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Hi Blog. Check this notice out, from the Fukushima Prefectural Police HQ:
Courtesy http://www.police.pref.fukushima.jp/i/onegai/jyouhou/gaijin.html
(Love how the link is simply “gaijin.html”. Nice non-racist computer programmers you got there.)
It reads:
///////////////////////////////////////////
PLEASE COOPERATE IN INVESTIGATIONS OF CRIME BY FOREIGNERS COMING TO JAPAN.
Nationwide, there are many cases of things like theft and heinous crimes by foreign muggers coming to Japan. In Fukushima Prefecture as well, the following have occurred:
- Widespread cases of burglaries targeting [including grammatical error of wo tou wo] precious metal shops.
- Burglaries at pachinko parlors using body-sensitive machines (taikanki) [whatever those are].
- Cases of auto break-ins.
ILLUSTRATIONS: WHAT IS THIS PERSON UP TO?
- Illustration caption one: Skulking around vending machines.
- Illustration caption two: Looking for anti-theft devices.
- Illustration caption three: Peeping around other people’s cars.
If you see or hear about a suspicious person such as this, contact your nearest police station or police box, or call 110 if an emergency.
PLEASE COOPERATE IN UNCOVERING FOREIGN ILLEGAL OVERSTAYS AND ILLEGAL WORKERS.
Illegal entrance to the country of course applies to foreigners who enter the country legally and stay beyond their legal residency period, and if they work under the wrong visa laws.
Employers who also employ foreigners illegally are punishable under the laws. We ask that employers who employ foreigners follow the laws strictly.
PLEASE CONTACT YOUR NEAREST POLICE BOX OR STATION IF YOU DISCOVER ANY FOREIGNER ENTERING THE COUNTRY OR WORKING ILLEGALLY.
///////////////////////////////////////////////
As submitter XY says, “Not only are they perpetuating the stereotype of NJ being criminals, they’re basically asking the public to act as vigilante immigration officers.”
And there’s a bit more. Look at the tab for the website above all this:
「ヤミ金融業者に注意！！福島警察本部」, or “Beware of Black Market Financiers!” What’s this got to do with “gaijin”? Oh, I guess if falls under the “Anti Group-Crimes Policy Section” (soshiki hanzai taisaku ka, see very top of poster), which, according to the National Police Agency, foreigners are allegedly more likely to commit even in “group-oriented Japanese society”. So I guess the gaijin are somehow also involved in Black Finance as well.
COMMENTS: Well, let’s put this into context with all the other police posters we’ve been cataloging here at Debito.org for many years. We’ve had the local police claiming that many crimes have been committed by foreigners in their area (while we’ve found that at in at least one case, despite police claims of “many cases”, crimes committed by foreigners were actually ZERO), and once again demonstrating how enlisting the public in racial profiling is their modus operandi.
In Fukushima Prefecture itself, according to the prefectural government, crime has been going steadily down without fail since 2002 (with no mention of foreign crime in the stats; you can bet that it would have been mentioned if it was significant). Foreign crime in Fukushima doesn’t even make the top 80% of all foreign crime committed by prefecture in 2011, the year everything went pear-shaped, according to the Ministry of Justice (see page 58). In the general NPA foreign crime report dated April 2015, Fukushima is only mentioned twice (talking about two individual crimes as case studies illustrative of “what foreign criminals do”), without overall crime breakdown by prefecture. And after a fairly exhaustive search, I can’t find ANY recent official stats on foreign crime in Fukushima, either in terms of numbers or rate of change. So I think this is probably just another example of the Japanese police manufacturing a fictitious foreign crime wave.
Another comment I’d like to make is about the irony here. Fukushima has grumbled about how its exiled citizens are being treated as radioactively contaminated pariahs across the country and refused service. How sad that, despite this experience, the Fukushima Police haven’t learned that you shouldn’t target people this way. Oh, but then again, they’re only talking about foreigners, and they don’t count: foreigners shouldn’t be here in our peaceful society anyway if they’re just going to commit crime (or are, incorrectly, rumored to commit crime). And here is just another example to see how racism is embedded in Japan all over again. Dr. Debito Arudou
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13 comments on “Fukushima Pref Police HQ online poster asking for public vigilantism against “illegal foreign workers, overstayers””
Very nasty. Wish I hadn’t lifted a finger to help them after the earthquake.
Remember I lost all the will to volunteer or donate after 3.11 when a co-worker told me she was “so happy to be Japanese because people from [my country] just panic and run away”.
Really? I find these comments disgraceful. I also find the flyer to be disgraceful.
I went up to Ishinomaki 3 times and the people were very grateful…beyond words. The first time the J-government was not getting food up there and the people were pissed…at the J-government.
The citizens of impacted areas are getting screwed over by the government much more than foreign residents of Japan.
— It’s not a competition.
Well, the the ‘impacted citizens’ appreciate your support in their time of need, they’ll be horrified by these posters and refuse to put them up/demand that the police take them down, won’t they? Ah, wait, they don’t give a cr*p, in fact they’ve either bought into the NPA’s fear mongering or the just think ‘NJ rights are nothing to do with me’ and move on. So yeah, screw them and their Earthquake relief.
Di Griz? Are you real? “Screw them?” to people who had family members killed in a tsunami? That is about as cold as it gets. Have you been up to Tohoku and talked to the people there and asked them what they think about this poster? Put in context my guess is many would find it as bad as we do.
Whatever happened to you to kill that part of your soul that can feel at least empathy for these folks must be really bad. I feel very bad for you.
As I stated before, I deplore the Fukushima police
Ok Dave, take a deep breath, and read my comment and follow up again.
If the locals up there ‘find it as bad as we do’ then why aren’t they tearing down the posters, kicking up a noise in the national media, and criticizing the police about it all over the internet? Because the fact is that they aren’t doing any of those things! They don’t care about NJ in the least.
In the same way that Hiroshima is Japan’s ‘victim card’ that trumps they victims of their own war crimes, being a victim of the Tohoku disaster seems to trump any victimhood for NJ discriminated against by other Japanese.
TL;DR?
THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR HUMAN RIGHTS AT ALL!
Don’t care about your own human rights? Well, how about your kid’s?
So yeah, f*ck ’em.
@Dave
You altruistically helped…
people in that area who needed help….
people whose culture does not value “gai-jin” races’ human rights nor “gai-jin” races’ human dignity…
people who allow tax-funded police posters in their neighborhoods publicly proclaiming libelous hate-speech such as, “Beware Foreigner Criminals”.
Jim ALSO altruistically helped those same people, just as you did.
Jim posted a rational response to the fact being noted here: even after Fukushima received billions of dollars from “gai-jin” races, the people of Fukushima STILL allow, without ripping them down, without any letters to the editor, without any complaints at city meetings, without any police officers to be fired or even reprimanded in the slightest:
Tax-funded police posters in their neighborhoods publicly proclaiming libelous hate-speech such as, “Beware Foreigner Criminals”.
The rational response of Intelligent, honest, logical human beings who have suffered DECADES of being treated as sub-humans by this culture of racism is:
since this racism-perpetrating group of people continue to cause physical damage, financial damage, and emotional damage, to me and my family and my children here in Japan, we wish we had NOT altruistically helped them in the spirit of worldwide brotherhood human love as we have done repeatedly in the past.
The fact that you chose to post high-and-mighty condescending sentences about looking down upon and “feeling bad for” Jim, this shows you have the problem of being not fully intellectually honest with yourself about the culture of Japan, or you simply have not lived here long enough to do so.
No need to reply any further, you attempted to “disgrace” a rational response twice already.
Simply think about the poster, and insert “Negro” for “Gai-Jin” in the poster above if that helps you realize the race libel going on, and the total lack of appropriate response from the people of Fukushima.
Anonymous, thank you- you understand perfectly.
My humanity and empathy is what led me to help them. Now that they are endorsing the racism of the police by inaction, my instincts for self-preservation (in a Dr. Richard Dawkins ‘selfish gene’ manner) dictate that I should not have bothered to do so, since their existence seems dependent on exclusion of mine.
“In Fukushima Prefecture as well, the following have occurred:
•Widespread cases of burglaries targeting [including grammatical error of wo tou wo] precious metal shops.
•Burglaries at pachinko parlors using body-sensitive machines (taikanki) [whatever those are].
•Cases of auto break-ins.”
There is no straightforward statement by the police that these supposed crimes were commited by foriegners. They just imply it by juxtaposing statements: “foriegners have committed crimes. These are examples fo crimes that have been comitted.”
Sneak sneaky little policemen. Beware Japanese police sneakyness. There are many examples here on Debito.org that show how sneaky Japanese police are. Beware!
Wow, this is absolutely DISGUSTING. Please keep us up to date about this. Hope we can report and complain about this. Getting sick of this profiling garbage. I seriously wish the Japan Times or other news sources like Huffington post would start covering this sort of crap by the police in Japan as a human rights issue.
Note: The Japan Times is doing a survey on racism and discriminatory SIGNS in Japan now. This certainly counts as a sign worthy of submitting for sure. The police need to be on the radar for this racist garbage. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/discrimination-in-japan/
Yet Fukushima is one of the northern prefectures that wants to target more foreign tourists to compensate for the fact that Japan is ageing and naturally younger people are fleeing those areas when they can to find opportunities elsewhere in Japan.
Foreigners are fine when the Japanese Government and various local versions want money to boost the economies that are in trouble because of the wilful refusal to consider boosting Japan’s younger demographics through a real immigration program.
It’s when the gaijin stay that the problems really begin. Obviously some folks in Fukushima, including the urgently in need of training and education police force there, are so lacking in logic and maturity that they really give no thought to the fact that when foreign visitors or would be visitors hear about such immature and bigoted attitudes up north, they will correctly give such a trip a miss. They will decide to spend end their money in Japanese prefectures with more mature and reasonable Japanese people.
@ Reality, “It’s when the gaijin stay (IN A HOTEL) that the problems really begin.” They want NJ’s money and stuff, but not Johnny NJ himself turning up and causing “fuan” , like “can he use chopsticks or the western toilet?”
Earthquake relief was great for them, as NJs were sending money WITHOUT COMING TO JAPAN.
Thus, it was diverted to building roads in Okinawa etc.
@ Dave, indeed the people up north were not getting what they needed from the central J Govt. Try to give directly as much as you can, or to local government with specific and clear relief objectives and transparency.