom we will call “Sam” (a pseudonym) via email to get an insider’s perspective on what’s going on.  Due to the difficulties of finding time to talk in a turbulent time, this interview took place piecemeal over the past few months. […]

SNA:  Alright, let’s deal with the main argument head-on.  Your adversaries see you as part of the “deep state.”  Put charitably, they claim you bureaucrats thwart any real reforms because you’re inherently politicized, or, as per Milton Friedman, you’re a problem just because you exist.  There are plenty of people who also see government and its growth as naturally inefficient, because you’re spending other people’s money so you have no incentive to be efficient.  To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, you’re not the solution to a problem but “the problem” itself.  Some people don’t trust bureaucracies under any circumstances.  What would you say to them?

SAM:  It’s probably the case that people who are hired in to work on a program want to support it and improve it, and have gotten to hear many stories of people who have benefited from the program services and the people who advocate for them. However, when it comes to process or procedure, there’s a focus on consistency and fairness, treating everyone equally and advantaging no one. Different than elected politicians, I think most career civil servants pride themselves on their professionalism in doing so. Some politicians or political appointees may feel thwarted by this, and the public or grantees may be frustrated by the slowness or opaqueness of some advice or actions. However, a lot of effort is put into restraining Federal “overreach” on states and a lot of national programs are rather leanly staffed with a ratio of thousands of grantees and even hundreds of thousands of grant beneficiaries per hired civil servant. Even with dedicated administrators, it’s hard to get the balance of capacity right, and work can fluctuate due to funding and policy changes by Congress and the administration. While people interested in public service probably are motivated to help other people and may have progressive leanings, the “deep state” is overhyped. If only we could coordinate across programs and agencies that easily and effectively! […]

SNA:  How are you viewing the arguments that these are “cost-cutting, efficiency-promoting” measures on the part of DOGE?

SAM:  I think many of us have observed inefficiencies in processes and procedures and staffing across our larger offices or agencies. It would have been more productive to have a discussion with career managers and regular staff to understand that better. As for “government inefficiency,” decisions can be inexplicably slow in being made or even in staff from one office getting a response from another office. While not quite the 20-80 rule since everyone has particularly busy times of the year, and as with any large agency or organization, there’s no question that some people do more than their share of the work and others do not, with an understandable exception for new employees learning the ropes and moving up the GS grades as they do. Government decisions can have widespread impacts on many people, so decision-makers want to avoid mistakes and are probably extra-cautious. On the other hand, there are people willing to stick their necks out and take risks and do more than they have to in order to help more people. it’s been thrilling to work with people who work very hard, some of whom may also be political appointees. So much can be and has been accomplished…

Debito’s SNA VM column 57: “Overtourism as racism” (July 1, 2024). Most media on too many foreign tourists in Japan ignores how xenophobes are using “overtourism” to bully foreigners. Debito.org even argues it’s producing discriminatory policies worse than “Japanese Only” signs!

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Excerpt: “Overtourism” has become a trendy word to describe Japan attractions (e.g., Shibuya Scramble, Hachiko, Ginza, Kyoto, Senso-ji, Mount Fuji) being overrun by tourists.  But in Japan the word is specifically associated with “foreign tourists,” i.e., mobs blocking traffic, disrupting local businesses and mores by littering and chattering away in their foreign languages.

I don’t dispute that “overtourism” can happen.  Too many people crowding into a place can produce problems of noise, pollution, disruption, and property damage.  But be careful about associating it with “foreigners.”  As evidenced by the Karen-esque confrontation at Yasaka Shrine, it’s giving license to Japan’s busybodies, bullies, and xenophobes.

This column will argue that “overtourism” is not only becoming the latest incarnation of racialized bullying, it’s also producing reactionary public policies that are actually worse than the “Japanese Only” signs of yore!

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MARCH 31, 2024

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Table of Contents:
1) My SNA Visible Minorities 54: “Non-Japanese Residents claim political power” (Mar 31, 2024), where I argue the power of the vote matters whether you are a candidate or part of the electorate; the J Govt tries hard to make sure neither happens for Japan’s Immigrants.
2) Kyodo: “Record 3.4 million foreign residents in Japan as work visas rise” in 2023. Only a brief reference to foreign crime (i.e., overstaying) this time. Fancy that.
3) Debito.org Reader XY on “Rakuten Card is asking for sensitive Koseki Family Registry documents for Naturalized Japanese clients as a prerequisite for continued service”, even though nobody is clearly requiring them to.
4) My SNA Visible Minorities column 53: “Miss Japan Shiino Karolina lost her crown. Inevitably.” (Feb 26, 2024)
5) Reuters: Visible Minorities (“Foreign-born residents”) file lawsuit against government for police racial profiling. Good. Go for it.
6) My latest SNA VM column 52: “Positive Steps for Non-Japanese in Japan” (Jan 23, 2024), a report of a month spent in Tokyo and all the progress towards tolerance observed.
7) Japan Times: “Japan should aim to maintain population of 80 million by 2100”, says private panel of business interests. 24 years later, no new ideas, since it calls for rises in birthrates, not immigration, yet again.

… and finally …
8 ) Japan Times: “Fukuoka court rules ban on dual nationality is constitutional”. Debito.org makes the case for why banning dual nationality is unrealistic, not to mention just plain stupid, with an excerpt from my book “Embedded Racism”.

Japan Times: “Fukuoka court rules ban on dual nationality is constitutional”. Debito.org makes the case for why banning dual nationality is unrealistic, not to mention just plain stupid, with an excerpt from my book “Embedded Racism”.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

JT: The Fukuoka District Court ruled Wednesday that Japan’s law that bans dual nationality is constitutional, rejecting an argument by a Japan-born plaintiff who lost her Japanese citizenship after she naturalized as an American. Yuri Kondo, 76, had argued that the nationality law — which stipulates that Japanese nationals will lose their citizenship if they become a citizen of a foreign country — undermines fundamental human rights to pursue happiness, self-determination, and identity, as guaranteed under the Constitution. While the nationality law was deemed constitutional, presiding Judge Fumitaka Hayashi said the wish of the individual who would lose their nationality should be considered as it is part of a person’s identity.

COMMENT: Most arguments made by the Japanese Government dovetail around the idea that people will be somehow confused in terms of national allegiances if they have more than one nationality. For what if Japan went to war with the country you have a second passport for? Where would your allegiances lie?

Making public policy merely on the basis of hypotheticals is not the best way to make laws. As noted above in the article, the number of countries allowing dual nationality is in fact increasing (“the number of countries allowing dual nationality has increased from one-third to three-quarters worldwide”), as more people around the world travel, resettle, immigrate, marry, and have multinational children as well as lives.  Forcing them to give up their other nationality is to force them to give up part of their identity — a completely unnecessary and moreover psychologically damaging move just for the sake of bureaucratic convenience.  And that’s before we get into issues of arbitrary enforceability, as discussed in my book excerpt below.

The increase in diversity should be reflected in laws to accommodate reality.  Instead, we have pig-headed J politicians who can’t imagine a life beyond their own experiences (with the exception of the LDP’s Kouno Taro, who actually argued for dual nationality, albeit to coat the Kokutai in more glory, not for the sake of the individual’s identity) and refuse to legislate reality into reality.  And that feeds into a hidebound judiciary that claim they can only enforce the law as it’s written (even presiding Judge Hayashi above expressed regret at that).

To finish up, let me excerpt from my book “Embedded Racism” on this topic.  It’ll make the case about why public policy is as stupid as it is as best I can…

My SNA Visible Minorities Column 50, “Memory-holing the ‘Japanese Only’ signs” (Oct 31, 2023), where I conclude that, since racial discrimination is unconstitutional but not illegal in Japan, the most effective way to get “Japanese Only” signs down is to get the media and government involved. If they won’t help, you’re probably out of luck.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Opening: For this, my 50th column for SNA, I’d like to take the reader on a little nostalgia trip through a project I’ve been working on for a quarter century:  “Japanese Only” signs.  

I’ve investigated and interviewed hundreds of these exclusionary places, published and updated seven books on this issue in English and Japanese, and curated on Debito.org the “Rogues’ Gallery of Exclusionary Establishments” since 1999 to make sure this issue doesn’t get memory-holed.   

For it seems that memory-holing is happening.  A SoraNews24 article on the Naha Case didn’t do much research, claiming somehow that, “Bars with Japanese-customers-only policies aren’t unheard of in Japan, but they’re becoming increasingly uncommon in the modern age. Moreover, when you do come across such establishments, they’re generally dedicated bars.”  (Incorrect.  The highest incidents of exclusionary rules are in fact hotels.)  

Then we get to the public reaction to the news.  When I put it up on Debito.org, some readers were defensive as usual, basically ranging from the “self-othering” by the Guestists (quote:  “I understand why they do it. I’m not offended. It’s their business and country.”) to the Ostriches who prefer, in spite of decades of evidence to the contrary, to bury their head in the sand and pretend the problem simply doesn’t exist (quote:  “You are overdramatizing things.  It doesn’t say we do not allow foreigners.  Being to those places as long as you speak Japanese you can enter anywhere.  You have to see things from their perspective too you know.  They don’t wanna get in trouble because a tourist doesn’t read nor understand.  As simple as that.”)

But it’s not as simple as that.  “Japanese Only” signs in fact predate the massive tourist influx to Japan over the past decade and thus cannot be blamed on them…

My SNA Visible Minorities 45: “Judges Strip Equal Protection from Naturalized Citizens”, on the unjust Aigi Country Club decision (Apr 24, 2023) (full text)

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

My Debito.org post from yesterday has become a full-blown column at the Shingetsu News Agency. Here’s the opening:

SNA (Tokyo) — It’s the next stage of evolution in Japan’s variant of racial discrimination: a naturalized Japanese citizen was last year denied membership at a golf course—explicitly for being a former foreigner. He sued. This month a district court in Mie Prefecture ruled that this was not an illegal act of discrimination.

You read that right: not illegal. Follow me down this rabbit hole.

Aigi Country Club in Kani city, Gifu Prefecture, refused a former Zainichi Korean with Japanese citizenship. Their justification, according to the Asahi Shinbun, was that “our club has a quota for foreign nationals and former foreign nationals who have become naturalized Japanese and restricts new memberships. We currently have no vacancies in that quota.”

In court, Aigi Country Club duplicitously denied outright racism by claiming that they refused him for more reasons than foreign roots. It didn’t matter. The judges acknowledged that the plaintiff was refused for being foreign and they still ruled against him. They accepted that this was an instance of discrimination, but it wasn’t enough discrimination.

The judges ruled that a golfing club by design is a “closed and private organization with strong personal ties among its members” and that Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees “freedom of association.” In their reading, private groups are free to decide their membership criteria and, at any rate, playing golf is “not indispensable for social life.”

In sum, it wasn’t an instance of discrimination “beyond socially acceptable limits.” Really? Let’s parse the legal reasoning and put it in context in terms of the arc of court precedents on racial discrimination in Japan…

Mainichi & Asahi: Naturalized Zainichi Korean-Japanese sues “Japanese Members Only” Aigi Country Club; court rules denial of golf membership explicitly for being a former foreigner NOT illegal

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

In a stunning decision, a Japanese court in Mie Prefecture has ruled that a foreigner… excuse me, a JAPANESE CITIZEN who naturalized from being a Zainichi Korean, may be denied membership to a golf course that limits its membership to “Japanese Only”.  Including people who are legally Japanese. Including former Zainichi Korean Permanent Residents who have been in Japan for generations. For the record, this is Aigi Country Club in Gifu Prefecture.

Their case, as stated to the Asahi Shinbun below, is, “Our club has a quota for foreign nationals and former foreign nationals who have become naturalized Japanese and restricts new memberships. We currently have no vacancies in that quota.” This denies the privileges and equal protections under the law when you get Japanese citizenship. The court even states that Aigi Country Club’s rules were not illegal as its actions did not violate his human rights beyond “socially acceptable limits.”

Ah yes, that old legal argument. That was used in the Otaru Onsens Case to say that racial discrimination did indeed happen, but the illegal activity wasn’t the racial discrimination itself, but rather “discrimination that went beyond socially acceptable limits.” Some discrimination is acceptable, according to the courts. Here, discrimination for having Korean roots is acceptable in a club.

After all, according to the Asahi below, “private entities like the golf club are guaranteed freedom of association under Article 21 of the Constitution. In principle, such private groups are free to decide the terms and conditions of their memberships.” Especially since it’s an “exclusive and private group,” and playing golf is “not indispensable for social life.” There’s plenty more below, but let me put this in context about how the Japanese judiciary has been slowly whittling away NJ civil and human rights:

RIP Ivan P. Hall (1932-2023), author of “Cartels of the Mind” and “Bamboozled”, and one of the last major postwar scholars of Japan

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

It is with great sadness that I heard this morning of the passing of an old friend, Ivan Hall, aged 90, scholar of Japan and the world, and author of “Cartels of the Mind” and “Bamboozled”.  Notice of his death came from his nephew, and I will pass on his redacted announcement below.  

I just want to say that Ivan and I spent a lot of time in Honolulu together in his last years, coming over to visit twice a year, and his work on Academic Apartheid in Japan got me into activism in Japan in the first place.  He’s one of the few people in my life I can call a mentor who took his mentoring seriously.  

Now for the family notice:  Hi all.  My uncle, Ivan P. Hall (“Vani”), the last surviving member of my mother’s family, died yesterday in Hoenow, a remote suburb of what was once East Berlin, after a professional life spent primarily in Japan.

I’m Vani’s nephew. Though he lived overseas my entire life, he being childless and I being the only child of his only sibling, we were close. He would visit the U.S. every year at Christmas and we’d eat Indian food on the Lower East Side (he had served in the U.S. Information Service in the 1950s in Pakistan and in the future Bangladesh and taught me to love egg curry) and superannuated formal meals in the Princeton Club dining room. He supported me enthusiastically in my first career as a playwright – he acted in the first play I ever saw, as a five year old: a community theatre production of Arsenic and Old Lace in the Idaho mountains. (From a production of that farce he’d directed in South Asia in 1961, two of his then-college-aged actors went on to become Ambassadors and serve as Foreign Secretary, and a third became Foreign Minister and the drafter of Bangladesh’s Constitution.)…

Japan Times on neighborhood sento bathhouse restoration activists: Omits history of how Japan’s already-declining public bath industry hurt itself with “Japanese Only” signs

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

JT: “Bathhouses are a space where I can ground myself,” says Sam Holden, who first found solace in sentō when he was a graduate student in Tokyo. Holden, who labels himself an urban activist, is a writer, translator and renovation specialist. He founded Sento & Neighborhood together with four associates in 2020 with the idea of “changing historic bathhouses as little as possible but finding a way for them to become sustainable,” Holden explains, hinting at the financial difficulties that many sentō face…

To Holden, visiting bathhouses means exploring the back alleys that embody a deeper layer of Japan’s urban fabric tucked away from busy and anonymous main streets — and one that has been part of Japanese cities for centuries. “Across the street from the bathhouse you have the liquor shop where the grandpas gather, the vegetable grocer and tofu shop and all sorts of local eateries,” Holden says. “Preserving a bathhouse means not only preserving that building, but this neighborhood network.”

COMMENT FROM DEBITO: I applaud the efforts of these movements to keep neighborhood sento open. However, the writer of this article (and perhaps the activists themselves) neglected to mention an important part of history, where public/private baths have refused entry to foreign and foreign-looking residents and customers. If offering this communal experience is “an important channel of communication between neighbors”, then it’s also important to recognize the fact that sometimes sento and onsen have undermined themselves by putting up “Japanese Only” signs, and not recognized “foreigners” as fellow neighbors. Openness to all members of the community should also be part of their slogans.

Also problematic is that the Japan Times seems to be forgetful of this discriminatory history as an editorial policy, as their archive on recent articles regarding Sento demonstrates. The JT laments the decline of the industry (for example, here) without getting into how some of their decline is their own fault. That’s particularly galling, considering I wrote for The Japan Times for two decades a regular column, in addition to other stringer articles, on this very subject.

Seems the Japan Times doesn’t prioritize this type of issue anymore. So much for reporting “in the public interest”.  This is how history gets unlearned and eventually repeats itself.  Just wait for the next moral panic blamed on “foreigners”, and communal doors to a public service will shut all over again.  Even if it drives the excluder out of business. Talking about preservation without including this issue is in fact counterproductive for the industry.

DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER JUNE 20, 2022

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Table of Contents:
MURDER DECRIMINALIZED
1) Asahi: “Prosecutors drop case over death of detained Sri Lankan woman”, predictably ending Criminal Case brought by the family of Wishma Sandamali, and keeping Japan’s deadly “Gaijin Tanks” unaccountable
2) Japan Today expose: How the media failed Japan’s most vulnerable immigrants (Feb 22, 2022)

OTHER UNFAIRNESS
3) MRI on rude and slipshod treatment from Shizuoka hospitals and health care practitioners
4) Kyodo: Japan-born American files suit against Japan’s dual nationality ban

FULL TEXT OF OLDER SNA COLUMNS ARCHIVED
5) SNA VM9: “Pandemic Releases Antibodies toward Non-Japanese”, April 20, 2020 (full text)
6) Debito’s SNA VM8: “No Free Pass for Japan’s Shirking Responsibility”, Mar 16, 2020 (full text)

… and finally …
7) My SNA Visible Minorities col 34: “Henry Scott-Stokes, Sell-Out to Gaijin Handlers, dies.” May 23, 2022, with ruminations on why foreign journalism in Japan has historically been so astray.

Kyodo: Japan-born American files suit against Japan’s dual nationality ban

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Kyodo: A Japanese-born American said Thursday she has filed a lawsuit with a Japanese court claiming that the country’s nationality law, which bans its citizens from also holding a foreign nationality, violates the Constitution.

Yuri Kondo, 75, who currently lives in Fukuoka in southwestern Japan and filed the lawsuit at the Fukuoka District Court, said at a press conference with her legal team that acquiring U.S. citizenship should not have automatically stripped her of her Japanese one. Kondo, who was born in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, moved to the United States in 1971 to attend graduate school and began practicing law in Arizona in 1997.

After becoming a U.S. citizen in 2004, she attempted to renew her Japanese passport in 2017 but her application was rejected. She is currently in Japan on her U.S. passport. Kondo claims that Article 11 of the nationality law, which stipulates that Japanese citizens automatically lose their nationality upon gaining a foreign nationality, violates the right to pursue happiness and equality as guaranteed by the Constitution.

COMMENT: Let’s go through just how arbitrary, complicated, and racialized Japan’s Nationality Law is…

My SNA Visible Minorities col 34: “Henry Scott-Stokes, Sell-Out to Gaijin Handlers, dies.” May 23, 2022, with ruminations on why foreign journalism in Japan has historically been so astray.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

SNA: Henry Johnstone Morland Scott-Stokes, patrician among Japan’s foreign correspondents since 1964, recently died in Tokyo at the age of 83, but not before he did untold damage by performing as a foreign handmaid to Japan’s fascists.

A man described as “tweedy” and “entertaining and congenial,” Briton Scott-Stokes was nonetheless a man of privilege, lucky enough to land in Japan as Tokyo bureau chief of the Financial Times only three years after graduating from Oxford.

Becoming bureau chief of a major newspaper at the wizened old age of 26 might seem odd today, but back then foreign journalism in Japan had lower standards, and the field was infused with neocolonial attitudes towards the “natives.” Fluency in your assigned country’s language was not required.

Nor was Japanese required at the other “Big Three” English-language newspapers in Japan, as Scott-Stokes later became bureau chief of The Times of London and the New York Times through the 1970s and early 1980s. For a man described as “someone who really understood Japan,” he spent his entire 58 years in Japan as a functional illiterate, unable to fluently read, write, or speak Japanese…

Most hacks in his station moved on to other countries or settled into a quiet life in Japan, living a harmless twilight existence as cottage consultants in their cups. Scott-Stokes didn’t. He didn’t just continue to rely on his privileged access to Japan’s elite for his income; he decided to embrace their fascist tendencies…

Miyazaki International College cut their elderly professors’ salaries by 20%. After a 7-year battle, Fukuoka High Court rules this illegal. A victory for foreign plaintiffs too.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Mainichi: Due to a revision in the basic salary levels, Miyazaki International College cut their former professors’ base salaries by 20% once they reached sixty years of age. Plaintiffs sued for breach of labor contract, demanding 42,500,000 yen of unpaid salaries. Although they lost in lower court, on December 8 the Fukuoka High Court overruled and awarded the plaintiffs all claims. 

COMMENT:  This matters because there’s a long tradition in Japan of Academic Apartheid, where foreign academics in higher education are given contracted status (increasingly, term-limited) while Japanese-citizen academics are given uncontracted, permanent tenure from day one of employment.  This is probably the oldest issue we’ve taken up on Debito.org, and it’s only gotten worse over the quarter-century of coverage:  Instead of more foreign academics becoming tenured like Japanese, the trend is to “gaijinize” the Japanese faculty (as a money-saving effort encouraged by the Ministry of Education all the way back in 1995) by putting them on contracts, eliminating tenure in an attempt to clean out disagreeable leftists from Japan’s universities.

MEI’s move to put everyone above a certain age (Japanese and foreign) on a different lower pay scale as well was a line the Fukuoka High Court was not willing to allow under the law.  Good to have that precedent set. Conclusion:  Join a union if you’re working in Japan.  Then fight these things in court as a union.

“Japanese Only” signs up in two Hokkaido Chitose city restaurants, Yakitori “Kawasemi” and Shokuji-dokoro “Yokaro”, June 2021.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Here are some more “Japanese Only” signs that have appeared in Hokkaido (and nationwide) since the original ones back on 1993 that occasioned the Otaru Onsens Case. This time they are gracing restaurants in the eatery area of Chitose, a major city just outside of Sapporo that hosts Hokkaido’s largest international airport. Courtesy of Keiron, taken June 21 and June 24, 2021. Details follow.  Enjoy the omotenashi of un-Embedded Racism.

1) Yakitori Restaurant “Kawasemi”
北海道 千歳市 千代田町 2-1-1 １F, Ph: 0123-27-6700
(Photo of exclusionary sign and storefront here)

2) Restaurant “Yokaro”
北海道 千歳市 幸町 1-1 新橋通り商店街 Ph: 0123-24-5448
(Photo of exclusionary sign and storefront here)

Nikkan Sports: Aggressive Japanese man harasses Muslim woman and 3-year-old daughter in park, demands her Gaijin Card; then aggressive Japanese police detain, interrogate, and release the woman and child’s private info. I told you this would happen.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Nikkan Sports: “A Muslim woman in her forties from South Asia living in Tokyo, who was subjected to wrongful voluntary questioning by officers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and had her name, address, and other private details leaked to a third party, submitted a formal complaint to the Tokyo Public Safety Commission on July 5. Her legal representation criticized, “This is a use of public power grounded in discriminatory attitudes towards foreigners.”

COMMENT: Let’s summarize this case:  A man accuses a three-year-old kid of assault, gets aggressive with a Muslim woman (and reportedly SPECIFICALLY demands her Gaijin Card), and then siccs six also-aggressive cops on her.  Then the cops cart only her and her toddler daughter off to the nearest cop shop for hours of interrogation, and hold her hostage until she releases her private information to this strange man.  And later they give that man even more information in case he decides to sue a three-year-old!  Clearly this has been blown out of proportion.  And the cops abetted it!  What a nightmare.

I’m pleased the woman sought out legal representation and filed the formal complaint with the Public Safety Commission.  But that will probably result in nothing.  (I’ve done the same for over-the-top police reactions in the past, and never gotten any satisfactory conclusion.)  You can’t expect much when it’s wolves policing other wolves. So I hope she files an actual civil suit against the police and the person who harassed her and her daughter, so we can get some legal precedent behind this complaint. We need some kind of damper put on all the social damage done by the Japanese police demonizing foreigners for decades, and then deputizing the general public to target them.

Japan’s “Gaijin Tank” Immigration Detention Centers: The Death of Sri Lankan Wishma Sandamali highlights a senseless, inhuman, and extralegal system killing foreigners they’ve trapped.

Posted on by Debito Arudou, Ph.D.

Japan’s Immigration Bureau Detention Centers (aka “Gaijin Tanks”) are an extra layer of incarceration that only non-citizens must deal with. Regular Wajin Japanese, when detained, arrested, and/or incarcerated, go through Japan’s criminal justice and prison system.  However, because non-citizen detainees cannot renew their visas while in detention, any arrest and incarceration by police increases the probability of detention later in separate Immigration detention facilities (specifically reserved for non-citizen visa overstayers and refugees/asylum seekers). Detainees in these Immigration facilities (nyūkoku kanri sentā) face a different system both in terms of criminal procedure and living conditions.

In terms of living conditions, rights of detainees to adequate food, exercise and living space in Immigration Bureau detention centers are less regulated than in Japanese prisons (which are subject to international oversight regarding standards of favorable treatment). Consequently, inhospitable, unsanitary, and generally unmonitored conditions in these detention centers have occasioned protests both from human rights organizations and from the detainees, in the form of hunger strikes and suicides. Immigration detainees have also suffered and died from their medical conditions being neglected by detention officials, and from the over-prescription of sedatives and painkillers.

In 2021, the senseless death of a Sri Lankan named Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali, due to medical negligence in a detention center, brought national attention and protest against the GOJ’s treatment of visa overstayers and asylum applicants—and the withdrawal of a bill before the Diet that would have only strengthened the ability for bureaucrats “to keep any foreign national in custody without the approval of a judge”, thus violating constitutional guarantees of due process.

Sources follow. There is no defense for this inhumane extralegal detention system that is killing people through willful negligence simply because they are foreigners incarcerated.  We catalog it all here on Debito.org for the record.