Racial profiling by the Japanese police

Lothor said:

Hmm. The police marking their own homework there!

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... just being rude without discriminatory intent.

In Fukuoka in the early 70's I was stunned by the fear of police that Japanese people had. Several times I saw grown men crying when the police talked to them. My buddies made it sould like if you were arrested , they beat the crap out of you till you confessed what they wanted to hear. I found out the police raid on my apartment was caused by a bar employee that was arrested named everyone he knew was a drug dealer including me , LOL. When they raided my apartment and saw I was a gaijin in the military , they kind of panicked and left because none of them spoke English. About 2 weeks after the raid , I got a surprise order to go to our base police station where 2 agents from the Japan tax bureau who wanted to know why I had so many bottles of US alcohol in my apartment(black market issue) and I said it was for my going away party. That was the end of it. I thought it was interesting in their questioning , they had the names of about 25 Japanese I worked with and was friends with. They asked me about each one and I would tell them so and so is an upstanding law abiding person and I'm proud to know them.

thomas said:

... just being rude without discriminatory intent.

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Maybe they are rude to everyone? Then its not discrimination, its just a rude person. ;P

The Mainichi Shimbun followed up on the alleged number of just six racial profiling cases in 2021, delving into the reality of police discrimination by examining specific instances in which foreign residents were the targets of abusive language, body checks, and other unjust actions by authorities. The Tokyo Bar Association conducted a survey between January and February 2022 targeting foreign residents and those with foreign roots. According to the results disclosed in September, of the 2,094 valid responses, 62.9% said police had questioned them in the past five years. Among them, 85.4% said that officers approached them while acknowledging that they were someone with foreign roots based on "physical features" and other factors. Among those who had been questioned, 76.9% believed that there were no other factors than them being "a foreigner or someone with foreign roots" that prompted the police officers to approach them.

Such residents described cases that were acts of discrimination, such "They were brutal and rude the whole time, and I was suddenly forced to strip off my pants and expose my lower area." According to another respondent, police said they approach people they "think are suspicious" but never reveal the basis for their suspicions. The individual said, "I can't think of a reason other than my appearance that would make them suspicious." Another person, born and raised in Japan, said the police yelled, "You foreigners go back to your countries; foreigners don't deserve human rights! Go home! Take your family and go home!"

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Mainichi describes other cases, like the one below from a Muslim woman from South Asia in her 40s:

"Can you really not speak Japanese?" "You're the one who kicked him anyway, right?" A police officer allegedly hurled such accusations toward a 3-year-old girl playing at a park in Tokyo in June 2021. A Muslim woman and her young daughter were verbally attacked by a man nearby, who claimed that the girl kicked his son. The man also called out "gaijin," a term often used pejoratively to refer to foreigners, and "Show your residence card" toward the mother wearing a hijab. Six police officers arrived on the scene afterwards, and according to the statements of another man who happened to be there, one of the officers hurled abusive words toward the mother and child. After answering questions for around two hours at the park, the mother and child were taken to a police station, where they were kept for another long period of questioning. It has also emerged that the police provided the man behind the verbal attack with the woman's personal information, including her phone number and address. The woman has filed a lawsuit demanding a total of 4.4 million yen ($32,000) in damages over the discrimination and mistreatment by police.

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According to her lawyer, the woman harassed by the man at the park thought the police had come to help her. In reality, the police made her feel helpless that she couldn't receive public support due to her minority status.

More cases in the article below.

Three foreign-born residents in Japan from Pakistan, India, and the US have sued Japanese authorities over alleged racial profiling. The plaintiffs say they have suffered distress from repeated police questioning based on their appearances.

Mr Zain, who is a Pakistan-born Japanese citizen, has lived in Japan for two decades, went to school there and is fluent in Japanese. The 26-year-old told a press conference on Monday that he has often been stopped, questioned and searched by police.

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Another one of the plaintiffs, Matthew, who is of Indian descent and a permanent resident in Japan, claimed that he has been questioned by the police at least 70 times since he arrived in Japan in 2002. He said he now avoids going out, Japanese newspaper The Manichi reported. "I never knew what social withdrawal was until recently... I feel like every time I finish work, I'm hiding in my house," he said. Reports said he declined to provide his last name for fear of harassment.

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Maurice, an African-American who is a permanent resident in Japan, told the newspaper he has also been questioned by "regular Japanese people", including some who have asked if he is overstaying his visa.

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In December 2021, the US Embassy in Tokyo warned citizens of "suspected racial profiling" of foreigners by Japanese police. Back then, the NPA spotted "six inappropriate cases of police questioning even though officers had no intention of discrimination based on race or nationality," a senior agency official told parliament in 2022.



Paywall alert:

On the occasion of the first lawsuit about police discrimination against foreign-born residents (see the post above), the NYT had a piece on the police practice in Japan:

In Japan, racial profiling has become a contentious issue as the nation grapples with an influx of migrant workers, foreign residents, and mixed-race Japanese individuals. These demographic shifts challenge Japan's traditionally homogenous society and expose deep-rooted suspicions toward outsiders.

With an ageing population and persistently low birth rates, Japan has been compelled to reevaluate its stringent immigration policies. As more migrant workers arrive, performing tasks such as cleaning hotel rooms, staffing convenience store registers, or working in fast-food establishments, they hail from countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.

However, social attitudes toward foreign-born residents have been slow to adapt. In a significant development, three individuals filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government and local authorities in Tokyo and Aichi prefecture in January. Their grievance centres on the conduct of the police forces, alleging that they were frequently subjected to random stops and searches based on their racial appearance. This legal case marks the first time in Japan that officers' reliance on racial profiling during policing has been challenged. Despite this, the issue remains largely unrecognized by the Japanese public, highlighting the need for greater awareness and systemic change.

Each of the three plaintiffs — one naturalized citizen and two longtime residents — said they had been stopped for questioning multiple times a year. One of them, a Pacific Islander living in Japan for more than two decades, estimated that he'd been questioned 70 to 100 times by the police. Motoki Taniguchi, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said that perceptions in Japan had been slow to catch up to the reality that the country was already living. "Many Japanese are still in the illusion that we are such a homogenous country, that we shouldn't take immigrants because they will break society," he said. His clients' experiences conflict with what Japan's National Police Agency said it found in 2021 after Mr. Omotegawa's video caused enough of a stir that the United States Embassy in Tokyo issued an alert warning Americans of racial profiling. The year before, the police said, there had been just six cases of racial profiling in a country with about three million foreign residents. Police officials defended their officers, saying they had acted without any "discriminatory intent" — even in the six cases — and that officers are trained to question people only with reasonable suspicion. It declined to comment on the lawsuit and said it did not have more recent statistics on profiling.

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The opening of a civil lawsuit (see posts 30, 31 above) yesterday saw plaintiffs emotionally recount their experiences of being repeatedly stopped and interrogated by Japanese police, which they argue was unjustified. Three individuals residing in Japan, who have roots in other countries including one American, initiated the lawsuit in January. They allege that such actions by the police amount to discrimination and infringe upon their human rights.



Despite Japan lacking specific legislation against discrimination or racial profiling, the authorities and police force reject any claims of discriminatory practices, asserting that their actions are part of standard law enforcement duties. The police's detailed defence is anticipated to be presented at the upcoming court session in July, with a final decision expected to be made in roughly one year.

The case, which could prove a landmark for Japan, has drawn widespread support and attention in a nation reputed for friendly "community policing" and a relatively low crime rate. It also highlights how a culture that prides itself on its insularity is grappling with the recent influx of people from abroad. The number of non-citizens living in Japan reached a record high recently, with more than 3.2 million people. The lawsuit demands 3 million JPY (about USD20,000) in punitive damages per plaintiff as compensation for "unconstitutional and illegal" treatment, plus 300,000 JPY (about USD2,000) per plaintiff in attorneys' fees.

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Even though Fukuoka was a military town because of the near by base , we were very often stopped by the police to show our military ID card. At the time , without a mustache , I looked about 12 years old , LOL. They often commented that I must be a military member's kid , LOL.

In a recent interview with The Mainichi, a former police inspector in a West Japan prefecture disclosed that there was persistent and systematic racial profiling within the force. Senior officers allegedly ordered officers to target foreigners for questioning, conduct ID checks, and perform searches. Taro Yamada (a pseudonym), who served in the local policing section for over ten years, revealed that the order originated from the criminal investigation division. During a specific "cracking down on foreigners" month, officers were instructed to intensify their efforts in checking foreign resident registration cards and searching foreigners for drugs, knives, or other illegal items.

He continued that during the crackdown month, officers were given forms to record the personal details -- resident card number, birthday, country of origin, "everything" -- of each foreigner they stopped to question. These forms were then submitted to not just the local policing division, but also the criminal investigation and public security divisions. "After the month-long crackdown, I saw that there had been more visa overstayers caught, and I thought we'd had a positive effect," Yamada said. "But later, I came to think that orders really emphasizing that we had to 'crack down on foreigners' -- in other words judging people by their appearance alone -- were a human rights violation." According to Yamada, there was no focus on questioning particular ethnicities when he was a patrol officer, but he did encounter deep biases against residents with darker skin. "Officers around me including my immediate superior often said things like, 'People with Black roots, Southeast Asians and so on study ways to kill people. So use your service revolver if you have to! You have no idea what they're going to do.'" Similarly, it was said within the force that officers "'have to be careful patrolling'" in an area with many Korean residents "'because there's no telling what they'll do.'" Yamada added that officers tossed around these comments casually during work and on break, and often referred to foreigners broadly as "aitsura" and "yatsura" -- derogatory words roughly translatable as "those people."

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Residents of foreign heritage, along with naturalised Japanese, have begun raising concerns about being racially profiled by the police, with some considering pursuing legal action. As the broader public appears largely indifferent to the issue, supporters of these efforts have cautioned that any significant change may take time. Although surveys have long pointed to instances of racial profiling—where individuals are questioned by authorities based on appearance or presumed ethnicity—the matter has only recently become a topic of open discussion.



One such case involves Zain Syed, a 27-year-old naturalised Japanese citizen of Pakistani descent (his case was mentioned in this thread), who said he had been stopped by police at least 15 times. He reportedly questioned officers about the reasons for stopping him, but they told him he was not being treated any differently from others. As Syed believed he was stopped because of his ethnicity, he decided to join a lawsuit.

He explained that he was not arguing against police questioning individuals regardless of their origin, but he wanted to understand the reasoning behind such actions. By pursuing legal action, he hoped to push the government to take measures against discriminatory policing. Syed, who lives near Nagoya and is self-employed, became one of three plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit filed in January 2024. The suit brought against the Aichi Prefectural Police, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, and the national government seeks ¥3.3 million (approximately $22,850) in damages for each individual.

A recent survey carried out by lawyers in the suit backs the plaintiffs' view that the stopping and questioning of those with foreign appearances often lacks the existence of "sufficient probable cause" to suspect the person has committed or is about to commit a crime -- the requirements set out under the Police Duties Execution Act. The survey, released in February 2025, found that over 71% of foreign nationals in Japan had been questioned by police on the streets in the past five years, a rate approximately 5.6 times higher than that of Japanese nationals. The questionnaire, the first of its kind to compare police questioning of foreign nationals and Japanese, drew answers from 521 Japanese and 422 foreigners who had lived in Japan for five years or more, excluding those from the Northeast Asian region, apparently due to their similar appearances to Japanese.

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