HUMAN RIGHTS-JAPAN: UN Calls for Anti-Racism Legislation

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Mar 9 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination discussed reports of racist remarks by Japanese authorities like right-wing Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who has made derogatory statements about “Third World people.”

The UN committee noted Japan’s lack of legislation prohibiting that form of intolerance, and more specifically banning racist propaganda and organisations.

The committee’s rapporteur on Japan, Luis Valencia, called on Tokyo to strike down the objections it has raised to article four of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.

The article to which the Japanese government is opposed stipulates that signatory states to the convention must adopt laws banning racist propaganda and the instigation of racial hatred.

In his conclusion to the discussions of the situation in Japan, which ended Friday, Valencia noted that several committee members lamented Japan’s lack of legal safeguards for its indigenous inhabitants, the Ainu.

The independent experts sitting on the UN committee referred to the persistence of discriminatory practices against the Ainu, and against Koreans and other immigrants.

The Japanese delegation attending the committee hearing said Governor Ishihara had explained that his statements were not aimed at inciting racial discrimination.

But a group of Japanese non-governmental organisations (NGOs) attending the committee meeting complained that Ishihara had repeatedly made hostile, discriminatory remarks against foreigners.

In an Apr 9, 2000 speech to Japan’s Self-Defence Force, the governor said that “in Tokyo today, very atrocious crimes are being repeated by ‘third-world people’ and foreigners who have entered Japan illegally.”

On another occasion, he remarked that “Chinese-made marijuana is steadily being brought into Japan and apparently sold by Pakistanis. Within Japan, such dangerous drugs are increasingly spread by ‘third-world people’ and foreigners.”

The NGOs participating in the committee meeting included the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism – Japan, the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations, the Buraku Liberation League and the Ainu Association of Hokkaido.

Also attending were the Shimin Gaiko Centre (SGC – Citizens’ Diplomatic Centre for the Rights of Indigenous People), the Research-Action Institute for Koreans in Japan (RAIK), the National Network in Solidarity with Migrant Workers (made up of 89 NGOs), and the Network to make Ishihara resign as Tokyo governor.

In 1998, there were 1.5 million foreign nationals in Japan, equivalent to 1.2 percent of the country’s population of 126 million. Most of the foreigners were Koreans (42 percent), followed by the Chinese (18 percent) and Brazilians (nearly 15 percent).

Koichi Haraguchi, Japan’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN office at Geneva, said that “in addition to the discrimination against Utari (Ainu), Korean residents and others, new problems have surfaced in Japan because of the influx of a large number of foreign workers – mainly from Asian countries – over the past 10 years.”

Valencia, meanwhile, pointed to continuing discriminatory practices against the Ainu, most of whom live in the prefecture of Hokkaido in northern Japan. The Japanese government delegation, which said the Ainu numbered less than 24,000 in 1993, maintained that their living standards were improving.

The rapporteur, however, said Japanese authorities failed to grant the Ainu recognition as indigenous people.