Tidbits
After passing the Upper House in May, the Lower House passed a bill into law abolishing compulsory finger printing of foreign residents when renewing their alien registration cards. The revised law also changed the offence of not carrying the card from being a crime to being an administrative matter, and it calls for further "examination" which may result in permanent resident holders not being required to carry the card.
In February of this year, the highest ranking Japanese diplomat in Vancouver, Japanese Consul Shuji Shimokoji was arrested for beating his wife who showed up at an area hospital with two black eyes and a bruised cheek. Shimokoji created an international furor after making a statement to police that this was a matter of "Japanese culture" and that his wife "had deserved it." The foreign Ministry initially did not seem to agree that wife beating was part of Japanese culture. They immediately ordered Shimokoji to return to Japan. However, the ministry later wavered and demonstrated that wife beating is at least tolerated in Japan by means of its light punishment. After grossly failing in his primary duty in Canada, to protect and assure the safety of Japanese citizens living there, Shimokoji was reassigned to a new post in Japan with a 10 percent cut in pay for three months.
Nearly 40 years after its widespread acceptance in most Western countries and nine years after it was submitted for screening in Japan, the Japanese government has finally approved birth control pills as a means of contraception for Japanese women. In addition to the legal ban, the government has also maintained a longstanding PR blitz against the pill by bombarding Japanese women with nonstop reports of the ill effects of the pill. The Japan Medical Association (JMA) has been the primary proponent of the scare campaign as it has ardently fought to protect the lucrative abortion business of its members. The JMA has put forth the arguments that the pill causes cancer, death, increased sexual activity and spread of venereal disease. In contrast to the long wait for the pill, Viagara, which has been directly attributed to hundreds of deaths in a short period of time, was approved by the Japanese government, which mostly consists of older men, in record time (six months) for any new drug.
The Lower House has passed a bill to officially recognize the Japanese flag and national anthem while Japan continues to be an international laughing stock as perhaps the only country in the world that does not officially recognize its own flag. Never having quite owned up to its wartime history has left the Japanese nation doing some serious soul searching. Amidst strong opposition, Even a suicide by a school principal who was so averse to having to having these symbols at his school, Japanese still find it difficult to take pride in their nation and its symbols.
Beginning in June the Japanese police under the direction of the Public Security Investigation Agency have been carrying out numerous raids on facilities and homes belonging to members the religious group Aum Shinrikyo and arresting some of its members. The reasons for these raids and arrests, "illegal distribution of information" and "using an incorrect name on a building application," have become part of an organized government effort to harass and stomp out the activities of a religious group that it deems undesirable. Police used the flimsy excuses to thoroughly search nearly all Aum facilities. No weapons or evidence of violence have been uncovered; religious materials and evidence that the group is attempting to spread its activities have been found. The Agency is now asking for the authority to conduct searches against any groups that it deems "subversive."
SPECIAL
FEATURE
Human Rights Falling
Through the Cracks in Japan
Japan "Justice" Ministry tearing Japanese children apart from gaijin dad