RIGHTS-JAPAN: Activists Fault Anti-Foreigner Sentiment

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, May 24 2000 (IPS) - Nepali national Govind Prasad Mainali had already spent three years in detention here, before he was finally acquitted last month of the murder and robbery charges against him.

But he is again behind bars because the prosecution has filed an appeal in the High Court, and it has argued that he must be detained to ensure that he does not leave Japan while his case is pending.

Mainali’s court-appointed defence team, of course, is fighting for his release. Human rights activists have also stepped in, saying Mainali seems to have become a victim of the growing resentment of many Japanese toward foreigners — especially those from Asian countries — who live here.

As Katsuhiko Tsukuda, a member of the defence team, points out. “There is absolutely no ground for the government to detain a man found innocent for the crimes he was charged for.”

Mainali, 33, was arrested in May 1997 for allegedly strangling a Japanese woman and stealing 40,000 yen (367 dollars) from her. He denied the charges, but it took until April for the Tokyo District Court to rule in his favour, saying that there was insufficient evidence to back the charges against him.

That should have meant Mainali was free to go, but on May 8, he was again detained because of the prosecution’s appeal.

Says Tsukuda: “The prosecutors’ line of argument is unforgivable. It is not only against legal norm but also blatantly disregards the victim’s human rights. Once a man is found not guilty, he should remain free till there is evidence to charge him again.”

On May 19, the High Court upheld the decision to detain Mainali, prompting a judge in that court to resign in disagreement. Meantime, Mainali’s lawyers have appealed the court’s judgement.

Activists see a connection between Mainali’s case and the rise in ill feelings that the Japanese have toward ‘gaijin’ or foreigners here, especially those who are illegal workers from developing countries.

Mainali, who arrived in Japan in 1994 as a tourist, had been working here illegally, as a waiter. He was arrested for overstaying in March 1997 and given a suspended sentence in May that year — and then arrested for the murder that same month.

Figures from the Bureau of Immigration show that a total of 1.35 million foreigners are now living in Japan. Of this number, about 270,000 are suspected of having entered the country illegally.

Part of the Japanese resentment of ‘gaijin’ comes from police reports chronicling the rise in crimes committed by foreigners in Japan. The entry of Chinese and Vietnamese gangs into the country has also been cited as one of the leading reasons for what some say has been the steady erosion of Japan’s image as a “safe” country.

Once, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara even told Japan’s Self- Defence Forces that they must be prepared to protect Japanese nationals from rioting illegal foreign residents in case of an earthquake. Yet despite protests by human rights groups over the governor’s remarks, public support for Ishihara remained high.

Activists add, though, that Japan’s long colonisation of many countries in Asia up until the end of World War II, combined with the former thinking that Japan was a “divine” country that had “a pure and superior race”, only nurtured discrimination against Asians in particular.

Hideki Morihara of the human rights group Amnesty-Japan says that Mainali has been treated unfairly because he is from a poor Asian country.

Notes Morihara: “He had no access to proper interpreters when he was arrested, was physically abused by the police, not allowed access to lawyers for a while and continues to be detained even today. Such violation of human rights would not have been the case if he were a Westerner.”

The activist also indicates that most local media reports on the case have only helped “demonise” foreigners some more. He cites the numerous stories, run by Japanese weeklies, highlighting the supposed affairs of Mainali’s alleged victim with foreign men.

“This treatment once again depicts foreigners as scandalous people,” remarks Morihira. “There is no national discussion about the abuse of human rights of foreigners.”

Meanwhile, lawyers and criminal experts are now saying that the decision to detain Mainali can only tarnish Japan’s image as a civilised country.

“In a case like the Nepali one, it is questionable that the international community would agree with the detention of a man who has been acquitted of murder,” says law professor Toyo Atsumi of Chuo University. “I am very concerned about the damage to Japan’s reputation.”

Then again, the mistreatment of detainees has long been a blot on Japan’s human rights record. Although activists concede that even Japanese detainees are sometimes mistreated, the situation became even more noticeable after Japan last year ratified the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

By then, Mainali’s case was already in court. Yet up to now, Japan seems to be ignoring the Convention in the treatment of the Nepali, say lawyers and activists.

“The young man is now desperate to return to Nepal where his wife and children await (him),” says Tsukuda. “The whole episode has turned his stay in Japan into a nightmare. He is mentally very distraught.”