http:\/\/search.japantimes.co.jp\/cgi-bin\/nn20070223f1.html<\/a><\/p>\n“Now!! Bad foreigners are devouring Japan,” screams the warning, surrounded
\nby gruesome caricatures of foreigners who look like savages, with blood red
\neyes and evil faces.<\/p>\n
The subtitle along the bottom of special edition magazine Kyogaku no Gaijin
\nHanzai Ura Fairu (Shocking Foreigner Crime: the Underground File) asks, “Are
\nwe allowing foreigners to devastate Japan?” with a tiny qualifier “some” on
\nthe first kanji. <\/p>\n
The 125-page single edition is about crimes committed by non-Japanese.<\/p>\n
The pages are filled with crime stories and photographs of alleged crimes
\nbeing committed, drug deals, stabbings, gang fights and arrests — all of
\nthem involving people from a wide range of countries. Some of the
\nnationalities named are Iranian, Chinese, South Korean, Brazilian and
\nNigerian.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Family Mart, the main distributor, said that two days after
\nthe magazine was released at the end of January, it began receiving e-mail
\ncomplaints.<\/p>\n
According to a leaflet circulated by a group of protesters, the magazine
\n“gives discriminatory statements and images about non-Japanese residents of
\nJapan.”<\/p>\n
After receiving more than 10 complaints, Family Mart took a closer look at
\nthe magazine.<\/p>\n
“When we read it, we found some expressions to be discriminatory and decided
\nto stop selling the book,” said the spokesman, who spoke on condition of
\nanonymity.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 5, the firm ordered all its 6,800 outlets nationwide to remove the
\nmagazine from the shelves and shipped them back to Eichi. It said that of
\nthe 15,000 copies in stock — of the 20,000 to 30,000 that had been printed
\n— 1,000 were sold.<\/p>\n
Shigeki Saka, editor of the magazine, claimed Eichi did not intend to
\ndiscriminate against foreigners but wanted to provide an opportunity for
\n“discussion” about the issue.<\/p>\n
“This book was not originally published for foreign readers,” Saka said. “It
\nwas to raise the issue (of crimes committed by foreigners) in Japanese
\nsociety. . . . But I believe the foreigners have the fear that they will be
\nviewed in the same way” as criminals.<\/p>\n
Carlo La Porta, whole holds British and Italian citizenship and has lived in
\nTokyo for 16 years, said he thought the magazine painted foreigners as
\ncriminals.<\/p>\n
The magazine “brings a problem into focus without adding perspective to it,
\nand as such implies that foreigners at large commit a lot of crimes,” La
\nPorta said.<\/p>\n
Although the headline of a feature interview with a former Metropolitan
\nPolice Department investigator, on the magazine cover, says, “In 2007,
\nanyone could be [sic–the Japanese says “ni naru”, will be, not “ni nareru” could be]
\nthe target of foreigner crime!!” the number of crimes
\ncommitted by non-Japanese has actually fallen recently.<\/p>\n
According to a report on organized crime to the National Police Agency,
\n18,895 foreigners were arrested in 2006, a decline of 2,283 from 2005.<\/p>\n
In 2005, the number of foreigners arrested for serious crimes — murder,
\nrobbery, arson and rape — fell to 396 from 421 arrests the previous year.<\/p>\n
The 21,178 foreigners arrested in 2005 constituted only 5.5 percent of the
\n386,955 arrests that year.<\/p>\n
Eichi’s Saka said he published the book despite the recent decline in
\ncrimes, a point the magazine briefly mentions.<\/p>\n
“The content (of the magazine) really is not intended to get rid of
\nforeigners nor is it extreme in tone. It is based only on facts,” Saka
\nclaimed.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to talk about the economic situation and environment in Japan that
\nhas caused foreigners to commit crimes. But it does contain a little bit of
\nextreme expressions, for commercial purposes.”<\/p>\n
The magazine contains several articles about the bad conditions many
\nforeigners work under, linking that to criminal activity.<\/p>\n
One feature article says poor working conditions in Japan “have caused
\n(foreigners) to build resentment toward Japanese society and, one after
\nanother, more people are getting involved in crimes because of the hardships
\nin their lives.”<\/p>\n
On what are called “entertainment” pages, there are photographs of
\nforeigners and Japanese women embracing on Tokyo streets. One photo of a
\nblack man and a Japanese woman has the caption, “Hey nigger!! Don’t touch
\nthat Japanese woman’s ass!!”<\/p>\n
Saka said that while he knew the term “nigger” is racist, he reckoned it
\nwould have a different nuance written in Japanese. “We used it as street
\nslang, writing it in katakana. But if we had known that we would get such a
\nhuge reaction from foreigners, we might have refrained from using it,” he
\nfigured.<\/p>\n
Saka said that although the book had been pulled from Family Mart, it is
\nstill available at some bookstores and on the Internet.<\/p>\n
Hideki Morihara, secretary general of International Movement Against All
\nForms of Discrimination and Racism, said the magazine is only part of a
\nwider problem for which the government is partially responsible.<\/p>\n
He said the government frequently links foreigners with the growing threat
\nof crimes in Japan and is creating the image that all foreigners are
\npotential criminals.<\/p>\n
He cited how in 2003, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, along with the
\nImmigration Bureau and the NPA, launched a campaign to cut the number of
\nillegal foreign residents in Japan by half within five years.<\/p>\n
A joint statement released at the start of the campaign says “immediate
\naction must be taken to resolve the issue of illegal overstayers for the
\nsafety of our country” because “the existence of some illegal overstayers
\n(is the source) of foreign organized crime that occurs frequently.”<\/p>\n
Morihara also said that last year’s legislation to revise the immigration
\nlaw to enable photographing and fingerprinting of every foreigner entering
\nJapan gives the impression that foreigners are potential terrorists.<\/p>\n
“It is a big mistake to think that by categorizing foreigners as dangerous,
\nJapan will be protected,” Morihara said.<\/p>\n
The Japan Times: Friday, Feb. 23, 2007
\nENDS\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After receiving more than 10 complaints, Family Mart took a closer look at the magazine. “When we read it, we found some expressions to be discriminatory and decided to stop selling the book,” said the spokesman, who spoke on condition oanonymity. On Feb. 5, the firm ordered all its 6,800 outlets nationwide to remove the
\nmagazine from the shelves and shipped them back to Eichi. It said that of the 15,000 copies in stock — of the 20,000 to 30,000 that had been printed — 1,000 were sold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,10,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaijin-hanzai-mag","category-japanese-policeforeign-crime","category-media","category-problematic-foreign-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","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=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}