www.debito.org
THE
OLD "KUNI BENGODAN" INFORMATION SITE
MAKING
THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF JAPAN
TAKE
RESPONSIBILITY FOR REMAINING
THE
ONLY DEVELOPED COUNTRY WITHOUT ANY FORM OF LAW AGAINST RACIAL
DISCRIMINATION
Site
Author: Arudou Debito,
Sapporo, Japan
NB: This is a site recording
the structure,
goals, and more developed legal arguments
behind the
"Kunibengodan" Lawsuit against the National Government of Japan.
This
site,
except for the list of Supporters,
is no longer being
updated, and is available as a matter of historical record. Some of the font encodings
have become
obsolete, so apologies for gibberish in places.
The
updated site with
the latest details on the Kunibengodan are available in English at
www.debito.org/kunibengodanenglish.html
WELCOME
TO THE "KUNI BENGODAN" SITE
NB:
"Bengodan" means "Legal
Team" in Japanese, "kuni" means "country", and this
group seeks both legal and legislative redress at the national level
against
instances of racial discrimination in Japan.
Click
on any heading to skip down to a topic:
WHO ARE WE?
WHAT
DISCRIMINATION IN JAPAN?
WHAT
DO WE SEEK TO DO?
WHAT
CAN YOU DO TO HELP?
WHAT
ARE THE GOALS AND CORE
IDEAS BEHIND THE BENGODAN?
WHO
CAN FILE SUIT AS A
PLAINTIFF IN THIS LAWSUIT AGAINST THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT?
WHO
ARE WE?
We
are a collection of
individuals and interest groups concerned with eliminating racial
discrimination in Japan. Unequal treatment can be brought about about
by
interpersonal/intercultural conflict and ignorance, but it can also be
due to
fear, misunderstanding, xenophobia, and even opportunism arising from
Japan's
inevitable internationalization. We understand that the best way to
resolve
most social problems is by constructive efforts made by all parties to
a
dispute. But there are examples of discrimination which still exist
even after
negotiation, especially systematic racism which is widespread enough to
become
justified by social convention and legal precedent. The problem is that
racial
discrimination is not an illegal activity in Japan. Japan remains the
only
developed country without any form of law against racial
discrimination, a
violation of UN treaty.
This
must change, especially
at the national level, as a lack of safeguards will mean licence to the
xenophobe.
WHAT
DISCRIMINATION?
Two
easy examples:
The Otaru "JAPANESE ONLY" Onsens
Case (1993-present)
The "Rogues' Gallery" of photographs
of "JAPANESE ONLY" signs
throughout Japan.
Further
systemic and
institutionalized examples nationwide at http://www.debito.org/handout.html
WHAT
DO WE SEEK TO DO?
In some cases,
we
have tried all other alternatives to resolving discrimination in Japan
extralegally (see book by Arudou
Debito, "JAPANESE ONLY" (Akashi Shoten
2003 and 2004)), so the only
alternative--barring legislation--is seeking redress in the courts.
Even the
Japanese government supports this, telling
the United Nations in 1999 and 2001 that
anti-discrimination laws are unnecessary given
the judicial system's existence.
So
our goals are
twofold:
1.
SUING
THE
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT FOR NEGLIGENCE UNDER INTERNATIONAL TREATY,
SPECIFICALLY NOT
PASSING AN ANTI-RACIAL-DISCRIMINATION LAW (despite
promising to do so in 1996
when effecting the UN
Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination)
2.
DEMANDING
THE
PASSAGE OF AN ANTI-RACIAL DISCRIMINATION LAW, EFFECTIVE AT ALL LEVELS
OF GOVERNMENT
See
some examples of our submissions to local government
assemblies (and their subsequent burial in committee) at http://www.debito.org/hokkaidochinjou2004.html
There are others
out there doing the same thing (such as the Japan
Civil Liberties Union
and Gaikiren),
so we are going to try and pool
our efforts from now.
WHO
CAN JOIN IN ON OUR EFFORTS?
Anyone
can become a
Supporter in name. It costs nothing (unless you really want to
contribute
financially, click
here).
People
offering legal
expertise will be welcome as Lawyers and Advisors. Taking a page out of
the
similarly-created "Otaru City Racial Discrimination
Lawsuit Legal Team" Bengodan
structure:
OUTLINE:
1)
Name: (for now) The
Kuni Bengodan against
Racial Discrimination in Japan
5)
Defendant: The National
Government of Japan
("kuni")
6) Site
of litigation: TBA
7)
Membership:
a)
PLAINTIFFS-TO-BE
(those offering their names to
the court as claimants of damages)
b)
LAWYERS (those
both offering in-court
representation and their name in support of this case)
c)
ADVISORS (those
offering expertise, but
not in-court representation)
d)
SUPPORTERS (open
to anyone, anywhere, who
wishes to lend their name to the Appeal--email
Arudou Debito here if
you want to be listed)
(Financial
contributions welcome but
not mandatory for membership.)
Olaf
Karthaus, Sapporo; Ken Sutherland, Sapporo; Hatayama Masako, Otaru;
Douglas and Noriko Black, Yokohama; Lois Hashimoto, Canada; John Edward
Philips, Aomori; Steven van Dresser, Yokohama, Reverend James Mylet and
Makishita Noriko, WELCOME HOUSE, Sapporo; Ishimaru Shutaro, Sapporo;
Colin
Cummins, Sapporo; Gesa Oldehaver, Sapporo; Bern Mulvey, United States;
Simon Jackson,
Sapporo; Nishimura Daisuke, Mito, Dr Shawn Clankie, Sapporo; Kataoka
Maiko,
Kushiro; Jon Letman, Hawaii; Charles McLarty, Sapporo; Miura Mami,
Sapporo;
Nueno Yuki, Tokyo; Yvan Chartrand, Sapporo; Daniel Walsh, Osaka; Tim
Greer,
Sapporo; Kayano Shiro, Nibutani, Hokkaido; Dr Steve Emmet, United
States; Satou
Shojin, Otaru; Mikasa Shuuji, Otaru; Gwen Gallagher, Asahikawa,
Hokkaido; Harry
Sweeney, Hokkaido; Michael H. Fox, Hyogo; Joseph Tomei , Kumamoto;
Charles B.
Wordell, Nagoya;, Brigitte Moser-Hori, Sapporo; Chip Bozek, Iwamizawa,
Hokkaido; Messrs Ivanova and Shvedkov, Sapporo; Norman Diamond, Japan;
Morgan
C. Benton, United States; Yamazaki Shunji, OASIS, Yamanashi; Kashiwaki
Yumiko and Miyamura
Masanori; JEFP; Chris Pitts, Japan; Amanda Harlow, Sapporo; Paul
Creager,
Sapporo; Wako, Irene and Lillian Ono, United Kingdom; Mr Kuwabara,
Sapporo;
Kyonja Hwang, Sapporo; Mr Kishimoto, Sapporo; Joe Park, Japan; Ms
Kuroki,
Sapporo; Dr Keiko Yamanaka, United States, Mary Sutherland, United
States, 宮
村 正
則 さ
ん,
工藤 Miekoさ
ん,
佐々木
亮さん, 佐
藤神父さん,
山上順子さん, 大
塚先生,
中和泉さん, 柏
木 由
美子さん,
鈴木Tomoさ
ん,
Alana Schneider, United States; Joy
Sutherland, United States; Lorena Fanti, United States; Marilynn
Sutherland,
United States; Kobayashi Tomohiko, Japan; Kevin Dobbs, Tochigi, Japan;
Richard
Thieme, Tokyo; Edward Haig, Nagoya; Paul Marshall, Aomori; Professor
Mushakoji,
Tokyo, Saitou Fumie, Tokyo; Ono Mitsuaki, Tokyo; Nancy Earth,
Kagoshima; Chris
McHarg, Sapporo; Colin Restall, Tokyo; Dr Christoph Neumann, Shinjuku,
Tokyo:
David Schneer, Hugues Richard, Germany; Scott Hards, Tochigi; Dean
Garfield,
London; 武
藤久資さん
JCLU, Tokyo; 上
野さとしさん
JCLU,
Tokyo; 鈴
木美愛子さん,
Tokyo; 杉
下奈央子さん,
Kanagawa; 阿
部浩己さん,Kanagawa;
弘中惇一郎さん, Tokyo; 坂
本孝夫さん
JCLU,
Tokyo; 旗
手明さん、外国人研修生問題ネットワーク,
Tokyo; Lee Sunfun,
whereabouts unknown; Kim Minjung, Tokyo; 天
野 理
, 神
奈川大学大学院法学研究科; Rich
Ormsby and Suzuki Yumiko, Chicago, USA;
Vladimir Marinov, Bulgaria, Hiroshima; Mark Schreiber, Tokyo;
旭川市の湯川界氏, Jools
Collis, Osaka; Tahara Kiichi, Yamaguchi-shi; Chris Cuadra, Miyagi-ken;
Tim Denny, United States; Ray Sewell, Mori-machi, Hokkaido; Lee H.
Flake, Ha-Jung W. Flake, Seya W. Flake, Korean Americans in Japan; Jon
M. Van Dyke, USA; Alan Schroeder, Beppu, Oita;
Manaka Risa, a senior at Rikkyo University; Kevin Salaba, Minnesota USA;(... and many
others who wish to remain anonymous. Want
to join the list? Mail
us at debito@debito.org)
We
do have a
Yahoogroups Mailing List specifically devoted to this lawsuit and the
support
of legislative measures. We use English on the list. You can find us at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kunibengodan/
WHAT
ARE THE GOALS AND CORE IDEAS BEHIND THE BENGODAN?
================================================
Japan
effected
the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination
(CERD) on January 14, 1996. As the treaty explicitly states in Article
2:
"1. States Parties... undertake to pursue... without delay a policy of
eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms", (d): "Each State
Party shall prohibit and bring to an end, by all appropriate means,
including
legislation as required by circumstances, racial discrimination by any
persons,
group or organization", at all levels of government. Unfortunately,
seven
years later, Japan still has no law against racial discrimination.
Consequently,
Japan has public places and business establishments enforcing (often
with signs
out front) "Japanese Only" policies, refusing entry and service to
all "foreigners" (judged by physical appearance). This behavior has
been called "discrimination" by Japanese administrative, legislative,
and judicial bodies, deemed unconstitutional under Japan's Constitution
Article
14--yet is not "illegal", which means that no governing body has the
authority to bring it to an end.
Japan
remains the only OECD country without any form of a law against racial
discrimination. In March 20, 2001, the UN CERD Committee issued a press
release
on Japan's inability to follow the Treaty in its courts and in
legislatures
(excerpt):
*************
"The
Committee was concerned that the only provision in the legislation of
Japan
relevant to the Convention was article 14 of the Constitution. Taking
into
account the fact that the Convention was not self-executory, the
Committee
believed it necessary to adopt specific legislation to outlaw racial
discrimination.
"Regarding
the prohibition of racial discrimination in general, the Committee was
further
concerned that racial discrimination as such was not explicitly and
adequately
penalised in criminal law."
*************
On
February 1, 2001, three Plaintiffs (one German, one
American, one naturalized Japanese) launched the "Otaru Onsen
Lawsuit", suing a bathhouse (onsen) in Otaru, Japan, for refusing them
entry in 1999 and 2000 solely on the basis of their race. They also
sued the
City of Otaru for taking ineffective measures against discrimination in
their
jurisdiction since 1993. On November 11, 2002, The Sapporo District
Court ruled
against the bathhouse, calling their refusals "racial
discrimination", and "illegal" (as it went "beyond
permissable societal limits" into "unrational discrimination"
(fugouri na sabetsu)).
However,
the Court also ruled against the Plaintiffs: "Defendant Otaru City, as
it
is a regional public organization playing a part in public
administration, has
the same duty as the national government to prohibit and bring an end
to racial
discrimination. However, this duty is no more than a political one, and
concerning matters between individual citizens, this is interpreted to
mean
that the [city government] is under no clear and absolute (ichigiteki)
obligation to prohibit or bring to an end concrete examples of racial
discrimination by establishing local laws (jourei)."
This
contradiction is the main basis of the Otaru City Appeal, and why it is
at this
writing being contested in Japan's Supreme Court. We believe all levels
of
Japan's legislative, administrative, and judicial branches have a
responsibility to keep their public promises--both those enshrined in
the
Japanese Constitution and affirmed under international treaty--in order
to
create a society where everyone, regardless of race, nationality, or
appearance, can have their legal, civil, and human rights protected.
To
create this society, we believe that the national government, not just
the
local government of Otaru, should take responsibility for this
situation.
Consequently, this legal team, the KUNI BENGODAN and its members, will
act as a
support and action group to draw attention to this issue, filing suit
against
the national government for negligence under international treaty, and
pushing
for the establishment of laws in Japan to make racial discrimination
illegal.
================================================
WHO
CAN FILE SUIT AS A PLAINTIFF IN THIS LAWSUIT AGAINST THE NATIONAL
GOVERNMENT?
Anyone
who has
expressly been discriminated against in Japan by anyone due to race,
color,
national origin or social station assigned indelibly to a person at
birth. This
means that fellow Asians, including Koreans, Chinese, the Ainu or
Ryukyu
indigenous peoples, or the Burakumin Japanese underclass, are also
eligible to
file suit. As the UN Convention on Racial Discrimination defines
racism:
INTERNATIONAL
CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
PART
I Article 1
"1.
In
this Convention, the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any
distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based
on race,
colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin
which has the purpose or
effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or
exercise, on an
equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the
political,
economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life."
We
will be suing not
individual perpetrators of racism (people are welcome to do that
outside of
this lawsuit), but rather the national government for letting it happen
for so
long without creating any legislative measures against it. We intend to
file
suit in the Spring of 2005. Click here to page up to the
NEWS
Section of this website to see more
about our next meeting.
We
hope you will
support us.
Arudou
Debito, author and one
Plaintiff-to-Be
The
Kuni Bengodan
against Racial Discrimination in Japan
NEWS
FOURTH
KUNI BENGODAN MEETING
will
take place on Sunday, January 31, 2005, in Osaka. Information as
released by
MEHREC in English and Japanese:
Date:
Tue, 11 Jan 2005 18:45:08 +0900 (JST)
A
Happy New Year! Wish you have a great year on 2005!!
Thank
you for attending meeting last November 20th.
We
are
planning to have a 3rd meeting the end of this month.
Date:January
30th,Sunday
Time:3:00pm
Location:
Osaka-shi
THIRD
(unofficial)
KUNI BENGODAN MEETING
took place in
the
Metropolitan Hotel in Sendai, December 5, 2004, where plaintiffs-to-be Douglas Shukert and Arudou
Debito met
with one guest to update each other with the results of the Second
Meeting
below, and to discuss future strategies.
SECOND
KUNI BENGODAN
MEETING:
Took place
Saturday, November 20, 2004, 2 PM to 4:30 PM at Osaka-Shi Naniwa Jinken
Bunka
Center, 4F, Meeting Room 2
Osaka-shi
Naniwa-ku
Naniwa-Higashi 1-9-20
TOPIC: How to make
this group not just a
lawsuiting committee, but also a group pushing for anti-racial
discrimination
legislation at the national level. This meeting will bring together the
"Oldcomers" (the Japan-born "foreigners"--the
Zainichis--and their action group leaders) and the "Newcomers"
(foreign-born residents of Japan and immigrants). We will issue more
concrete
statements about our decisions in the new year.
CONTACTS: (Oldcomers:)
Ms Son Chong-Je, of
the Multi-Ethnic Human Rights Education Center for the Pro-Existence
(MEHREC-PE), TEL_F06-6715-6600_@FAX_F06-6715-0153, http://www.taminzoku.com, info@taminzoku.com
(Newcomers:)
Arudou
Debito, author, JAPANESE
ONLY (Akashi
Shoten 2004), http://www.debito.org, debito@debito.org
In
Attendance:
Lawyer
Higashizawa
Yasushi, Plaintiffs-to-be, and Arudou, MEHREC's Ms. Son and two staff
members,
UMJ's Mr Chaudhry, two potential plaintiffs-to-be, reporters from the
Japan Times,
Yomiuri Shinbun, and Mindan Shinbun, and several supporters.
FIRST
KUNI BENGODAN
MEETING
was on August
31,
2004, at the Tokyo Bengoshikai Building in Kasumigaseki. Lawyers
Higashizawa
Yasushi, Komachiya Ikuko, and several other people were present.