Welcome to Japan, terrorist

Yesterday saw the introduction of compulsory fingerprinting and photographing of all foreigners entering Japan. Similar to the US Visit programme which similarly treats all foreign visitors as potential terrorists, the system will store your data (unless you are Japanese) indefinitely in a database. Sharing the data with the US has not been ruled out either.

Not being a big fan of this system at all, I decided to attend an Amnesty International organised protest outside the Japanese Justice Ministry in Kasumigaseki yesterday. Given that there are hundreds of thousands of foreigners in Tokyo, the 100 odd turnout (both foreigners and Japanese) was a bit pathetic. Respect to those who turned up though - with the huge media contingent and the small number of people protesting, each person was making a very public stand against this ridiculous policy.

Below are some photos taken at the demonstration.



This is from the middle of the protest - there was a trickle of people turning up so the final number was probably about 100. Some ordinary people gave some very passionate, heartfelt speeches. One woman despaired that she had been married to a Japanese man for 45 years, had Japanese children and grand-children but would be treated like a criminal from now on when returning to her home in Japan. Some 'Zainichi' Koreans pointed out that not all Zainichi had the status that would exempt them from this measure. They also explained that family members in Korea will now refuse to visit Japan because of this new law. Given the importance of places like Korea and China as sources for inbound tourism, this is going to have a big impact.



I have never seen so many media in a single place. There goes the anonymity of being part of a crowd. If there was a government snoop with a camera there then I might have got myself on a list of dangerous subversives!



The police were generally well behaved. They were very silly about people crossing the chain at the top of the steps and approaching the building though. A mother with a child in a baby buggy was told that she could not stay on their side of the chain and that she had to join the crowd on the other side.

Read more about this issue at Arudo Debito's blog.