{"id":14036,"date":"2016-06-04T16:54:01","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T02:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=14036"},"modified":"2016-06-12T12:01:52","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T22:01:52","slug":"japan-times-just-be-cause-column-98-ibaraki-police-still-unfettered-by-the-law-or-the-truth-june-6-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=14036","title":{"rendered":"Japan Times JUST BE CAUSE 98, “Ibaraki Police still unfettered by the law, or the truth”, June 6, 2016 (UPDATED with links to sources)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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JUST BE CAUSE<\/strong>
\n\"justbecauseicon.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Police still unfettered by the law, or the truth<\/strong>
\n Repeat-offender Ibaraki force called to account for backsliding on the issue of hotel snooping<\/strong>
\nBy Debito Arudou. \u00a0Column 98 for The Japan Times Community Page,\u00a0June 6, 2016<\/strong> Version updated with links to sources.
\nhttp:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/community\/2016\/06\/05\/issues\/japans-police-still-unfettered-law-truth\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s police are at it again: Lying about the law.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A reader with the pseudonym Onur recently wrote to me about his experience in the city of Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture,<\/a> when he checked into a hotel. Even though Onur clearly indicated he was a legal resident of Japan with a domestic address, clerks demanded he present his passport for photocopying. They pointed to a sign issued by the Ibaraki Prefectural Police.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"IbarakipolicehotelposterApr2016\"<\/a>
\nBut that poster has three great big stripy lies: 1) \u201cEvery foreign guest must present their passport\u201d 2) \u201cwhich must be photocopied\u201d 3) \u201cunder the Hotel Business Law\u201d \u2014 which states none of these things. Not to mention that Japan\u2019s registered foreign residents are not required to carry around passports anyway.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s particularly egregious about this sign is that the Japanese police know better \u2014 because we told them so a decade ago.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Japan Times first exposed how police were stretching their mandate in \u201cCreating laws out of thin air<\/a>,\u201d Zeit Gist, March 8, 2005, and, later, two updates: \u201cMinistry missive wrecks reception<\/a>,\u201d ZG, Oct. 18, 2005, and \u201cJapan\u2019s hostile hosteling industry<\/a>,\u201d Just Be Cause, July 6,2010.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It made an impact. Even the usually noncommittal U.S. Embassy took action, posting in their American Community Update of May 2005<\/a>:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter we sought clarification, according to the Environmental Health Division, Health Service Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the new registration procedure at lodging facilities does not apply to foreigners who are residents of Japan but only to tourists and temporary visitors. If you write a Japanese address on the check-in sheet, hotels are not supposed to ask for your passport.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Right. So why do the Ibaraki police still feel they can lie about the laws they are entrusted to uphold?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Because \u2026 Ibaraki. I\u2019ll get to that shortly…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But back to Onur, who also took action. He stayed an extra day in Mito and raised the issue with local authorities:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI went to Mito City Public Health Department (Hokensho), who were very helpful, and confirmed that as a resident I need not show ID at hotels. Then I showed them the poster from the Ibaraki police department. Surprised, they said they had never seen this poster before, and the police had not contacted them about it. They said it is clearly different from the real law, especially the bit about \u2018every foreign guest.\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hokensho added that the police have become stricter because of the G-7 (Ise-Shima) summit and 2020 Tokyo Olympics. They said they would check the hotel and inform me of the result.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But Onur wasn\u2019t done yet: \u201cThen I talked with two officers at the Mito City Police Department\u2019s Security Division. They listened without making any comments. I showed them an official announcement from the Health Ministry<\/a> and said that their poster is clearly different.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe police read the ministry announcement and took notes like they were unaware of the law, asking questions like \u2018Do the other hotels in other parts of Japan ask for your ID card?\u2019 and \u2018Isn\u2019t checking the ID card necessary to confirm that a foreigner really has an address in Japan?\u2019 I offered the contact number at Health Ministry for more information, but they said it wasn\u2019t necessary. Finally, I asked them to fix their poster. They said they would check the law and behave accordingly.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Shortly afterwards, Onur got a call from the Hokensho: \u201cThey checked my hotel and saw the poster was now changed. It seems the Ibaraki police had printed a new one and distributed it to all hotels within a few hours! The Hokensho said the new poster clearly states \u2018foreign nationals who do not possess an address in Japan,\u2019 which follows regulations. They said the police warned the hotel not to make the same mistake again. Finally, they thanked me for informing them about this problem.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Well done. It\u2019s satisfying to have others retrace our steps and get even better results. It\u2019s just a shame that he should have to.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

However, two issues still niggle. One is that photocopying requirement, which, according to The Japan Times\u2019 own legal columnist, Colin P. A. Jones, may also be questionable:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the Personal Information Protection Act (Kojin Joho Hogo Ho), the hotel should explain to you why they are collecting personal information from you, which is what they are doing if they take a copy of your passport,\u201d Jones said in an email. \u201cSo if they can confirm that you are a resident of Japan by looking at your residence card or driver\u2019s license, they do not need to take a copy because they have confirmed that the Hotel Act no longer applies. If they take a copy they are collecting personal information beyond what is necessary for the expressed purpose. In my experience, once you point this out, hotel staff then start mumbling about \u2018their policies,\u2019 but of course those don\u2019t trump the law.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Second issue: Ibaraki.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ibaraki is where cops take local grumps seriously when they report a \u201csuspicious foreigner\u201d standing near JR Ushiku Station \u2014 seriously enough to arrest him on Aug. 13, 2014, for not carrying his \u201cgaijin card.\u201d Well, that \u201cforeigner\u201d turned out to be a Japanese<\/a>, and Japanese are not required to carry ID. Whoops.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ibaraki is also the site of a mysterious and under-reported knife attack on Chinese \u201ctrainee\u201d laborers (the Japan Times, Feb. 23, 2015<\/a>), which resulted in an as-yet-unresolved<\/del>[*] murder. (Funny that. Imagine the media outcry if foreigners had knifed Japanese!)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Do Ibaraki police have anything to do with this? Actually, yes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ibaraki police have posted in public places some of Japan\u2019s most militantly anti-foreign posters. I mean this literally: Since 2008, at least three different versions have depicted cops, bedecked in paramilitary weaponry, physically subduing foreigners. The slogan: \u201cProtect (Japan) by heading (foreigners) off at the shores<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ibaraki police have also offered the public online information about \u201cforeign crime infrastructure<\/a>,\u201d as if it\u2019s somehow separate from or more ominous than the yakuza. They claim that foreigners are responsible for drugs, illegal medical activities, underground taxis, false IDs \u2014 and paternity scams to get Japanese citizenship. And, conveniently, the National Police Agency argued within its 2010 white paper that foreign crime infrastructure \u201ccannot be grasped through statistics<\/a>\u201d (see \u201cPolice \u2018foreign crime wave\u2019 falsehoods fuel racism<\/a>,\u201d JBC, July 8, 2013). It\u2019s enough to make the public paranoid.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And Ibaraki is a strange place for such militancy. It does not have a particularly high concentration of foreigners<\/a>. Except for, of course, those behind bars at Ibaraki\u2019s Ushiku Detention Center.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s infamous immigration detention centers, or \u201cgaijin tanks,\u201d are where foreign visa overstayers and asylum seekers are left to rot indefinitely in what Amnesty International in 2002 called \u201csecret detention facilities<\/a>.\u201d Gaijin tanks don\u2019t get the oversight governing Japan\u2019s prisons because the former do not officially qualify as \u201cprisons.\u201d<\/a> They\u2019re pretty bad places to be.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And Ushiku\u2019s gaijin tank is notoriously bad. It has made headlines over the past decade for drugging and subjecting detainees to conditions so horrendous<\/a> that they have gone<\/a> on hunger strikes<\/a>, committed suicide or died having received improper medical care and under other mysterious circumstances<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Therein lies the point I keep banging on about in this column: What happens when racial discrimination is left unrestrained by laws? It just gets normalized and embedded<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Treating people badly without official checks and balances eventually makes abuse tolerated and ignored \u2014 like background radiation. And, fueled by the innate fear of The Outsider, the abuses just get worse and worse. Because they can.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In this case, the unfettered xenophobia radiating from the Ushiku Detention Center, Ibaraki\u2019s fast-breeder reactor of foreigner dehumanization and abuse, has clearly corroded Ibaraki police\u2019s judgment \u2014 to the point where they feel they can outright lie about the laws they are supposed to enforce, and have their propaganda irradiate hotels, street-corner busybodies and the general public.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for people to realize that Japanese police\u2019s free rein to maintain our allegedly \u201csafe society\u201d has limits. For officially treating an entire people as potentially \u201cunsafe\u201d is dangerous in itself.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ibaraki Prefecture thus offers a fascinating case study. Of what happens to a neighborhood when xenophobia goes beyond the occasional international summit or sports event, and becomes regularized into official extralegal standard operating procedure.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Debito\u2019s latest project is the mockumentary film \u201cGo! Go! Second Time Gaijin,\u201d which is now being funded on Kickstarter<\/a>. Twitter @arudoudebito. Send all your comments and story ideas to\u00a0community@japantimes.co.jp<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

[*] \u00a0Correction: \u00a0According to Chinese media translated into Japanese, the abovementioned knife attack and murder of Chinese “Trainees” has resulted in the arrest of 5 Vietnamese nationals:<\/p>\n

\u65e5\u672c\u306e\u4e2d\u56fd\u4eba\u6280\u80fd\u5b9f\u7fd2\u751f\u3001\u30d9\u30c8\u30ca\u30e0\u4eba5\u4eba\u306b\u5305\u4e01\u3067\u8972\u308f\u308c1\u4eba\u6b7b\u4ea11\u4eba\u8ca0\u50b7\uff1d\u8328\u57ce\u770c\u8b66\u5bdf\u306f\u6bba\u4eba\u3068\u6bba\u4eba\u672a\u9042\u5bb9\u7591\u3067\u902e\u6355\u2015\u4e2d\u56fd\u7d19
\nhttp:\/\/www.recordchina.co.jp\/a114724.html<\/a><\/p>\n

2015\u5e747\u670823\u65e5\u3001\u4eba\u6c11\u65e5\u5831\uff08\u96fb\u5b50\u7248\uff09\u306f\u65e5\u672c\u306e\u5831\u9053\u3092\u5f15\u7528\u3057\u3001\u4e2d\u56fd\u4eba\u6280\u80fd\u5b9f\u7fd2\u751f\u3092\u6bba\u5bb3\u3057\u305f\u3068\u3057\u3066\u3001\u8328\u57ce\u770c\u8b66\u5bdf\u304c\u6bba\u4eba\u3068\u6bba\u4eba\u672a\u9042\u306e\u5bb9\u7591\u3067\u30d9\u30c8\u30ca\u30e0\u4eba5\u4eba\u3092\u902e\u6355\u3057\u305f\u3068\u4f1d\u3048\u305f\u3002<\/p>\n

\u8b66\u5bdf\u306b\u3088\u308b\u3068\u3001\u4eca\u5e742\u670822\u65e5\u5348\u5f8c9\u664240\u5206\u3054\u308d\u3001\u5f53\u6642\u8fb2\u696d\u6280\u80fd\u5b9f\u7fd2\u751f\u3060\u3063\u305f\u4e2d\u56fd\u4eba\u306e\u5b6b\u6587\u541b\uff08\u30b9\u30f3\u30fb\u30a6\u30a7\u30f3\u30b8\u30e5\u30f3\uff09\u3055\u3093\uff0833\uff09\u306f\u8328\u57ce\u770c\u927e\u7530\u5e02\u306e\u8def\u4e0a\u3092\u540c\u50da\u3068\u6b69\u3044\u3066\u3044\u305f\u969b\u3001\u5305\u4e01\u3092\u6301\u3063\u305f\u30d9\u30c8\u30ca\u30e0\u4eba\u306e\u7537\u59735\u4eba\u306b\u8972\u308f\u308c\u305f\u3002<\/p>\n

\u3053\u308c\u306b\u3088\u308a\u5b6b\u3055\u3093\u306f\u6b7b\u4ea1\u3057\u3001\u3082\u30461\u4eba\u306e\u4e2d\u56fd\u4eba\u6280\u80fd\u5b9f\u7fd2\u751f\u3082\u8ca0\u50b7\u3057\u305f\u3002\u305d\u306e\u5f8c\u306e\u8abf\u67fb\u3067\u3001\u30d9\u30c8\u30ca\u30e0\u4eba\u7537\u5973\u3089\u306e\u4e2d\u306b\u306f\u5143\u8fb2\u696d\u6280\u80fd\u5b9f\u7fd2\u751f\u3082\u304a\u308a\u3001\u8b66\u5bdf\u306f\u52d5\u6a5f\u306a\u3069\u306b\u3064\u3044\u3066\u8abf\u3079\u3092\u9032\u3081\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3002\uff08\u7ffb\u8a33\u30fb\u7de8\u96c6\/\u5185\u5c71\uff09ENDS<\/p>\n

Do you like what you read on Debito.org? \u00a0Want to help keep the archive active and support Debito.org’s activities? \u00a0We are celebrating Debito.org’s 20th Anniversary in 2016, so please consider donating a little something. \u00a0More details here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan\u2019s police are at it again: Lying about the law. A reader with the pseudonym Onur recently wrote to me about his experience in the city of Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, when he checked into a hotel. Even though Onur clearly indicated he was a legal resident of Japan with a domestic address, clerks demanded he present his passport for photocopying. They pointed to a sign issued by the Ibaraki Prefectural Police.<\/p>\n

But that poster has three great big stripy lies: 1) \u201cEvery foreign guest must present their passport\u201d 2) \u201cwhich must be photocopied\u201d 3) \u201cunder the Hotel Business Law\u201d \u2014 which states none of these things. Not to mention that Japan\u2019s registered foreign residents are not required to carry around passports anyway.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s particularly egregious about this sign is that the Japanese police know better \u2014 because we told them so a decade ago. The Japan Times first exposed how police were stretching their mandate in \u201cCreating laws out of thin air,\u201d Zeit Gist, March 8, 2005, and, later, two updates: \u201cMinistry missive wrecks reception,\u201d ZG, Oct. 18, 2005, and \u201cJapan\u2019s hostile hosteling industry,\u201d Just Be Cause, July 6,2010.<\/p>\n

It made an impact. Even the usually noncommittal U.S. Embassy took action, posting in their American Community Update of May 2005: \u201cAfter we sought clarification, according to the Environmental Health Division, Health Service Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the new registration procedure at lodging facilities does not apply to foreigners who are residents of Japan but only to tourists and temporary visitors. If you write a Japanese address on the check-in sheet, hotels are not supposed to ask for your passport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right. So why do the Ibaraki police still feel they can lie about the laws they are entrusted to uphold? Because \u2026 Ibaraki. I\u2019ll get to that shortly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,28,18,43,36,33,42,50,35,52,5,26,10,13,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-academia","category-bad-business-practices","category-bad-social-science","category-fingerprinting-nj","category-g8-summit","category-gaiatsu","category-good-news","category-hate-speech","category-human-rights","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-policeforeign-crime","category-media","category-victories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14036","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=14036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}