Tidbits
Japanese crisis management in action - Former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi fell gravely ill at 1:00 a.m. April 2 (Sun.) and was in a coma that evening. During the crisis government officials exhibited the same poor pattern of crisis management that has been seen and criticized in past crises: Lie to the people about the facts, be slow to make decisions and grovel for power behind the scenes and attempt to cover up the truth. Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki assumed the post of acting Prime Minster based on a lie he told saying Obuchi had asked him to take over. Aoki and other then lied about Obuchi's condition, the true nature of which was not revealed until 22 hours after Obuchi had fallen into a coma.
60 percent of Japanese do not trust police - After a spate of scandals and incidents involving the police over the past few years, the Asahi Shinbum recently surveyed 3,000 registered voters on how well they trust the police. The newspaper received 2,107 eligible responses. Thirty-two percent of the respondents said they did not trust police very much and 28 percent said they had no trust at all. But 71 percent of respondents said they still trusted the individual policemen and policewomen on patrol in the their communities.
Nepalese man aquitted of murder - The Tokyo Disctrict Court found 33-year-old Govinda Prosad Mainali not guilty of the murder of his neighbor 39-year-old Yasuko Watanabe who was an employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co. and worked weekends as a prostitute. Presiding Judge Toshikazu Obuchi ruled that the prosecution case was based only on circumstantial evidence and that the defendant had to be given the benefit of the doubt. Prosecutors had presented DNA evidence that linked Mainali to seamen found in a condom in the toilet of the victim's apartment, but the defense successfully argued that the seamen was over 20 days old. Mainali admitted that he had paid Watanabe for sex between February 28 and March 2 of 1997, three weeks before the murder which took place on March 19, 1997. But he has maintained that he did not murder Watanabe. Prosecutors expressed their disappointment with the verdict and said they would try Mainali again. Although Mainali was transferred to immigration detention for a visa violation and processing, the court refused prosecution request to order him jailed while waiting for another murder next trial.
Japan refuses to extradite accused terrorist - Japan's pledge to fight international terrorism has not been enough to overcome a law prohibiting the extradition of Japanese nationals in the absence of an extradition treaty. A 53-year-old naturalized citizen of Japan, Delfo Zorzi is being tried in absentia in Italy for a 1969 bombing of a bank by right-wing extremists that killed 16 people. The Japanese Justice Ministry received the request for extradition from the Italian government in March but has failed to take any action. Japanese officials are now investigating whether Zorzi can be stripped of his nationality if he gained it by hiding past terrorist activities.
Squirrel Man gets busted - 33-year-old Michio Nagano was arrested in Shizuoka in April for molesting two junior high school girls. Police allege that Nagano had been using various animal costumes, including a squirrel and a horse costume to meet his victims and then lure them back to his apartment under the guise of playing video games or helping them with their homework. Nagano said his job was being a home tutor.
Foreigners Ask for Anti-Discrimination Law - On April 20, 2000 several foreigner rights' groups headed by journalist Tony Laszlo of ISSHO Kikaku (http://www.issho.org) presented evidence to Diet members in support of drafting Japan's first national law against discrimination. ISSHO member David Aldwinkle of Hokkaido (http://www.voicenet.co.jp/TheCommunity) first drew attention to the Otaru Onsens' banning of foreigners initiated BENCI (Businesses Excluding Non-Japanese Customers, Issho project, http://www.issho.org/ BENCI) to gather and provide public information on the problem. Speakers at the Diet included Ana Bortz, the Brazilian TV journalist of Hanamatsu who won the first anti-discrimination case in Japan based on international law, and In Ha Lee a long time Korean activist instrumental in having fingerprinting removed from alien registration cards. Various other academics, legal experts and activists spoke to Upper and Lower House Diet members and their representatives urging Japan to adopt anti-discrimination legislation in keeping with it's promise to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1965 which it signed in 1995 (ranking it a late 146th nation to do so). Also relevant (but not speaking), was Tokyo Alien Eyes (ishn@annie.ne.jp) responsible for bringing attention to a recent policy of Lawson's which implied foreigners more likely to be thieves. Individual non-Japanese workers, residents, family members and citizens told of incidents of discrimination in being turned away from stores, hospitals, jobs and more personally of being bullied and ostracized. "Even "International Street" in Okinawa's Naha City has a number of "No Foreigners" signs up," cites Laszlo.
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