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Why you don't want to get in trouble in Japan, or even wrongly accused

FirstHousePooka said:
Just read this site
http://www.phaseloop.com/foreignprisoners/prison-japan.html

Jeez...
I never EVER want to be wrongly accused of a crime in Japan. People like Chris Snell, Nick Baker and Govinda Prasad Mainali have had their lives destroyed by crimes they didn't commit and an unfair and some would say insane criminal justice system more obssessed with keeping vote pleasing statistics then finding the truth.

Makes me sick and scared.
Hey welcome to reality. :eek:
 
Man... The system sounds kind of wierd but it seems to work since there isn't to much crimes in Japan, the cops here in Sweden don't do a thing, they sit on their fat asses and watch..

Reiku: I'm thinking about joining a martial arts club in town but I don't really know what style though, You got any recommendations?
 
Reiku said:
Judging a martial art by it's name only shows your own arrogance.

Touchy, touchy. I had never heard of it, and I doubt anyone else here had either. And I can't recall having made any statement which offered any opinion on its merits. I asked what the heck it is. So....what the heck is it?

...Besides, attacking a person's signature instead of his point just makes it look like you have nothing to add to the debate.

You are correct. That I have nothing to add to the discussion is evidenced by my explanation of the 23 day police hold and the re-arrest trick.
Not nearly as substantive as what you have added, I confess. But we can't all be perfect.
 
giant_robot said:
Christ, Mike and Reiku, grow the **** up. Stop with the petty insults. It's going nowhere.

Yes, Mommy. I'm sorry. Don't spank me.
 
Heh...

giant_robot said:
Christ, Mike and Reiku, grow the **** up. Stop with the petty insults. It's going nowhere.

Sorry about that, giant robo.

I was already kind of ticked at mike from something that happened earlier in another thread. In hindsight, I shoud've just ignored his comments.

(I'll think I'll stay out of the serious discussions from now on--I came here to have fun, not too discuss the steady crumbling of human civilization.
wink-1.gif
)
 
Incidentally, isn't it ironical that Japan that was "operating the world's largest single venture in illicit drugs" in 1934 (or so said the Opium Advisory Commission in Geneva at the time), and produced over 90% of the world illicit opiium and morphine in 1937 (sources here), a country which traditionally had used cannabis for Shinto ceremonies for over a thousand years, should now condemn people for decades of forced labour for possession of a bit of herb or a few pills of ecstacy ?
 
FirstHousePooka said:
Just read this site
http://www.phaseloop.com/foreignprisoners/prison-japan.html

Jeez...
I never EVER want to be wrongly accused of a crime in Japan. People like Chris Snell, Nick Baker and Govinda Prasad Mainali have had their lives destroyed by crimes they didn't commit and an unfair and some would say insane criminal justice system more obssessed with keeping vote pleasing statistics then finding the truth.

Makes me sick and scared.
Funny this coming from where else but an Australian:

http://www.justicefornickbaker.org/en/041201-01.htm

The "Melbourne Incident", as it is widely known in Japan, bears striking similarity to Baker's own case. It involved five Japanese tourists arriving in Australia via Malaysia. They were detained when 13 kg of heroin was found in suitcases they were carrying. The five vigorously protested their innocence -- the suitcases, they said, had been provided through a travel guide after the group's original baggage was stolen in Kuala Lumpur. They insisted that statements attributed to them by prosecutors had been woefully misinterpreted, and that severe problems arose due to poor quality interpretation during interrogations and throughout the trial, which resulted in guilty verdicts all round and sentences of 15 years for four of the defendants, and 20 years for the fifth.

Support for the Melbourne Five was widespread in Japan, with intense media coverage focusing on problems with the trial. In November, 2002, four of the five were released and returned to Japan, where they continue to fight to have their names cleared.

The Melbourne Case Defence Attorneys' Official Homepage: 海外で不当に逮捕された時の対処法 | 自分は大丈夫と思っていないでイザという時を知りましょう
The Melbourne Incident: http://www.t-ikeda.com/case/melbolune.htm
Boycott Aussie Products: オーストラリア製品不買運動
 
Incidentally, isn't it ironical that Japan...

You've been listening to too much George Bush! :D

Anyways, people -- I've only skimmed this thread, but I think there's a few things everyone is failing to take into account.

1: There's two sides to every story (that's not to say these people aren't innocent, but nobody here knows all the facts)
2: There are hundreds of people falsely detained in *ALL* countires
3: Japanese prisons are a joke compared to the US ones. 10% (1 out of 10) inmates in US prisons are raped at one point.
4: The Japanese system is based more on rehabilitation than revenge. I do however think people caught on drug smuggling charges are being given very stiff penalties, to serve as a deterent to others.

The "Melbourne Incident", as it is widely known in Japan, bears striking similarity to Baker's own case. It involved five Japanese tourists arriving in Australia via Malaysia.

My wife actually brought this up the other day. I had never heard the story. Interesting, and is further proof of my second point.
 
fugue said:
Funny this coming from where else but an Australian:

http://www.justicefornickbaker.org/en/041201-01.htm

The "Melbourne Incident", as it is widely known in Japan, bears striking similarity to Baker's own case. It involved five Japanese tourists arriving in Australia via Malaysia. They were detained when 13 kg of heroin was found in suitcases they were carrying. The five vigorously protested their innocence -- the suitcases, they said, had been provided through a travel guide after the group's original baggage was stolen in Kuala Lumpur. They insisted that statements attributed to them by prosecutors had been woefully misinterpreted, and that severe problems arose due to poor quality interpretation during interrogations and throughout the trial, which resulted in guilty verdicts all round and sentences of 15 years for four of the defendants, and 20 years for the fifth.

Support for the Melbourne Five was widespread in Japan, with intense media coverage focusing on problems with the trial. In November, 2002, four of the five were released and returned to Japan, where they continue to fight to have their names cleared.

The Melbourne Case Defence Attorneys' Official Homepage: 海外で不当に逮捕された時の対処法 | 自分は大丈夫と思っていないでイザという時を知りましょう
The Melbourne Incident: http://www.t-ikeda.com/case/melbolune.htm
Boycott Aussie Products: オーストラリア製品不買運動
Thank you for enlightening me to this.
It is quite shocking, I would like to read more on it in english so to goggle I go!

Yeah screwed up situations the world Over.

I did notice on difference on teh Melbourne case and the cases of people like Govinda Prasad Mainali is that at least 4 of the melbourne Japanese have been released while Mainali still sits in a Jail cell for a murder he didn't commit AFTER being acquited.

So like I said, off too google I go.

Oh and another thing, when you deem fit to hit me with negative reputation, please be a precious dear and put your name and a reason WHY you're giving me the rep. A simple blank comment will simply not suffice.

EDIT: I did some googling, found this: http://www.phaseloop.com/foreignprisoners/news-japan13b.html

Yeap, indeed its a shocking and disgusting miscarriage of justice. I am also shocked that this barely got airplay in Australia. The case was bodged up something fierce, why couldn't they have decent translators? Australia has legions of Japanese speakers and translators, we are a major business and tourism hub for Japan. The Australian police screwed up very very badly.

However it doesn't lesson the fact that you dont want to be wrongly accused or arrested in Japan if you are not Japanese.

I don't think you posted this out of sympathy for the 5 (although I think 4, Yoshio himself is suspect). You did it as tit for tat.
 
fugue said:
Funny this coming from where else but an Australian:

http://www.justicefornickbaker.org/en/041201-01.htm

The "Melbourne Incident", as it is widely known in Japan, bears striking similarity to Baker's own case. It involved five Japanese tourists arriving in Australia via Malaysia. They were detained when 13 kg of heroin was found in suitcases they were carrying. The five vigorously protested their innocence -- the suitcases, they said, had been provided through a travel guide after the group's original baggage was stolen in Kuala Lumpur. They insisted that statements attributed to them by prosecutors had been woefully misinterpreted, and that severe problems arose due to poor quality interpretation during interrogations and throughout the trial, which resulted in guilty verdicts all round and sentences of 15 years for four of the defendants, and 20 years for the fifth.

Support for the Melbourne Five was widespread in Japan, with intense media coverage focusing on problems with the trial. In November, 2002, four of the five were released and returned to Japan, where they continue to fight to have their names cleared.

The Melbourne Case Defence Attorneys' Official Homepage: 海外で不当に逮捕された時の対処法 | 自分は大丈夫と思っていないでイザという時を知りましょう
The Melbourne Incident: http://www.t-ikeda.com/case/melbolune.htm
Boycott Aussie Products: http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/ツ〜jiro/teaj46.html

Not to sound cold, but for those folks to just blindly accept luggage from anybody, especially in the Pacific Rim (home of the infamous Golden Triangle) without completely checking it out first, they were absolutely worse than stupid and deserved everything that happened to them. That was begging for trouble, and those people got it----in spades! I'm sorry, but that's how I feel.

Being naive is one thing, but those people should have known better, plain and simple, especially since using unsuspecting travelers is still a prefered method of smuggling drugs from one country or continent to another. Were those people duped? Absolutely! But that doesn't absolve them of not having the common sense to turn down something as openly suspicious as that luggage offer which got them into trouble.
 
mikecash said:
Please don't spread inaccurate information.

Initial police hold = 48 hours
Extension = 24 hours
Initial prosecutor hold = 10 days
Extension = 10 days

Do the math, and you will find that it equals 23 days, not 60. By the end of this time, either the prosecutor must file criminal charges or you must be released.

sorry it says 60 days in the "rough guide to Tokyo", I guess they've changed the law since that was written.
 
I seriously doubt it. Unless the "rough" guide was written back in the 1930s or something.
 
fugue said:
Funny this coming from where else but an Australian:
im not even Australian at all, but i resent this remark, hes australian so that makes him what? a thug? who the hell do you think you are? stereotyping?
makes me sick.

A few aussie's riot, shame on them, but lets not condemn the rest of the australian population.
 
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