BACKGROUND TO THE OTARU ONSENS CASE
(1993-Dec 31, 2000)
(for details after this timeframe, please click here)
(Much of this information was created through Plaintiffs working through Issho Kikaku, which is NOT A PARTY to this lawsuit. Disclaimer here,)

Sign from Otaru Osupa, near Otaru MyCal
(Photo courtesy Hokkaido Shinbun, Sept 21, 1999)

The city of Otaru, Hokkaido, is a tourist town with a large number of visitors, many of them foreign. It is also a northern seaport and major fish market, with over 30,000 sailors per annum from nearby Russia bringing their catch and cooling their heels on shore. However, it is the case that some ill-mannered and drunken Russian sailors have caused disturbances at places like bars, restaurants, in taxis, and, particularly (given the high Japanese cultural sensitivity towards bathing) "onsen" bathhouses.

This is to some degree an unfortunate part of the cultural ferment of seaport town. However, from 1994, some bathing institutions, i.e. onsens and "super-sento" bathhouses, have put up signs (the first being Onsen Osupa) saying "Japanese only", excluding all foreigners (regardless of Japan tenure) and even their children (who often are Japanese citizens). Hearing about these events over the internet, Olaf Karthaus (on the left in picture above) and Dave Aldwinckle (his name before naturalization, on the right), then-networkers for NPO Issho Kikaku's BENCI Project, visited four Otaru bathing facilties on September 19, 1999. They were able to verify and record the existence of this exclusionary policy in the REPORT below. (Photo taken in front of Onsen Osupa, near Otaru MyCal, Address: Otaru Chikkou 7-12, Phone (0134) 25-5959. )

INFORMATION SOURCES AND EVENTS

(Some links below will take you directly to documents on the Issho Kikaku website, which may or may not forward you to the appropriate link. Apologies--that is beyond this website's control. If you get stuck, please hit your "page back" button.)

RESPONSES FROM THE CITY OF OTARU AND THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE to the abovementioned letter, Nov 1 and Oct 26, 1999, respectively (English and Japanese URL)


ISSUE ESCAPES DOMESTIC PRESS, ENTERS INTERNATIONAL ARENA (Nov 1999-March 2000)



OTARU CITY BEGINS TO TAKE NOTICE (Oct-Nov 1999)

The City of Otaru , suddenly under press scrutiny after over four years of officially-unchecked discrimination within its municipality, begins to make some efforts to deal with the situation. It convocates two public meetings on the problem, one on Oct 27, 1999 inviting city international groups (kokusai kouryuu kanren dantai renraku kaigi) , and the other inviting input from Otaru exclusionary onsens Yunohana, Osupa, and Panorama on Nov 5, 1999. Although BENCI coordinator Dave Aldwinckle asks two days before both meetings if we, who had been in contact with the City over this issue well in advance, could attend, the City's International Relations Bureau representative, Mr Miura, refused us entry, stressing the need to keep "order" and promising to let foreigners in during a future third meeting. In fact, in both meetings not a single non-Japanese was present.

After an informal meeting with Dave Aldwinckle on Nov 9, Mr Miura indicates that the future third meeting had been cancelled, and reiterates the City's lack of intention to 1) incorporate non-Japanese in any of its policy decisions, 3) hold any public fora on the issue, or 3) consider an anti-discrimination jourei (local ordinance). The reasons he gave were time constraints, the fixed nature of the agenda due to the international groups, and the need to maintain "order". This was later NOT corroborated by other witnesses (reporters) at the meetings.

The conclusion to draw from all this: It's not only the onsens. Otaru City has also shut the foreigners out.

Newspaper articles on these city-level policy meetings:

PROGRESS: ONE OF THE THREE EXCLUSIONARY ONSENS, PANORAMA, TAKES DOWN ITS EXCLUSIONARY SIGN; BENCI AND WELCOME HOUSE LOBBY THE OTARU CITY ASSEMBLY (Report dated Nov 22, 1999 by BENCI's Dave Aldwinckle)


FALSE SUMMITS: (Dec 1999)
As 1999 wound down to its millennial conclusion, Dave Aldwinckle heard from various sources that the two remaining onsen holdouts, Yunohana and Osupa, were considering taking down their exclusionary signs by Jan 1, 2000. Hokkaido Shinbun reports, Osupa surveyed their customers on their attitudes towards having foreign customers patronize their bathhouse. However, a cursory glance at the survey shows the bad science--that it is statistically skewed and invites negative comments and predispositions. It was ultimately used by Osupa several times in public to justify their continuing exclusionary policies.


NEW YEAR'S RESOLVE: (Jan- Feb 2000)

Those abovementioned December 1999 sources were, alas, wrong. Yunohana and Osupa did not take down their signs as a new year resolution. On Jan 3, 2000, Olaf Karthaus and Dave Aldwinckle visit them to ask, record, and plead. Photos of Yunohana's new Japanese Only (in Japanese only for less photogenicity) appear in SUBSTANTIATION. Link to Report, Jan 5, 2000, by BENCI's Dave Aldwinckle on meetings and negotiations with onsen owners.

One contentious item which arises here is the onsens repeated claim that they cannot communicate effectively with foreigners to stop their errant ways from scaring off their customers. Foreigners, you see, don't understand Japanese bathing rules. However, we find out at Yunohana that day that Otaru City has given the onsens multilingual bathing rule flyers (in Russian, Japanese, and English) for the onsens to display. The original Japanese photocopy of the rules is here.(English within above Jan 5, 2000 report). However, Osupa and Yunohana refuse to display them, saying that it's too late and their customers will stay away if they let any foreigner in.

However, the record does not bear this out at the other onsen, Panorama, which opened its doors on Nov 6, 1999. When Dave and Olaf visit Panorama (and are let in for a bath) on Jan 3, they see that those Otaru City-provided rules are displayed in the changing room. According to Panorama managers, they have had problems with neither Russian sailor nor Japanese customers, and envision their future solvency.


ASKING FOR LEGISLATION: THE PRESS CONFERENCE OF JAN 13, 2000 AND THE REPROCUSSIONS
As both the onsens and the Otaru City government have shut out non-Japanese in having any say in their policymaking, BENCI and Welcome House convened a press conference at the Otaru City Hall Press Club to make our standpoints and recommendations clear. We also, historically, submitted the first chinjou (public petition) in Japan requesting both the Otaru Mayor and City Assembly to pass a jourei (local ordinance) to forbid discrimination by race or nationality. It was covered by four major newspapers and three TV networks (NHK, UHB, and HBC).


PUBLIC OPINION POLARIZES: THE JAN 31, 2000 SHOUKADAI FORUM AND THE SUBSEQUENT DEADLOCK

One would have thought the new quasi-millennium and the increased public exposure would have provided some impetus for change. However, despite Herculean efforts by various individuals and groups, progress is stymied by a foot-dragging Otaru city government. As the City of Otaru perpetually refuses to sponsor a public forum on the issue so that Otaruans (including non-Japanese residents, of course) can air their views and work towards a solution, Otaru University of Commerce steps in, sponsoring a forum on Jan 31, 2000 to bring issues out with clarity.

The Jan 31 Forum not only gave a voice to many hitherto disenfranchised feelings at the popular level, it also expanded press coverage from a few intermittent newspaper blurbs into extensive national and international TV and print media in a dozen countries (refer to INTERNATIONAL ATTENTION section). However, the Forum was still only attended by one exclusionary onsen, Osupa (who very bravely made their case all alone), while Yunohana boycotted its invitation. In fact, Yunohana--which for many months starting Jan 2000 refused to talk to any press, the city in public, or to BENCI on a formal level--have reaped great financial benefit from the publicity, according to newspaper sources and visible in newfound TV commercials.

But again, the Forum did not result in the expressed goal of Otaru's international groups, the Otaru Mayor, the national government in the form of Ministry of Justice's Jinken Yougobu, and arguably the Japanese court system itself after the Ana Bortz Ruling. That is, the repeal of "Japanese Only" exclusionary policies. Until the end of March 2000, both Yunohana and Osupa kept their signs up undeterred.

Meanwhile, the problem visibly worsens as local bureaucrats remain clueless about what to do. Reports (confirmed by Sapporo Russian Consul Mr Latypov) start filtering in that other Hokkaido seaport towns (Nemuro, Monbetsu, Wakkanai, and Rumoi) have been putting up their own exclusionary signs over the past three to five years. Otaru City's Soumu Buchou Mr Satou makes a statement to Hokkaido Shinbun on Feb 21, 2000, saying the City wishes to start policy meetings on the issue all over again with in-house meetings (renraku kaigi), with yet again no plans to allow foreign residents to attend.

Hence both Otaru and the onsens enforce differing versions of the same policy--drawing lines between residents and taxpayers merely by nationality and shutting them out.

INITIAL HOPES FOR RESOLUTION

UNFORTUNATELY, AN ENSUING DIVERGENCE:



SHOUTING TO THE TOP:
AIMING FOR AN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW IN JAPAN AT THE REGIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVELS (Mar-Apr 2000):


THIS IS GOING TO TAKE LONGER THAN WE THOUGHT: (May 2000)



JAPAN'S JUNE 25, 2000 GENERAL ELECTION:
BENCI SURVEYS ALL THE MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES IN HOKKAIDO ON ANTI-DISCRIMINATION POLICIES
Click here to see The Survey in English and Japanese, links to scans of all the responses from the major political parties (all of them say that what is going on in places like Otaru is "discrimination", but differ in their willingness to establish policies against it), and articles from Asahi, Hokkaido Shinbun, and Kyodo on the subject. In sum, there were no surprises--the parties least likely to get in sounded the most progressive. In Otaru's electorial district, the LDP candidate, Satou Shizuo, gave us a fat "no comment" and still got elected.


A FIN-DE-SIECLE SPREADING OF THE PROBLEM; A PREMONITION OF 21ST CENTURY JAPAN?: JULY-DEC 2000
This is when we saw the depth of the problem, as Ministry of Justice and BENCI sponsored campaigns to raise awareness across Japan by visiting problematic seaport towns around Hokkaido brought nothing but intransigence.

July 4, 2000. NHK reports that the Ministry of Justice Division of Human Rights, Asahikawa Branch, has that day issued a letter of warning (Japanese here) to a restaurateur's union (inshokuten kumiai) in Hamanasu Doori, a nightlife district in Monbetsu City, Hokkaido. This union, it is revealed, has since 1995 actively solicited, made, and sold signs which said, in Cyrillic, "Japanese-Only Store"--ostensibly to shut out all Russian sailors visiting this seaport town. However, when it turns out that 1) proprietors shut out all foreign-looking peoples, even those who do speak Japanese and do not read Cyrillic, and 2) about half of the total 200 union members have put the signs up, the MoJ demands that the signs come down. The union retorts that they do not have the power to force their members to do so, and then the MoJ retreats to the position that they have no power to force the union's hand. Issho Kikaku's Tony Laszlo visits the area on Aug 21, 2000, holds a press conference, and submits a petition (chinjou) to the Monbetsu City Assembly for the passage an anti-discrimination ordinance (jourei) to forbid this exclusionary practice. He does the same in Wakkanai City two days later. Both cities, however, by Dec 2000, refuse even to submit the petitions for consideration in their city assemblies. By year-end, according to Laszlo and TBS TV Program "Koko ga Hen da yo, Nihonjin" (which visited Monbetsu in November, 2000), about 50 establishments still have the exclusionary signs up. So does "Monbetsu Onsen", a major bathing facility right behind the posh Monbetsu Prince Hotel. Materials follow:

UPDATE SEPT 2003: Monbetsu is still at it. Not only are the signs still up more than three years later at Hamanasu drinking establishments and Monbetsu Onsen, another new Monbetsu bathhouse has started refusing "people associated with foreign vessels". Click here for more information.


October 2000--Otaru City loses its plausible deniability
As the Japanese press begins to reflect on the City of Otaru's year of half-measured and incomplete campaigning against discrimination, the responsibility of the City becomes clearer--that they are not doing everything they can to stop exclusions within their jurisdiction. Although the City is bound by international covention to stop it effectively, ineffectualness becomes clear after nearly six years of clear and present "JAPANESE ONLY" signs on places refusing service to people who look foreign and their children--many in fact Japanese citizens. A Oct 27, 2000 Doshin article charges the City of Otaru with irresponsibility and half-assedness (kinou sezu). First, the City went back on its promise, made in July 2000, to hold an August 2000 "Forum on Racial Discrimination" to "enlighten" (keihatsu) the general public. Its Dec 1999 leaflet-distributing campaign explaining bathing rules to dockside Russians ends after only one distribution of 4000 leaflets--hardly enough for Otaru's annual 30,000 Russian visitors. Even the City's purported "24-Hour Hotline" turns out to be Potemkin, as it is not a public number that anyone with a communication problem (such as other bathhouses, taxi drivers, and foreign customers) can use. It is in fact only issued to two bathhouses with a history of exclusion (Osupa and Panorama--Yunohana refuses to participate), and it is not even a single number (during working hours, people are to contact City Hall same as usual, but during off-hours the cellphone numbers of the City's International Relations Bureau are to be used). When asked by Arudou Debito, on Jan 29, 2001, why this system was not made more public as promised, International Relations Bureau Chief Takeuchi Kazuho responded, "If everyone calls, we will not have enough staff to take care of the problem". This means that the very anticipation of the program's lack of effectiveness has made it less effective. This is in direct violation of the UN Convention Against Racial Discrimination's Article 6: "States Parties shall assure to everyone within their jurisdiction EFFECTIVE protection and remedies, through the competent national tribunals and other state institutions", making the city culpable for the half-decade of discrimination which they basically left unattended. Then came the case of a Caucasian who just happens to be a Japanese citizen getting refused "for looking foreign". See next section.



PROOF OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION COMES CLEAR OCT 31, 2000, WITH YUNOHANA REFUSING A NATIONALIZED JAPANESE: Plaintiff Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle receives his Japanese citizenship on October 10, 2000, and goes to Yunohana Onsen in Otaru with proof on Oct 31, 2000. Despite its express policy of "Japanese Only", Yunohana still turns Arudou away due to his appearance, saying, "We at the counter know you are a Japanese, but our customers won't to look at you, so we have to refuse you admission." This exclusion of a Caucasian Japanese incontrovertably demonstrates that the discriminatory policy is based on race, not nationality. For more information on this incident, please return to the Otaru Lawsuit Index page by clicking here. If you would like to listen to the taped conversation yourself in Japanese (on free downloadable Real Player), click here.

(click here to see more recent developments, starting from Jan 1, 2001)