Japan: Foreign-Born Residents Sue Over Alleged Racial Discrimination

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Facts

  • Three foreign-born male residents of Japan filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against the national government, as well as the Tokyo Metropolitan and Aichi Prefecture governments on Monday, over alleged police profiling solely due to their race, reportedly the first such lawsuit in the country.1
  • The Pakistan-born 26-year-old Syed Zain, who has been living in the country for nearly two decades and obtained Japanese citizenship with his family at age 13, claims to have been questioned 15 times — twice last year — by police, often being asked to show a foreign residency card.2
  • Meanwhile, a Pacific Islander in his 50s known as Matthew, who has only offered his first name due to privacy concerns, claims to have been stopped by police at least 70 times. Matthew married a Japanese woman in 2002, and later became a permanent resident of the country.2
  • The third plaintiff, a Black American named Maurice, reports similar incidents of harassment, stating that officers have stopped him without giving a clear legal reason up to 17 times in the 10 years that he has lived in Japan, more frequently in the past five to six years.3
  • They are seeking 3M yen ($20K) each in punitive damages on the grounds that authorities have racially profiled them, despite the Japanese constitution, as well as international treaties signed by Japan, banning discrimination on the basis of race.4
  • This comes as the number of foreign workers arriving in Japan has risen amid labor shortages caused by the country's aging population. The recent crowning of a Ukrainian-born naturalized Japanese citizen as Miss Japan has also reignited a debate on what it means to be a Japanese.1

Sources: 1Reuters.com, 2The Japan Times, 3The Mainichi and 4Associated Press.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by by Pallavi Aiyar. Japan has a long and toxic history of profiling 'visible minorities.' Japanese citizens have an unwritten rule of not sitting next to foreigners on public trains, while some restaurants and hotels even deny non-Japanese residents service. This issue even impacts the economy, as one in four job seekers say their applications are denied due to being foreign and one in five say they make less money for the same reason.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Medium. Japan is being wrongly accused of racism when it is only expecting people to follow cultural norms. When applying for jobs, for instance, being proficient in the Japanese language means you better understand traditions and routines. Due to this justifiable workplace reality, most foreigners don't make it past the first interview. Outsiders can't paint Japan with a broad brush just because they don't like the demographic layout of certain institutions.

Predictions