Post by Otaku on Nov 19, 2007 12:50:16 GMT 8
search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20071101a1.html
Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007
By KEVIN RAFFERTY
Special to The Japan Times
HONG KONG EJapan is still purporting to celebrate "Yokoso Japan" or Welcome to Japan Ejust as it is preparing to inflict on every foreign visitor measures that are harassing, time-consuming, unnecessary, and would be illegal if done to Japanese citizens in Japan.
The measures have been condemned by Amnesty International as "a violation of basic human rights" and by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, but the justice ministry is determined to press ahead and fingerprint and photograph every foreign visitor to Japan every time he or she arrives in the country. The new scheme will start from Nov. 20.
Japan is the only country apart from the United States to resort to fingerprinting foreigners, but Tokyo is carrying it further and targeting almost everyone, including people with permanent, work or spouse visas, as well as short-term visitors. In the U.S., all permanent residents are exempt. In Japan, only children under 16, diplomats and special-status, mainly Korean, permanent residents will escape the lines and the tedious procedures.
In a statement that was smug and arrogant, and either dishonest or dangerously deluded, Naoto Nikai, an immigration bureau official, declared that the fingerprinting and photographing of foreigners "will greatly contribute to preventing international terrorist activities on our soil."
If the immigration bureau or the justice ministry believes that fingerprinting will achieve anything other than get money to buy expensive high-tech toys and annoy queues of visitors, it needs a reality check.
It is time for foreign diplomats to protest that the fingerprinting is discriminatory. The claim has been made that this is an internal matter for Japan to decide. But if a new policy applies only to foreigners, and if it is a treatment that local citizens stubbornly resist as illegal if applied to them, then it is also an external matter. Japanese jealously resist fingerprinting, and only criminals or suspects are forced to provide fingerprints.
The main argument that supporters of fingerprinting deploy to shut up critics is that it is to make the world safer from terrorists, something that few people dare speak out against.
If fingerprinting and photographing would make us safe, then go for it. Fingerprint the whole world, including Japanese. But there is no easy identity between fingerprinting and catching terrorists. Fingerprints and photographs establish identity only. It would be a rare and incompetent terrorist who leaves prints marked "terrorist" at all, let alone before doing his or her deadly work.
These days terrorist kingpins do things through lieutenants and foot soldiers whose prints are irrelevant because they will probably be dead by the time they have accomplished their fanatical mission, and there may not be enough left of them to take a clean fingerprint. Had the perpetrators of 9/11 been fingerprinted on arrival in the U.S., they would not have been stopped: They entered legally.
The failures on 9/11 were sloppy intelligence in not sharing highly relevant information, and lax security that allowed the terrorists to get onto flights with deadly box cutters and force their way through flimsy doors to the flight decks.
It would be a one in a billion chance if a real terrorist boss with a known record were to join the immigration queues at Narita or Kansai or even Fukuoka airport. Would Japanese immigration be able to recognize Osama bin Laden if, disguised in a burqa, he dared to test the efficiency of Japan's new system? Does immigration even have his prints on file?
In the case of the U.S., President George W. Bush's minions were able to get away with naive thinking inspiring fingerprinting because America had been a victim of foreign terrorists.
Yes, Japan has had a terrorist problem, but the fingerprinting of foreigners would have been irrelevant to prevent the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks or the growth of the infamous Red Army because they were all homegrown terrorists.
Foreigners do have a legitimate fear about what use may be used of their fingerprints. Take the case of a murder, say of a European bar hostess, who may have had both Japanese clients and European friends. The police check out her apartment and Ehey presto! Ethe only prints they can match with their records are those of one of her European friends obtained via immigration. Japan's police do have an awesome reputation of winning confessions through forceful interrogation and claim an incredible 98 percent success rate in solving crime.
Is Japan's immigration bureau so shallow and stupid, as well as xenophobic, to go to all the hassle of taking 7 million sets of fingerprints a year for the sake of Ehow many E10, 20, 50 suspicious people who may be on an Interpol watch-list for money-laundering or other criminal, but not necessarily terrorist, activity?
Apparently yes: Further light was thrown on the bizarrely sloppy thinking inside Japan Inc. by Kunio Hatoyama, the justice minister. He claimed this week that he has an acquaintance who was a friend of an al-Qaida terrorist involved in the October 2002 bombing in Bali. The justice minister said the alleged al-Qaida man "seems to have entered Japan so often two or three years ago by using various passports and wearing mustaches." This experience made him feel the need to tighten immigration controls. Immigration authorities, however, said they could not confirm that the alleged al-Qaida person had been to Japan.
In a further attempt to clarify the issue, Hatayama held another press conference and issued a statement denying that he knows the al-Qaida member personally.
Instead of intervening to bring some logic or common sense to the debate, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda dismissed criticism that his minister's remarks were careless, saying that if there is a possibility that such a suspicious person could enter the country, "I would like him to deal firmly with immigration control and other issues as justice minister."
My most astute Japanese friend expressed, "great sadness about the decision to inflict fingerprinting on foreign friends. In the 19th century, Japan had a reputation for mimicking other countries, but we chose what was best to mimic and copy for Japan's benefit. But now we are mimicking only the control freaks of Washington. It is a great pity that our bureaucrats and politicians have thrown away their brains and can no longer think for themselves or for Japan."
The decision to fingerprint foreigners points to failures of the Japanese system. Yes, there was a period for suggestions to be made, but these all had to be offered in Japanese. The way that the law was passed virtually without rational debate, and inspired by the justice minister's logic, is a failure of clear thinking, a failure of the political process, and yet again a failure of Japan Inc. to give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks of it.
Kevin Rafferty was bureau chief in Japan for The Guardian from 1992 to 1996.
Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007
FINGERPRINTING FOREIGNERS
Not so welcome to Japan any longer
Not so welcome to Japan any longer
By KEVIN RAFFERTY
Special to The Japan Times
HONG KONG EJapan is still purporting to celebrate "Yokoso Japan" or Welcome to Japan Ejust as it is preparing to inflict on every foreign visitor measures that are harassing, time-consuming, unnecessary, and would be illegal if done to Japanese citizens in Japan.
The measures have been condemned by Amnesty International as "a violation of basic human rights" and by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, but the justice ministry is determined to press ahead and fingerprint and photograph every foreign visitor to Japan every time he or she arrives in the country. The new scheme will start from Nov. 20.
Japan is the only country apart from the United States to resort to fingerprinting foreigners, but Tokyo is carrying it further and targeting almost everyone, including people with permanent, work or spouse visas, as well as short-term visitors. In the U.S., all permanent residents are exempt. In Japan, only children under 16, diplomats and special-status, mainly Korean, permanent residents will escape the lines and the tedious procedures.
In a statement that was smug and arrogant, and either dishonest or dangerously deluded, Naoto Nikai, an immigration bureau official, declared that the fingerprinting and photographing of foreigners "will greatly contribute to preventing international terrorist activities on our soil."
If the immigration bureau or the justice ministry believes that fingerprinting will achieve anything other than get money to buy expensive high-tech toys and annoy queues of visitors, it needs a reality check.
It is time for foreign diplomats to protest that the fingerprinting is discriminatory. The claim has been made that this is an internal matter for Japan to decide. But if a new policy applies only to foreigners, and if it is a treatment that local citizens stubbornly resist as illegal if applied to them, then it is also an external matter. Japanese jealously resist fingerprinting, and only criminals or suspects are forced to provide fingerprints.
The main argument that supporters of fingerprinting deploy to shut up critics is that it is to make the world safer from terrorists, something that few people dare speak out against.
If fingerprinting and photographing would make us safe, then go for it. Fingerprint the whole world, including Japanese. But there is no easy identity between fingerprinting and catching terrorists. Fingerprints and photographs establish identity only. It would be a rare and incompetent terrorist who leaves prints marked "terrorist" at all, let alone before doing his or her deadly work.
These days terrorist kingpins do things through lieutenants and foot soldiers whose prints are irrelevant because they will probably be dead by the time they have accomplished their fanatical mission, and there may not be enough left of them to take a clean fingerprint. Had the perpetrators of 9/11 been fingerprinted on arrival in the U.S., they would not have been stopped: They entered legally.
The failures on 9/11 were sloppy intelligence in not sharing highly relevant information, and lax security that allowed the terrorists to get onto flights with deadly box cutters and force their way through flimsy doors to the flight decks.
It would be a one in a billion chance if a real terrorist boss with a known record were to join the immigration queues at Narita or Kansai or even Fukuoka airport. Would Japanese immigration be able to recognize Osama bin Laden if, disguised in a burqa, he dared to test the efficiency of Japan's new system? Does immigration even have his prints on file?
In the case of the U.S., President George W. Bush's minions were able to get away with naive thinking inspiring fingerprinting because America had been a victim of foreign terrorists.
Yes, Japan has had a terrorist problem, but the fingerprinting of foreigners would have been irrelevant to prevent the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks or the growth of the infamous Red Army because they were all homegrown terrorists.
Foreigners do have a legitimate fear about what use may be used of their fingerprints. Take the case of a murder, say of a European bar hostess, who may have had both Japanese clients and European friends. The police check out her apartment and Ehey presto! Ethe only prints they can match with their records are those of one of her European friends obtained via immigration. Japan's police do have an awesome reputation of winning confessions through forceful interrogation and claim an incredible 98 percent success rate in solving crime.
Is Japan's immigration bureau so shallow and stupid, as well as xenophobic, to go to all the hassle of taking 7 million sets of fingerprints a year for the sake of Ehow many E10, 20, 50 suspicious people who may be on an Interpol watch-list for money-laundering or other criminal, but not necessarily terrorist, activity?
Apparently yes: Further light was thrown on the bizarrely sloppy thinking inside Japan Inc. by Kunio Hatoyama, the justice minister. He claimed this week that he has an acquaintance who was a friend of an al-Qaida terrorist involved in the October 2002 bombing in Bali. The justice minister said the alleged al-Qaida man "seems to have entered Japan so often two or three years ago by using various passports and wearing mustaches." This experience made him feel the need to tighten immigration controls. Immigration authorities, however, said they could not confirm that the alleged al-Qaida person had been to Japan.
In a further attempt to clarify the issue, Hatayama held another press conference and issued a statement denying that he knows the al-Qaida member personally.
Instead of intervening to bring some logic or common sense to the debate, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda dismissed criticism that his minister's remarks were careless, saying that if there is a possibility that such a suspicious person could enter the country, "I would like him to deal firmly with immigration control and other issues as justice minister."
My most astute Japanese friend expressed, "great sadness about the decision to inflict fingerprinting on foreign friends. In the 19th century, Japan had a reputation for mimicking other countries, but we chose what was best to mimic and copy for Japan's benefit. But now we are mimicking only the control freaks of Washington. It is a great pity that our bureaucrats and politicians have thrown away their brains and can no longer think for themselves or for Japan."
The decision to fingerprint foreigners points to failures of the Japanese system. Yes, there was a period for suggestions to be made, but these all had to be offered in Japanese. The way that the law was passed virtually without rational debate, and inspired by the justice minister's logic, is a failure of clear thinking, a failure of the political process, and yet again a failure of Japan Inc. to give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks of it.
Kevin Rafferty was bureau chief in Japan for The Guardian from 1992 to 1996.