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Racial profiling by the Japanese police

thomas

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Today, in a statement on its Twitter site the US embassy warned of racial profiling by the Japanese police.



The unusual move by the embassy of Tokyo's only formal ally came after Japan closed its borders to new entries by foreigners amid concern over the omicron variant, just weeks after beginning a cautious reopening. The closure was backed by almost 90% of respondents to a media poll over the weekend. The alert posted on the Twitter account of the American Citizen Services section of the embassy warned that U.S. citizens should carry proof of their immigration status and notify their consulate if detained. The alert added that several foreigners "were detained, questioned, and searched." Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno dismissed the concerns and said at a news briefing that police questioning in the country is not based on nationality or race.

 
Why were they searched though 😢
 
Today, in a statement on its Twitter site the US embassy warned of racial profiling by the Japanese police.







I don't see this as new. The forum has a number of posts about foreigners being targeted by Japanese police, some people repeatedly by the same police officers if I remember correctly.

I was questioned at the airport once, while sitting and waiting in the departure area for my flight back to the US. I had to show them my passport to prove that I was allowed to be in the country. Seemed like a silly thing to do when a person is waiting for their international departure to start boarding. :confused:
 
I don't see this as new. The forum has a number of posts about foreigners being targeted by Japanese police, some people repeatedly by the same police officers if I remember correctly.

I was questioned at the airport once, while sitting and waiting in the departure area for my flight back to the US. I had to show them my passport to prove that I was allowed to be in the country. Seemed like a silly thing to do when a person is waiting for their international departure to start boarding. :confused:
Are they suspicious of foreigners (especially from the us) or something? Like...πŸ€¨β“something's not clicking
 
Are they suspicious of foreigners (especially from the us) or something? Like...πŸ€¨β“something's not clicking
It's probably not just people from the US - How would a police officer tell the difference between an American and someone from another country just by looking? However, the US embassy has so far been the only embassy to give such a warning.

This does follow a general trend that Japanese institutions do not deal with anything foreign well, and it seems to be getting worse. Yesterday I went to the post office to send a Christmas card and a furoshiki cloth to my 14-year-old goddaughter in Spain. It took about 15 mins to fill in both electronic and paper forms and answer verbal questions about the contents. It sapped the joy out of the nice gesture of sending a Christmas present to a kid abroad.
 
I don't see this as new. The forum has a number of posts about foreigners being targeted by Japanese police, some people repeatedly by the same police officers if I remember correctly.

I was questioned at the airport once, while sitting and waiting in the departure area for my flight back to the US. I had to show them my passport to prove that I was allowed to be in the country. Seemed like a silly thing to do when a person is waiting for their international departure to start boarding.

Yes, @Maciamo's plight with the friendly policemen at the Monzennakacho koban is a forum classic. While police harassment is certainly no news, it is highly unusual for a friendly nation and an ally to issue such a warning.
 
This does follow a general trend that Japanese institutions do not deal with anything foreign well, and it seems to be getting worse. Yesterday I went to the post office to send a Christmas card and a furoshiki cloth to my 14-year-old goddaughter in Spain. It took about 15 mins to fill in both electronic and paper forms and answer verbal questions about the contents. It sapped the joy out of the nice gesture of sending a Christmas present to a kid abroad.

Slightly OT: whenever we ship overseas, we ask our local post office to pick it up. All the paperwork is done on our doorstep, which is usually fast and professional. ;) I do realise that's not practical for letters or small shipments, but it saves us a lot of time and hassle.
 
Are they suspicious of foreigners (especially from the us) or something? Like...πŸ€¨β“something's not clicking

To some extent. There has been a lot of anti-foreigner sentiment and misinformation in the past and you can find examples in the forum of it.

I would think a lot of it is just down to the people involved. If they already have racist or xenophobic leanings and are in a position to hassle/harass people who match those leanings with little or no fear of consequences then they will probably do so. It should be noted that this behavior is not at all singular to Japan and examples of people like this can be found everywhere.
 
Relations in Japan with the police while in the military were interesting. My Japanese friends described the police as almost a Gestapo like group. The fear seemed real and I saw many times where the Japanese person arrested would cry and tremble in fear. A man who worked at the Japanese bar where I worked was arrested for drugs which meant a long term in prison. Soon after , everyone who worked at the bar was interrogated about drugs. My friend said the police would make the arrested person name everyone they associated with , which led to everyone getting talked to. Because I was an American serviceman , I got "special" treatment. At 5AM , the police kicked down the apartment door where I lived. They spent an hour searching my apartment for anything illegal. I thought it was interesting that none of them would speak English to me and I refused to talk to them in Japanese. They found nothing and left. A few days later , I got a message to report to our base police station. It turned out there were 2 Japanese interrogators who this time , spoke perfect English. They spent an hour asking me questions about my activity in Japan off base and asking about every Japanese friend I had by name. It seems the man arrested for drugs told law enforcement I was selling American cigs and booze on the black market and the 2 men were tax agents. After talking with me , they basically threatened me with jail and said since my time in Japan was coming to an end , they would leave me alone. I looked at the whole episode as interesting and not a big deal. In my 2 years in Fukuoka , this was the only run in I had with the police. (This took place in 1971-72)
 
On Monday, the Tokyo Bar Association announced in a press conference that they will start looking into the circumstances under which people with foreign roots have been stopped and questioned by Japanese police following allegations of racial profiling.

"We have good reasons to believe that police officers frequently racially profile people of foreign origin," Junko Hayashi said at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. "We need more solid data regarding this issue." The survey will begin Jan. 11. [...] Earlier this month, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said on its official Twitter account that it had received reports of "suspected racial profiling incidents" with several foreigners "detained, questioned, and searched" by the police. The message advised U.S. citizens to carry proof of immigration status and request consular notification if detained. Asked about the message, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press conference Dec. 6 that Japanese police approach suspicious people in accordance with the law, such as when they have reasonable grounds to suspect someone has committed a crime, and that questioning is not carried out based on race or nationality. Hayashi said the association decided to take action since "the chief Cabinet secretary does not seem willing to investigate."

 
Not sure if it still happens , but when I was in Fukuoka , almost every business had a sign that no foreigners were allowed. The bad behavior of military people was the cause and many did act like animals. I found that if you went in and spoke Japanese , the almost always said OK to enter.
 
Pretty funny coming from america where we just had the BLM movement. I too have been stopped by the police just coming back from a conbini late at night getting snacks to check my visa status. I never felt threatened by them and it is legal for them to do that I was always told. Where the line is drawn for me above is to detain and search them without a good cause, I understand police can hold one for quite a while without a charge (unlike in the US) so I am glad to see the above text on "reasonable grounds to suspect someone has commited a crime".

I don't know about legality (I suspect no problem) but the no foreigners signs are much less common, they do still exist though. It was not just about the military behaving badly some were just fear of communicating in a scary foreign language this is why one can enter when speaking Japanese. You will not typically be allowed in places like soaplands as westerners don't know when to stop or so I've been told.
 
Where the line is drawn for me above is to detain and search them without a good cause, I understand police can hold one for quite a while without a charge (unlike in the US) so I am glad to see the above text on "reasonable grounds to suspect someone has commited a crime".
That really depends on what qualifies as "reasonable grounds" for them. For all we know being a foreigner may be "reasonable grounds" as far as they are concerned.
 
Yes that was the point of my previous post. The cops in Japan can't arbitrarily stop you and ask for your ID. At least, that's what the law says.
However, if they stop you and ask for your ID, and you refuse, they basically view this as suspicious activity, and things get ugly from there. The whole situation will get escalated through the unfriendly, unsympathetic court system that seems heavily weighted in favor of the prosecution (police).
 
OK. I just remember being coached years ago to always carry it for that reason, I didn't realize they had to have good cause to ID while walking while foreign. Due to the coaching I had always thought it was legal, seems that is not the case.
 
OK. I just remember being coached years ago to always carry it for that reason, I didn't realize they had to have good cause to ID while walking while foreign. Due to the coaching I had always thought it was legal, seems that is not the case.
They can always make up an excuse. Like you "fit the description" of somebody they are looking for etc.
 
The National Police Agency reacted to several claims of racial profiling by the US embassy and others and issued an advisory to all prefectural police forces to avoid questioning people in a way that could be perceived as racially motivated, according to agency officials.

The written advisory read that when choosing who to stop and question, police officers "should not base their decisions solely on how they look, such as appearance and clothing." When asked at a press conference about the U.S. Embassy's tweet on the day it was posted, top government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said police questioning is not carried out based on race or nationality, and officers approach suspicious people in accordance with the law. Conversely, the preliminary results of a Tokyo Bar Association survey of police treatment of people with foreign roots, released earlier this year, showed that 62.9 percent of the 2,094 respondents reported being questioned by police in the preceding five years.

 
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Nip it in the bud as Barney would say. Here in the US when non-police tell the police how to do their job , it usually doesn't end well. When police management is controlled by kissing politician's butts to get needed finances , it also can go downhill fast. Hopefully this new policy will work out for the better.
 
Japan is very sensitive to foreign criticism, especially in this case, I would assume (it came from the US embassy, after all). I am not sure how they will "avoid the impression of racial profiling": check five drunken salarymen for each foreign resident they stop?
 
They could avoid the impression by only stopping people who actually look suspicious or troublesome, rather than performing random checks on anyone who looks "foreign".

But like I said in another thread, I haven't been stopped or even approached in over six years now, so maybe they are making a genuine effort to change and give off a better impression.
 
Here in the US when non-police tell the police how to do their job , it usually doesn't end well. When police management is controlled by kissing politician's butts to get needed finances , it also can go downhill fast. Hopefully this new policy will work out for the better.
The police have failed to police themselves so they need oversight. At least with all the bodycams now they are not getting away with immoral and illegal behavior as much.
 
A little update: according to the NPA, there were only six racial profiling cases in 2021.

As a result, the agency recognized two racial profiling incidents each in Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture, one case in Osaka and one in Miyagi. In one case, a police officer asked a person's nationality using rude expressions. In another case, a police officer told a person to show a residence card just because the name of the person looked like a foreign name. Also in another case, an officer questioned a person with hair braids, saying that in the past a fashionable person had used illegal drugs. The national police say none of these police officers had discriminatory intent.

 
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