{"id":13722,"date":"2015-12-27T17:21:17","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T03:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=13722"},"modified":"2015-12-30T13:08:20","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T23:08:20","slug":"asahi-immigration-bureau-inundated-with-e-mails-snitching-on-korean-nationals-suspends-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=13722","title":{"rendered":"Asahi: Immigration Bureau inundated with e-mails “snitching on” Korean nationals, suspends program after nearly 12 years of snitching"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Blog. \u00a0Good news. \u00a0After the Immigration Bureau instituted this easily-abusable program of “snitch sites”, where the general public can anonymously rat on “foreigners” for any reason whatsoever<\/a>, it has finally been suspended (not yet abolished, however) after people really began abusing it. \u00a0See, I told you this would happen<\/a>. \u00a0Pity it only took nearly twelve years (it was instituted on February 16, 2004<\/a>) before Immigration\u00a0realized it. \u00a0Yet another example of callous disregard by the bureaucrats towards the very people they are charged to serve. \u00a0Dr. ARUDOU, Debito<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

Immigration Bureau inundated with e-mails ‘snitching on’ Korean nationals, suspends program<\/strong>
\n Asahi Shinbun, December 24, 2015, courtesy of JK<\/strong>
\n By HWANG CHUL\/ Staff Writer<\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/ajw.asahi.com\/article\/behind_news\/social_affairs\/AJ201512240050<\/a><\/p>\n

Baffled by a surge of e-mails snitching on resident Koreans as \u201cillegal aliens,\u201d the Immigration Bureau shut down its tipster program on people overstaying their visas and contacted the police for assistance.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a highly regrettable situation,\u201d said an official with the bureau\u2019s general affairs division. \u201cSending e-mails to slander foreigners does not meet the purpose of the system to inform on illegal residents.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The bureau, an arm of the Justice Ministry, said that since May it had received more than three times as many e-mails informing on supposed illegal residents than in fiscal 2014. It attributed the surge to misinformation that spread on the Internet claiming Korean nationals would become illegal aliens as of July 9.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Immigration Bureau adopted the tipster system in 2004 to crack down on people overstaying their visas. It received 460 or so e-mails on a monthly average on the topic last fiscal year. But in May of this year, the figure jumped to 1,821, with 1,562 in June. The number of e-mails received in July through September is still being tallied, but could exceed 10,000, according to the official.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The bureau noted that there was a sharp increase in e-mails about Korean nationals based on false information, and signs that a lone individual was responsible for many of them.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Some online comments said people could claim a reward for ratting out a Korean.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This situation stemmed from a decision to issue special permanent resident certificates to ethnic Koreans and their descendants in place of municipality-issued alien registration cards following their loss of Japanese citizenship after the end of World War II. The deadline for approximately 150,000 Korean nationals to change their certificates was July 8.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Although failure to shift to the new system could eventually be subject to penalty, there are no provisions under Japanese law for deportation over non-compliance.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Citing concerns that the surge in e-mails could snarl up its service provider, the Immigration Bureau stopped accepting further e-mails at the end of October. In November, it asked the police to ascertain whether a criminal case could be made for business obstruction.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The bureau plans to resume accepting tips on people overstaying their visas after they come up with measures to eliminate bogus e-mails.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But there have been calls for the program to be scrapped because of its racist and judgmental overtones.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Information sent to the bureau can be submitted anonymously.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations submitted a memorandum to the justice minister in 2005, a year after the program started, asking for it to be abolished.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It stated: \u201cThe program has ordinary citizens essentially spying on people suspected of being illegal aliens, which serves only to advance prejudice and discrimination towards foreigners.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The citizens group Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan submitted a similar complaint to the Justice Ministry in November, stating that the program \u201cincites discrimination.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hiroshi Tanaka, a professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University who is well-versed in human rights issues concerning foreign residents of Japan, said the Immigration Bureau should abolish, not suspend, the program advocating people to snitch on foreigners.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWith such a system in place, people who make hate speeches like \u2018banish the Koreans\u2019 would feel as if their actions are \u2018given government approval,\u2019\u201d Tanaka said.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asahi: Baffled by a surge of e-mails snitching on resident Koreans as \u201cillegal aliens,\u201d the Immigration Bureau shut down its tipster program on people overstaying their visas and contacted the police for assistance. \u201cThis is a highly regrettable situation,\u201d said an official with the bureau\u2019s general affairs division. \u201cSending e-mails to slander foreigners does not meet the purpose of the system to inform on illegal residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bureau, an arm of the Justice Ministry, said that since May it had received more than three times as many e-mails informing on supposed illegal residents than in fiscal 2014. It attributed the surge to misinformation that spread on the Internet claiming Korean nationals would become illegal aliens as of July 9.<\/p>\n

The Immigration Bureau adopted the tipster system in 2004 to crack down on people overstaying their visas. It received 460 or so e-mails on a monthly average on the topic last fiscal year. But in May of this year, the figure jumped to 1,821, with 1,562 in June. The number of e-mails received in July through September is still being tallied, but could exceed 10,000, according to the official.<\/p>\n

Comment: Good news. After the Immigration Bureau instituted this easily-abusable program of “snitch sites”, where the general public can anonymously rat on “foreigners” for any reason whatsoever, it has finally been suspended (not abolished) after people really began abusing it. Pity it only took nearly twelve years (it was instituted on February 16, 2004) before Immigration realized it. Yet another example of callous disregard by the bureaucrats towards the very people they are charged to serve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,33,35,52,5,4,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-social-science","category-fingerprinting-nj","category-good-news","category-hate-speech","category-human-rights","category-japanese-government","category-sitys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}