In today's edition of the Japan Times, it is reported that the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) is urging the government to enact laws against hate speech and discrimination.
The group also wants the government to bring the country into compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The U.S. ratified it last year.
The Japanese have long had a reputation for insularity. For 200 years, it was essentially a closed society with limited contacts with a few nations. Even today, foreigners are called "gaikokujin" or "gaijin," a term that literally means "outsider."
But in today's Japan, discrimination is blatant, especially when it comes to Koreans.
Actions such as the chanting of slogans outside Korean schools in Japan and turning down foreign tenants when they apply to rent apartments “impede the creation of a society where a quiet life should be guaranteed regardless of people’s origins, and where people from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds can live together.”
One report said there were at least 360 demonstrations against Koreans in 2013.
Demonstrators were reported to have shouted, “Hang yourself, Koreans” and “Put Koreans in gas chambers.”
Sounds like the Westboro Baptist Church, doesn't it?
The JFBA says the demonstrators posted videos of their rallies.
In their paper, the JFBA says:
“Hate speech has repeatedly fomented threats to human lives, and we should not leave the damage produced by it as it is.”
Japan has never outlawed discrimination and there is no regulation of hate speech although a Kyoto court made one group that chanted threats outside of a Korean school pay damages to the school for disrupting classes.
Discrimination in Japan doesn't excuse discrimination in the U.S. but it does highlight the fact that discrimination is not limited to white European males.