Re-entry Japan

Next : finger printing out?

2008-03-29T12:23:00.001-07:00

Passport check procedures to be tightened at Japan's airports
Saturday 29th March, 06:30 PM JST
TOKYO —
The transport ministry will require all airlines to check the passports of passengers at the boarding gates of international airports as early as July, ministry sources said Saturday. According to the sources at the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, the move is intended to prevent terrorists and smugglers from traveling on international flights.
Airline officials will crosscheck the names on passports and air tickets and check passengers’ faces against the photos in their passports, the sources said, adding the procedure will take around five seconds for each passenger.
The move is intended to strengthen security ahead of July’s Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido.
..................

I personally have been through this ultimate visual checking before boarding many times. Was it when leaving Japan? Can't remember though. Now, where is the opportunity to compulsory sell airlines some hardware and cash on departure as well? What about general finger printing when leaving Japan? Smugglers and terrorists in Japan before 11/20 07 are cooked. But they still will be allowed to travel domestically. Next to come is ubiquitous finger printing, and at long last, equality obtained with the rest of Japan.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration

Reading in French

2008-03-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

For French readers only, a synthetic appraisal of the biometrics rules in Japan. Link to the article.
cle.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration, Japan

11/20 and its aftermaths

2008-03-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

I imagine the organizers of the Toni Negri attendance at a conference in Tokyo next week have been pissed off by the Japanese authorities denying Negri access to Japan. The only apparent link with 11/20 is that the announcement of the denying was released here on March 20. Just a coincidence. Organizers must be stunned for sure, but where were they on 11/20? What were they doing on 11/20? Sleeping? After all, what is the relationship between this denying and 11/20? Nothing man, absolutely nothing.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration, Japan, Tokyo

Foreign Residents and Nationalized Citizens Association

2008-03-11T06:43:00.001-07:00

FRANCA, the Foreign Residents and Nationalized Citizens Association has an inaugural meeting on March 15th. More here. Information about FRANCA at national level is here.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration

What a wonderful world

2008-03-03T15:50:00.001-08:00

Japanese electronic firm Omron has applied a proprietary image analysis technology to the recording and gender/age differentiation of passengers going through ticket gates. The technology is to be applied both for passengers service management and to visually tag tresspassers who push through the gates without tickets, meaning that a database of passengers faces will be maintained, shared, lost an messed with. Instant detection of tresspassers will ring a bell and keep guardmen busy. The next step is to have that PASSMO card inserted under the skin with gift points as an incentive to go through surgery.

The illustration suggests that honest passengers data will be gathered for the sake of data mining whereas tresspassers will be filed individually.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration

No Rudd ahead

2008-02-20T15:29:00.001-08:00

There is an interesting gloomy article by Terrie Lloyd stirring the tiny microcosm - and how tiny it is ! - of Western residents of Japan about the starker evolution of control of we-gaijin in this country. It has been reprinted elsewhere as well, sometimes with slight but interesting modifications, but this blog is not into linguistics. It is now a matter of fact that waiting time in lines at the entrance gates has been the major practical concern topping the grumble on control tightening. I for one had never ever thought about the issue in terms of waiting time. The potential inconvenience never crossed my mind. It is also a testimony about who is writing and commenting about biometrics filtering in Japan, that is mainly people who just and simply care about getting out of that airport AFAP.

When it comes to scheduled organization, I trust the Japanese to do their job by the manual, and more than often efficiently. Narita being a small hub of transportation, and visiting gaijin despite growing in numbers being not in the dozen of millions going through the gates, clogging and the fear of it had never been on my mind. They'll pay you back for broken luggage, not for bruised dignity. Speaking about dignity doesn't pay off, sounds weeny to others and doesn't reflect in ROI estimates. But are the measures and possible intensification of cross-checking of gaijin information the signs of any hardening in terms of standard level of ostracism toward foreigners in Japan? I don't think so.

Being a white Westerner puts me in a category that is overly more advantageous than being a low paid Chinese trainee toiling in unfair conditions at a workshop somewhere in Japan's nowhere province. All these measures and potential cross-checking and over-exploitation of data about my being a gaijin are nothing but a form of "IT-zation" of state and media controlled mood toward "others", a "naturalization" of standard viewing gaijin as a risk, a pet, a weird animal. Gaijin tarento who are targets of crave and hate for all the money and sex they can acquire are the utmost example of "playing with the system and cashing while keeping the stat quo". Daily life as I feel it is telling a different varied story though. But this aside, the best remark of Lloyd's article is this :

Over the last 2 years, there have been a number of
legislatory submissions and trial PR balloons floated that
indicate that the government is intending to significantly
increase its control over foreigners living here. Given
that many other countries also impose strict tracking and
controls on foreign residents who are not migrants, this
wouldn't necessarily be such a bad thing providing that
there was some upside offered such as by those other
countries. In particular, Japan needs to make laws and
apply the proper enforcement of UN human rights to
foreign residents. Rights such as anti-discrimination,
right to impartial justice, fair treatment of refugees,
proper criminalization of human trafficking, and rights of
children are all severely lacking. But these unfortunately
don't seem to be part of the agenda at this time.

Japan is a dream nation from the point of view of immigration control, starting almost from scratch, and able to impose strict, racially based control and management of foreigners by class, that is based on wealth, considering racism at core value, as a natural trait that does not call for philosophical pondering and hand wringing. There is no Kevin Rudd at the helm, nor anyone that can lay bare some of the truths that hurt. First, because there is no Rudd. Second, because truths that hurt are relative to the listeners point of view. Human rights, racism, ostracism and the likes doesn't ring any specific bell in the mind of the average citizen or politician. These concepts are not so much rejected than they simply mean nothing. The unlashing of anti-chinese feeling with the gyoza scandal is just a reminder of that fact. And on the other side of the sea, they hate Japanese as much while or despite doing commerce and visiting each other's country. Meaning is about resonance. These concerns strike no deep inside string because they have nothing to resonate with.Interestingly enough, a measure of integration as a possibility offered is to be seen in the orientation of measures to come, meaning that one can "turn Japanese", not at the holy genetical level, but at least at the level of "behaving like a Japanese" in society. And this integration plainly means and is strictly limited to "disintegration". It is nothing new but technology will clarify it. My son came back the other day from school, Japanese school, with a simple home work to do related with food. The task was to "draw a cup of your home miso soup". What if it were minestrone? You can be sure that from the teacher's level who distributed the home work sheet, up to close to the minister of Education, probably no one would get a clue at my raising "what about chicken soup"? Gaijin are culprits-to-be in the worst of case, but never "object" of indifference. The relationship here is that of pure, honest "animality" in the most earnest case when the length of your nose is worth a word or two in the conversation. But at the core lay the ingrained belief which is equal to the total absence of intelligence at the "possibility of multiplicity". Of course, "multiplicity" exists in Ameyoko at Ueno, but besides exoticism for food magazines. Real life is the least interesting subject for media.That more than 60% of the population believe in the obvious of a relationship between (perceived) rise in crime is less dramatic than the percentage of politicians going along the same matrix of thought. That is why there is no Rudd at the helm, no guilt, no ambivalence, no hidden shame, no shame at all, no uneasiness to be tickled with discourse on racism, lack of humanism or whatever. Seeing a value in the multifarious of people making up a society comes totally at odds where this point of view is extra marginal. This is why once again Japan is a dream society from the point of view of the bland, pragmatical management of immigration, because the historical log is so light as compared with the US and colored people, France and North Africa or Australia and Aborigines. The plight of whales and the finger pointed at Japan are from that point of view simply amazing as a mean of diversion from way much more tangible issues. Experts on migration policies are feverishly observing Japan with awe, and for some, with envy. If they are not watching Japan, then they are disqualified.

Technorati Tags: gaijin, immigration, Japan

Not calling it quit, yet

2008-02-18T16:02:00.001-08:00

In response to Mark commenting in the previous post.

Mark, thank you for your comment. Although I have not spent years researching the security issue like you, I mostly agree with you when you write that Japan is nothing but a piece of the fear and rampant state security policy shroud plaguing the world. It is a huge world market at that.This is just the beginning of "soft cool coercicion" - at least in Japan - with a majority of Westerners here tending to already approve by shunning away from the discussion, or at least keeping personal opinons shut from the public arena. The foreign "community" here is fragmented as everywhere else, and I am personally not competent at reading what the largest communities in Japan think and express about the issue.

But there is a problem of argumentation. The problem is that once you rightly enunciate the facts that the picture is bigger, what must be done is to jump beyond that fact to expose and think about what’s happening at the local level. The world is too wide for Re-Entry Japan despite the well understood fact that the puzzle is larger than the Japanese piece alone. But me being in Japan, and while aknowledging that this plague is rampant and will reach Europe as well as other countries, I see that the very true argument that the picture is indeed bigger has practically no impact but to deflate what could be left of energy to try and do something about it. The laisser-faire attitude - because it's already done somewhere else - is the pathetic and endemic argument you can read elsewhere from drooling Westerners here happily slumbering in the numbness of no-thinking. The environment certainly helps erode any reflection capacity originally brought in, if any.

The tiniest thing that one can do about this matter of fact is not give up talking about it because it doesn't matter only for the short minutes queuing at the airport gates but it's insidiously present all over the place. The challenge of a tiny blog like this one is that energy tends to wane out as fast as it flamed up the ire circa November 20th. A short grunt, a piece of cool T-shirts, then back to sleep. So while knowing things are bigger, let’s keep these local. Yes, it is happening elsewhere, and yes, the authorities are way much more polite at Narita than you name-it--airports, and yes, it doesn’t hurt (they don’t skin off fingers nor nail those out, and the camera doesn't slap you in the face, and besides, there's no thermometer to measure dignity and the loss of it). But please, let us stop the IT IS ALREADY DONE ELSEWHERE and the IT WILL GET UBIQUITOUS, because those matter of facts have usually but a single effect : make people call it quit, accept, tell their children - granted they talk with each other - that it is "their queer ways to do things and interact with the gaijin in that country but just let it go", light up the TV and jump like no-brain monkeys on the wii-fit. There's enough of that already. What is lacking is more thought. Thank you for your contribution.

Technorati Tags: fingerprinting, gaijin, immigration, Japan, Tokyo

Stealth biometrics, and who is to define my dignity, again

2008-02-14T18:02:00.001-08:00

在留外国人の指紋採取　修学旅行で再入国なら免除へ

2008年02月15日06時00分

　日本に入国する外国人に義務づけている指紋の採取と顔写真の撮影をめぐり、法務省は１４日、日本で暮らす外国人高校生らが海外に出た修学旅行から再入国する場合に限って、免除する方針を明らかにした。同級生に国籍を明らかにしていない外国人生徒らへの教育的配慮としており、文部科学省などと検討を始める。

　在日外国人の人権問題に取り組むＮＧＯや公明党の国会議員が同日、法務省を訪れて免除を申し入れた際に、鳩山法相が年度末までに結論を出せるよう検討することを明らかにした。

　この制度は昨年１１月２０日から始まり、在日韓国・朝鮮人ら特別永住者を除く１６歳以上の全外国人が対象。しかし、制度開始当初から「高校生が人前で指紋を採取するのを見られるのは教育上問題だ」などとする批判が少なくなかった。

　文科省が１月末に全国の教育委員会などに通知を出して、外国人用ブースに並ばないで、同級生に分からないよう別室で採取・撮影するなどの対応を始めていた。

Justice minister announced on the 14th that foreign high schoolers above 16 in Japan going on school trips abroad may be exempted of biometrics scanning, for the sake of avoiding them the disgrace to be filtered out in front of the eyes of their classmates. This article from the Asahi mentions that the Education minister informed nationwide Education Committees sometimes at the end of January that the authorities were already dealing with the shame involved with the procedure by discreetly herding the foreign high schoolers above 16 years old to a hidden local for performing biometrics scanning out of sights of their unaware comrades. "Shame" and "disgrace" are of course words not used in the report, nor anywhere else, as lip service can't swallow such vocabulary. "Dignity" too is also out of scope, but who is to define what dignity should be and how it should be perceived? At least, the authorities do care about pride and prejudices, highlighting the fact that indeed the matter generates issues of pride and prejudices. And dignity. The externalization of the issue - as if the screening of permanent residents was also but a mere copy of US procedures - is an interesting implication. As for foreign university students having been through courses on moral, dignity, integrity and ostracism - granted such teaching existed - they still will have to endure behind curtains the administrative meekness when coming back from a university foreign trip, because of blood incompatibility.

No end to tit-for-tat

2008-01-28T06:20:00.000-08:00

And how do you teach a lesson to your kids in terms of integrity, thoughtful trust and responsibility? The EU top justice official has announced the coming of a European version of the biometrics control epidemic at country gates. 19 pieces of sensitive passenger data kept for 13 years. Plan to invest in the storage device equities. The new scheme is advocated seemingly as a tit for tat retaliation to the US who started the game, but against the terror of terrorism which remains threat No.1. What's # 2 then?

Big children at the playground are raising the stakes and surveillance cameras are selling like hot cakes. 10 fingers now printing, more coming soon elsewhere, the Internet cluttered with more biometrics and additional tracing back data than spam mails. Of course, as the steam has vanished on this blog - cool Japan is easier to sustain - and now that Europe is stepping in, what is left but adopting "shikata ga nai" as the new trendy expression in the West, to replace the stale zen?

I for one is and will ever be worried about what to tell my son about life where chatting about the next game terminal should not be all that counts. Being against and stating it is the ultimate wall of not paying in, even when getting the passport, fingers, iris and what else scanned at the gate.

Read more about Europe original stand here to start with.

Professor Susumu Kudo on biometrics filing

2008-01-24T05:44:00.000-08:00

An exclusive interview of Professor Susumu Kudo of Meiji-Gakuin University in Tokyo.

Hokkaido Shimbun editorial on security and missed target

2008-01-14T17:34:00.001-08:00

The Hokkaido Shimbun editorial of January 4th ponders about the acute rash of security concern, and that Japan may have other paths to tread on. Despite the wishy-washy conclusion, doubting is the start of something creative.

Original link.

サミットの年に考える　テロ根絶、とるべき道は（１月４日）

　「テロ対策特別警戒中」

　いつからか、そんな看板が日本中に立つようになった。北海道ののどかな農村や漁村でも目に入る。

　ニューヨークの二つの超高層ビルが崩壊した二○○一年九月十一日以降、米国はひたすら「テロとの戦い」に突き進んだ。

　前線ではないにしても、日本もその戦列に加わってきた。日本が戦後、守り通してきた憲法の平和主義が曲がり角に立たされる。そんな局面でもあったように思う。

　「テロ警戒」の看板を見たからといって、人々がテロの脅威を肌身に感じるわけではないだろう。

　だが、遠い出来事であったはずのテロが、暮らしのなかに静かに影を落としている風景には違いない。

　テロとの戦いは、社会にある種の息苦しさをもたらした。

　戦いを続けている以上、それは我慢しなければならないことなのだろうか。一方で、もっと大事なものが損なわれてはいないだろうか。

　そうした問いを重ねてたどり着くのは、そもそもいまの戦いは正しいのだろうか、という疑問だ。

＊社会が一色に染まる怖さ

　かつては中東やヨーロッパなどの一部の国のことと思われていたテロの恐怖を世界規模に広げたのが「９・１１」事件だった。

　米国の繁栄の象徴が狙われ、その映像がテレビで世界中に流れた。

　その後、スペインや英国の大都市などでも大規模テロが相次いだ。米国と有志国の報復攻撃が新たなテロを招く。そんな連鎖が続いた。

　日本にテロの予告が突きつけられたこともある。米国支持の姿勢が脅威を呼び寄せてしまったのだ。

　いつ、どこで巻き込まれるか分からない。テロリストがどこに潜んでいるかも分からない。それがテロの怖さだろう。

　だが、人々の周りに漂う息苦しさとは、必ずしもテロへの恐怖によるものではない。

　陸上自衛隊が初めてイラクに派遣された四年前の冬を思い出す。

　当時、派遣第一陣の司令部があった旭川の街の至るところに、黄色いハンカチがひるがえった。隊員たちの無事な帰還を願う、善意の市民運動だった。

　その圧倒的な善意の前に、派遣反対の声はかき消されがちだった。戦後日本の重大な岐路ともいえる場面で、社会が一色に染まる怖さを感じとった人は少なくない。

＊生命と自由を踏みにじる

　同じころ、自衛隊が派遣に反対する市民の活動をひそかに監視していたことも明らかになった。

　来日外国人には指紋採取と顔写真提供が義務づけられた。テロリストの入国阻止が目的だという。

　街頭では監視カメラが市民の行動に目を光らせている。

　多数の声に懐疑を許さないような空気。善良な市民にまで向けられる疑心。こうしたことの一つ一つが、テロとの戦いを声高にいう社会を薄い皮膜のように覆いつつある。

　京都大学大学院の大澤真幸（まさち）教授の指摘は的確だ。

　「民主主義と自由を守るためのセキュリティーの強化が、民主主義と自由を食いつぶしてしまう」

　同じことはこれまでの米国の振る舞いにもいえる。

　米国は国際社会の反対の声を振り切って、イラク戦争を始めた。

　その手続き自体が、非民主的だっただけではない。米国がイラクやアフガニスタンで仕掛けた攻撃は、市民を巻き添えにして、その生命と自由を蹂躙（じゅうりん）してきた。

　テロは自由も民主主義も否定し、生命の尊厳を踏みにじる卑劣な犯罪行為だ。犯罪を裁くのは武力ではなくて法でなければならない。

　テロリストを追いつめるのに必要なのは警察力だ。

＊貧困対策こそ日本の仕事

　今年七月、洞爺湖畔で主要国首脳会議（サミット）が開かれる。

　地元周辺はもちろんのこと、札幌や東京でも厳しい警備体制が敷かれるに違いない。

　そのとき日本人は、テロの脅威を身に降りかかる問題として考えることになるのだろうか。

　だが、想像力をそこにとどめていてはいけない。

　息苦しさに慣れてしまい、いつの間にかそれが当たり前になっている社会。テロリストを掃討するためだといって、他国の軍隊に街ごと破壊され、生命まで奪われる市民。

　自分の周りで起きていることに鈍感なままでいて、遠い国の生命の尊厳を思うことができるだろうか。

　ここでいま一度考えてみたい。テロリストとはだれか。どこに潜んでいるのか。

　テロリストは米国が追い続けるウサマ・ビンラディン容疑者とその一味だけではない。テロリストは憎悪と貧困の中から生まれ続ける。

　先進資本主義国の日本は国際社会の勝ち組といっていい。途上国の労働力や資源の上に成り立っている消費大国でもある。

　貧しく飢えた人々を救う責任を、日本はもっと自覚する必要がある。そのための知恵と力も持っている。

　長い時間と手間がかかる道になるだろう。そしてそれは武力に頼る戦いでは、決してなし得ない仕事だ。だからこそ進むべき道でもある。

Lame as expected

2008-01-12T07:34:00.001-08:00

No news, or at best, lame news. Biometric filtering does not affect tourism. Rights groups and business leaders have had worlds apart concerns about the consequences of the overzealous move of the Japanese administration but they come bundled in this short article. Rights groups have been concerned with the meaning of it. Meaning does not mean anything to the others, unless it affects ROI. Fingerprinting is economically speaking a harmless practice. Any other point of view is irrelevant. Nothing new.

Fingerprinting Harmless To Tourism In Japan: Government -AFP
TOKYO (AFP)--Japan's new practice of fingerprinting and photographing foreigners hasn't discouraged tourism, with last year seeing a record number of visitors, a government survey said Friday.
Japan started the new security measures at airports and other points of entry despite concerns by rights groups and business leaders.
Japan modeled the tighter immigration controls on the controversial U.S.-Visit system launched in the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, which keeps biometric data of foreign visitors.
However, the number of foreigners entering Japan between Nov. 20, the day the new controls were introduced, and Dec. 31, rose 13.4% from the same period of 2006 to 980,000, the justice ministry said.
The total number of foreigners who visited Japan last year hit a record 9.15 million, up 12.9% from the previous year, the ministry said in a preliminary survey.
"One factor is thought to be the effects of government policies to promote tourism in Japan," it said, noting a particular growth in visitors from other Asian countries.
Japan has been promoting a "Visit Japan" campaign to double the annual total of visitors to 10 million by 2010 from 5.21 million in 2003.
The campaign includes advertisements overseas and more foreign-language assistance in Japan.
A separate survey by Japan's largest travel agency said last month that a record nine million foreigners are expected to visit Japan next year, drawn both by the country's culture and the upcoming Group of Eight summit.

Tourism to Japan has also been boosted by the recent weakness of the yen, particularly in comparison with the soaring South Korean won and euro.

Ca ne fait pas mal et c'est rapide

2008-01-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

Les empreintes et la photo des étrangers entrant au Japon, cela ne fait pas mal et c'est rapide. Le Japon est vraiment un pays qui essaye de faire bien les choses, de prévoir tout ce qu'il faut pour l'imprévu. Les empreintes au Japon, c'est dans tous les aéroports et ports du Japon, tous ces lieux en lien avec l'extérieur. L'extérieur si étranger et différent, possiblement porteur de terrorisme. C'est bien connu, au Japon, le terrorisme n'existe pas, sauf quand ça arrive dans le métro ou dans des avions.

Après une descente de l'avion, bienvenue en zone batarde, pas encore au Japon. Vous serez guidé jusque là où il faut passer. Vous avez l'habitude de voir quelques flics bavarder dans un bocal à Charles de Gaulle, évoquant la dernière Star Academy ? Au Japon, c'est bien différent. Après le dépistage à la caméra infrarouge pour répérer tous les touristes qui rapporteraient un sale virus, vous passer devant un gars qui a obtenu un nouveau boulot, grâce à la nouvelle loi sur l'entrée des étrangers au Japon.
Son boulot, c'est de faire le tri entre les Japonais et les autres. Simple, ça se voit sur la figure.
Ceux qui veulent savoir s'ils peuvent passer avec leur famille japonaise dans la même file d'attente, c'est niet, non, だめ.

Ensuite, un autre type qui a un nouveau boulot, plus compliqué. Il doit trier le simple touriste étranger et les possesseurs de re-entry permit, le petit papier qui permet de revenir au Japon, quand on y habite, y travaille et tout le reste.
Ouf, on est pas avec les simples touristes qui se mettent dans la file d'attente à la sauce disneyland (longue).

Ensuite, il y a un gars qui a un nouveau boulot, c'est de montrer de la main où aller. Car il y a le choix: au moins 4 officiers de l'immigration sont postés derrière leur bureau, à la hauteur d'un juge de tribunal, plus haut que vous, à moins que vous soyez Hollandais, donc plus grand que ces petits troublions assis sur leur chaise.

Devant vous, la sublime machine est là. Deux emplacements pour les index, un écran capable d'afficher 2 millions de couleurs et le message «Welcome» et au-dessus, une petite caméra. Pas très dépaysé, cela ressemble à un MacBook, le clavier en moins, les pose-doigts en plus et le tout, en plus petit. Cela va très vite, sauf si on y met de la mauvais volonté. Ensuite, pour la photo, on ne sait pas, mais j'aimerai bien voir ma tête... Pas de questions en plus de la part du type sur sa chaise haute. Les questions, c'est moi qui les ai posées à l'officier, qui n'y peut rien. Je ne suis peut-être pas le seul à dire clairement que c'est de la connerie ce truc, j'espère. Il pensera s'il veut qu'un Français est mal poli.

Alors si vous rêvez de parler mal à un officier de l'immigration, n'essayez pas Paris CDG, mais plutôt le Japon, vous éviterez certainement une fouille au corps. Au Japon, tout est bien fait pour éviter le conflit, souvenez-vous en ! Le Japon, c'est moche à l'immigration (et un peu entre l'aéroport et Osaka, photos ci-dessus), heureusement, il reste Kyoto et tant d'autres endroits une fois la frontière passée. Mais SVP, quand vous donnez votre passeport, donnez le tract ou dîtes combien vous n'appréciez pas ces mesures. Vous ne risquez rien. (et vous pouvez même mettre un tract dans les boîtes à suggestions !)

Rosa Parks and Kathleen Morikawa

2008-01-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

Rosa Parks was tired and sat on an Alabama bus in 1956. When she was requested to move to the back of the bus to allow a white person to sit at her place. She said no. On this picture, arrested Rosa Parks is fingerprinted. The rest is history.

Kathleen Morikawa said no more to fingerprinting. The rest is covered in this article she authored in the Japan Times. I hope we at Re-entry Japan would have had the honor to carry a special contribution from her. But Re-entry Japan is no Japan Times and celebs do not make their email ID public. Does she have a PR agent?

Anyway, Re-entry Japan is seriously calling Kathleen Morikawa to contribute an entry her, humorous or dead serious, as she prefers.

Tepid and stupid article in The Japan Times

2008-01-07T15:05:00.001-08:00

The Japan Times as other paper media is carrying from time to time such dull and utterly stupid "by invitation" articles written by some ex-diplomatic individual for the sake of ... well, I am lost at finding out for what sake and purpose besides pleasing some other important people.

The diplomatic moron is some Hugh Cortazzi, a former British career diplomat, who served as ambassador to Japan from 1980 to 1984.

The article untitled "Gut reaction to immigration" should read "Bland opinion to immigration".

The last part is heroic in that it just skips discussion by simply stating that calling racial fingerprinting targeting foreigners "is an exaggeration", period, after suggesting, and who would think the contrary, that immigration in many countries is not a smooth process. Some arguments please. Oh! but yes, you were a diplomat all your life. Some more petits fours then.

"The approach by Japan, faced with an aging and declining population, seems to be that it would rather acquiesce to inevitable economic decline rather than accept significantly higher rates of immigration. Some foreign observers see the latest signs of Japanese official discrimination against foreigners, as shown by the compulsory fingerprinting of all foreign visitors, as a recrudescence of Japanese chauvinism and isolationism.
This is an exaggeration, but it has been noted that if these measures were intended as a response to the threat of terrorism, they are odd in that all terrorist actions in Japan so far have been committed by indigenous groups who would be unaffected by these measures. Perhaps the Japanese government just wants to show solidarity with the Americans."

Endemic French blindness?

2008-01-02T04:58:00.001-08:00

An article in French over the blogdudemocrate.org is wrapping up various issues around the biometrics filtering targeting only foreigners. If you read French, the first comment to that blog entry is a must read, symptomatic of the acute, epidemic apoliticism (a form of cool "positive" blindness) endemic among at least some young French male who flew away from France during the past 10 years to find a wife here, peace of mind in the absence of meaningful conversation and call it civilization. As already featured in some French forum on Japan, the support of local French residents and Japan French hardcore fans all seemingly born in the 80s is strong. Here is a meaningful subject of research probing the historical context that brought a European lost generation seeking refuge and void of the mind in Japan.

NCC Open Internet Letter contest biometric racial filtering in Japan

2007-12-29T17:30:00.000-08:00

The National Christian Council in Japan is calling for the abrogation of the 11/20/07 Japan Racial Biometrics Policy through an open letter to Prime Minister Fukuda and Justice Minister Hatoyama. The NCC is naming the policy a reinforcement of state racism, plain and clear. I totally missed the reference to this letter dated 11/20, but seemingly posted on 12/26 as referenced in the online Christian Today.

The original page is here.

日本入国審査における個人識別情報採取による入国審査実施に反対します

内閣総理大臣　福田康夫　　　殿
法務大臣　　　鳩山邦夫　　　殿

日本入国審査における個人識別情報採取による入国審査実施に反対します。

私たち日本キリスト教協議会は、「人をその出自、民族、宗教、国籍、性別等の違いによって差別しない」ことを信仰の証として生きることを活動の中心においています。よって今日にいたるまで、日本に暮らす外国人を、犯罪を冒す危険性のある存在として、16歳時には「指紋を強制採取」し、「外国人登録法」によって、常に管理、監視の対象として扱う政府の動きを即刻中止するよう、活動を続けてまいりました。
　１９９９年、政府は、日本で暮らす外国人については、「外国人登録法」から、指紋押捺義務は取り除きました。しかし外国人登録証の常時携帯義務は継続させるに至りました。今回の「改定入管法」では、政府が、１６歳未満の外国人、在日コリアンなどの特別永住者、外交官等を除く「全ての来日・在日外国人」を対象者とし、特別な機器を用いて顔写真を撮影し、指紋を採取することを強制します。その対象者数は、約７００万人に上ります。
今回の新入国審査は、2001年9月11日発生した「ニューヨーク同時多発テロ事件」以降、世界中で「テロ」が多発していることを理由に、「テロ防止」を主目的に実施されます。政府は、その生体情報を「要注意人物」と照合することを目的に、2006年5月の国会で、｢改定入管法｣に盛り込みました。私たちは、この「テロ防止」対策に反対し、また強制的に採取された生体情報が、政府によって長期間保管、活用され続けることを危惧します。
　2005年の「改定入管法」成立後の、来日・在日外国人の出入国審査を見る限り、入国者が母語で入国審査を受ける状況にはなく、審査官にコミュニケーション不足を理由に逮捕、拘束されることや、ミドルネームを理由に、パスポート偽造罪で逮捕拘束されるケースが増加しています。米国で実施されている、「ＵＳ―ＶＩＳＩＴ」が、「テロ対象者」の摘発に何ら効果を示していないにも拘わらず、日本でも実施されていくことは、政府の「外国人差別」政策の強化を明らかに意味します。ゆえに私たちは、今回の個人識別情報採取が、一日もはやく中止されることを心から願い、廃止を要請いたします。

２００７年１１月２０日
日本キリスト教協議会　議　長　輿石　勇
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　総幹事　山本俊正

95 terrorists caught

2007-12-25T16:46:00.001-08:00

95 foreigners refused entry into Japan since revised immigration law

Wednesday, December 26, 2007 at 05:00 EST

TOKYO — A total of 95 foreigners were refused entry into Japan in one month after Japan began fingerprinting and photographing foreign nationals at airports and seaports nationwide, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday. According to the Immigration Bureau, the number of foreign nationals who came to Japan totaled about 700,000 since the enforcement on Nov 20 of a revised immigration law.

Of the 700,000, Japan refused entry to 95 and forced them to leave, some of them because their fingerprints matched those who were deported in the past. The number of foreigners who applied to use an automated gate that allows them to leave and enter the country by having their pre-registered fingerprints checked was 6,834, the ministry said.

© 2007 Kyodo News. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.

Comment: As usual, Kyodo News or the powers above, or both, are releasing partial, holed like a Swiss cheese bits of information generating instant mild stupor in the readers's mind - or what is left of it - when trying and make sense of all this. No background contextual facts and figures, no clues about anything. 95 foreigners were caught and I feel safer for this. How many yakuza safely back from business trips?

Invitation to Terror

2007-12-25T03:11:00.001-08:00

It doesn't say Japan - because as a matter of fact, Japan often fails to blip on the Western radar - but the script of a discussion over Australia ABC Radio with British author Frank Furedi on his new book Invitation to Terror is a small treat. Here is a morsel that sounds like Japan :

It seems to me that there's a number of factors. One of them is that most governments actually don't trust the public to behave in a responsible, positive way. A lot of governments believe that if a terrorist bomb goes off in Sydney or in London, the public will panic, they will riot, they will become very antisocial, they will simply care about themselves. They believe that potentially society could become much weaker, it may even disintegrate under that kind of pressure. That's the official version of events. And because there is this real reluctance to take people into your confidence, the discussion of terrorism tends to have a very rhetorical, very general kind of character to it where problems are often posed in a sensationalist kind of way, almost the way you would talk to children. Often we talk about terrorism as meaningless, beyond comprehension, something that we cannot possibly understand. And if that's the kind of message you transmit to people, then of course there is no real public dialogue. You either take it or leave it, what governments say.

Something that gets lost into the haze is that racial fingerprinting is about screening out terrorists - real and would-be - who can but belong only to the non-Japanese creed.

There is a video recording of the same author at a conference over at Fora.TV

Report from the gaijin lane

2007-12-24T16:14:00.001-08:00

I take the liberty to expose here a testimony of someone called Donna Louise Close who left the following comment over the online petition.

It was humiliating being "processed" like a criminal coming into Japan last week. My husband is Japanese. He had to wait about 20 minutes for me to get through the line, and he couldn't understand why I had taken so long. For Japan, I think that having an "alien" registration card is already a good way of keeping track of the HONEST people coming to live/work in Japan. I don't like being discriminated in that way (most Japanese are extremely surprised when they find out that foreigners have to have them), but I understand that in some ways Japan is still afraid of the outside world. The very small number who ruin it all for us, the DISHONEST people, who come to Japan to hurt this country and its people will go to extra measures now to avoid giving their identification. And not just those people coming in, but the dishonest Japanese citizens helping them to come. I am only 25 years old. I have no criminal record, not even a traffic fine. I have had police background checks in my own country, not because I was suspected of anything but in order to become a registered teacher; (even for that they did not need my photograph or fingerprints). Foreigners entering my country are not required to be fingerprinted or photographed. They do not even have a "foreigner" card, like the Japanese government requests of foreigners in Japan. (If they need to show ID and they don't have it on their person, they are given time to produce it - accompanied home if necessary.) Everyone is treated as fairly as possible; treated as "innocent until proven guilty". Why don't you look at some governments other than the United States for examples of how they process the huge amounts of foreigner/immigrants coming into their country? e.g., compulsory thorough customs declaration forms for ALL incoming people, Japanese and non-Japanese; tougher background checks for visa requirements - a criminal history check from the police would be good. (I've never had to get one done for a Japanese visa, but my husband had to get one for a visa to my country).

Awareness

2007-12-19T16:41:00.001-08:00

Re-Entry Japan, just like the coverage of biometrics screening introduction in Japan, is loosing steam. Querying the Japanese news over Google News yield a trickle of reference to the issue, like this minor article in a regional newspaper worrying about the image of Japan to tourists and the apparent contradiction of promoting Yokoso!Japan at the same time. It may be a wrong concern. Figures will tell if brake at the gates will inhibit the surge to visit Japan.

Loosing steam. Yesterday, I had a professional appointment with ship captains, Japanese and foreigners. These people certainly know about showing their ID and credentials to port authorities. As one affable captain said to me, the first times, you feel bruised in your mind, but then you get used to it. I do not believe that biometrics as the first encounter to a foreign country is sensible enough to determine the way one is to feel about the country afterwards. They don't rip index skin at Narita. This is in the end pure sentimentalism I do not vote for. For re-entrants, with mix family members on top of that, the issue is different and still not to be attached to self-centered sentimentalism. Asking aloud the question about what to tell your children is also a convenient way to get rid of the question, that is the reflection at all. Some anonymous moroon will lash back with the standard flash definitive arrogance about what life is to be : enjoy and drink more. Tolerance spelled indifference is a powerful weapon for security obsessed states and the economics at stake. It plays well with entertainment and mass manicheism : if you not cool, you uncool. Reality is more complex, meaning spicy. The "what to tell the child" means in effect what to discus about within the family, or how to reverse the situation by discussing among family members on all these things and how they do matter. A lesson in media deconstruction is the first theme that comes to my mind and the need for awareness.

Juicy

2007-12-17T05:24:00.000-08:00

Evolution of biometrics equipment delivery in Yen value in Japan. Source is here.

Passing the cost and other diverting anecdotes

2007-12-14T16:15:00.001-08:00

This picture (nice technology that disable copy) tells a story. Apparently taken at the US consulate in Munich, it shows the full hand of a candidate for visa registration being scanned, while behind a heavy glass pane stands or sits an emotionless guy who stands probably for the authorities, a consulate staff maybe. The glass pane may actually be thin, but the expressionless look of the guy increase the bureaucratic flavor of the scene and the thickness of it all, where trust is replaced by systemic mistrust. The article illustrated by the picture tells about the cost increase of visa processing passed to the "customers". Any other piece of article covering the acute securization of societies diverts from fundamentals, serving the loop of anecdotes crave that asks for more and dims the wits. Passing the cost of the visible scanners and the invisible memory units to the end-users is as lame as any anonymous comment referring to biometrics measures being a nothing to fuss about, as it has already been implemented somewhere else. Not being the first defuses the right to consider the validity and social consequences of acute securization. The shiny, deodorized, flat interaction between the "consumer" and the authority as transparent and innocuous as it seems pushes forward mistrust by default as the norm. Mistrust and FaceBook (with it's creator's urge to pass along personal data to third party as a matter of fact) coming together on the surface of superficiality is no surprise where conviviality is thinned out or faked with smiles billed at 0 yens. One thrust for relationship at users level - FaceBook - is fueled by antagonistic forces pushing bureaucratically managed mistrust as a matter of fact. The good citizen is that who instantly wipes away voiced over concerns with the dart of "they do the same elsewhere, so what?" Voices of discontent cleanly dealt with, without authorities and muscle being called upon. Self-policing is the differentiator of soft societies, those that hide under the cover of systems and procedures what is dealt with strength in countries where they still don't get it. And as we pay for mistrust to be here to stay, intellectually challenging state discrimination seems to be dead at birth. In the meantime, they separate mixed couples at entry points. An International Day of Mistrust is in demand. A "Segregation told to kids" video game too.

Mixed re-rentrant families : looking for testimonies

2007-12-12T15:40:00.001-08:00

I won't be flying out and coming back to Japan any time soon, otherwise I would have tested it and report by myself. But could anyone with a mixed Japanese family direct experience of re-entering Japan tell what effectively happens at the gates, There are re-rentrant lines at Narita as reported in various sources. But do mixed families have to split and queue in different lines, or do re-entrant lines cater for mixed families as well? Any testimony among readers?

Chances to get through

2007-12-12T15:35:00.001-08:00

First thing first. The article by Tokai University Professor Kim Kyung-Ju referred to in a previous post entitled "The face of the other" was deleted by the publisher to due a deluge of hate mails from Japanese bloggers. Fortunately, it had been copy/pasted in several sites elsewhere and you can now read it in Japanese in Re-Entry Japan as well in the original post here. Related to this and not for the purpose to boast, I should be featured in the Asahi evening edition of this coming Friday in a short article with picture that mentions Re-Entry Japan, and I must state that I am somewhat not confident with the potential to get targeted with a few hate and trash mail. But that's life probably.

Second. In the same blog where I read about the deletion of that article, there are a few comments about the fingerprinting procedure, with one valuable perspective on the chances to get through:

"Well, it may not be indicative of any widespread racism, but I think it’s pretty clearly representative of xenophobia and paranoia on the part of government officials in Japan, much like our own ballooning security apparati are representative of xenophobia and paranoia in our government here in the USA.

I think it’s worth noting that the new fingerprinting rules in Japan have an exception for special permanent residents, since these are the same people whose protests got the previous system canned, as well as the only group of aliens in Japan who have any real collective political clout. If the foreign community in Japan wants to get the current system removed (unlikely at this point, unless the global security fetish starts to recede in a few years) their chances are probably even further diminished without the help of the Zainichi population, which is explicitly not affected by the new fingerprinting system."

The government fueled xenophobia and paranoia cannot indeed be ignored, neither the fact that it is in no way specific to Japan but part of the globalization blueprint. The second good point is that indeed, without bridges linking to the Zainichi population who have the experience of protesting and winning exemption, chances to get through are slim at best.