25 February, 2023
Rally Statement
We Won’t Forgive Hate Speech Against Minorities
Gathering of “Humans Amongst Humans”
We, the Ainu, Korean-Japanese, Burakumin, Ryukyuans, LGBTQ+, the physically challenged and differently abled, women, and resident foreigners are considered “minorities” in Japan. We have gathered in Sapporo on the 25 of February, 2023 to share our anger, sadness and frustration at the recent series of discriminatory and defamatory remarks by politicians, top-level bureaucrats, university professors and others in positions of power, and to commonly share a vision of how we can work for the realization of a society in which human rights are truly respected.
The direct causes of this gathering were the discriminatory and racist remarks of the then Vice-Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, Sugita Mio, her subsequent, only-half-hearted apology, and the protective attitude of the Ruling Party toward her.
However, our concerns are not limited only to these happenings. Recently, there have also been discriminatory remarks toward the Ainu and Korean-Japanese by a professor at Hokkaido University, as well as toward the LGBTQ+ community by a high-level government official.
Sugita’s actions and words were extremely problematic in terms of their nature and scope. Firstly, despite the venue being the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, a premier arena for human rights promotion, Sugita and her colleagues engaged in the cowardly act of covert photography. Sugita then referred to Ainu and Korean-Japanese activists as “shabby old women engaged in cosplay,” “shameful” and “the disgrace of Japan”. In the past, Sugita has also caused commotion by her disparagement of Ryukyuans, LGBTQ+, rape victims, and foreigners resident in Japan.
Yet, when questioned, she has repeatedly responded to criticisms by dismissing her comments only as “unthoughtful”. This is an unacceptable attitude for a politician in the role of Vice-Minister of the Cabinet, an individual in a position to provide a model of propriety and respect for human rights.
Halfhearted apologies by perpetrators of discriminatory remarks, and protection of such perpetrators by those in positions of political power, stand to reify these remarks and create conditions wherein they can be easily repeated. We cannot tacitly permit such conditions to continue to exist.
Japan has taken major strides forward in recent year in terms of policy by implementing legislation aimed to eliminate discrimination such as the Ainu Policy Promotion Act, the Hate Speech Act, the Law for Elimination of Discrimination against the Burakumin, and the Law for Elimination of Discrimination against the Disabled.Nevertheless, we are concerned that if the instance of repeated discriminatory and defamatory remarks by politicians are left unquestioned and unexamined, Japan’s anti-discrimination laws will be reduced to mere token documents. This would be in direct opposition to the way things should proceed.
Today during this gathering we have confirmed how the statements of pain, fear and indignation of numerous minority individuals and groups in reaction to Sugita’s blog comments, even after she had apologized, testify to the ineffectiveness of these Acts against the effects of discriminatory and defamatory remarks by conservative politicians and their supporters. In light of such a dire situation, immediate action needs to be taken at a local level to block such incidents from happening again, or, even worse, from increasing in frequency.
Recent escalation in worldwide conflict and political tension have resulted in an increase in military spending and other causes of domestic unrest, but we should not allow these trends to blind us to the great progress made legally and socially in terms of global human rights by ignoring the plight of discriminated minorities within our own countries.
We, the participants in this gathering, ground ourselves in the Ainu value of Ainu nenoan Ainu to reaffirm the Ainu belief that everything in this world has a valued role to play. We stand in solidarity with minoritized peoples and individuals throughout the world, in the conviction that conflict is indicative of deeper structural issues of racial, ethnic and gender inequality, to call into question the fundamental values of our system of government and society in the belief that only by treating all with dignity and respect can we achieve lasting peace. It is high time that the problematic nature of social discrimination be critically examined, so that it can eliminated.
Today, we hereby vow to collaborate with one another as minorities to promote a society in which human rights are celebrated and discrimination does not exist.
And, in consideration of the above, we exhort the Kishida administration to demonstrate to us that Sugita MP is not merely being protected by those in power amongst the ruling party, and that Japan’s anti-discrimination Laws are not mere lip service policies, by taking the following effective action to eliminate social discrimination:
1) We demand that Prime Minister Kishida apologize and deliver a sincere explanation for not taking responsibility for having nominated a politician known for her discriminatory and racist remarks, and for how those remarks clearly go against the spirit of the Ainu Policy Promotion Act and the Hate Speech Act.
2)We insist that the Japanese State take action to revise the content of the Ainu Policy Promotion Act and the Hate Speech Act by implementing an Enforcement Act that will provide significant punishment for acts of discrimination against the Ainu and other minorities in Japan. We demand that the State take concrete action by creating a review body comprised of scholars and other learned individuals with sufficient investigatory and regulatory power to investigate and review discrimination against Japan’s minorities, with the mission of stipulating by State order legal guidelines defining discrimination and providing specific parameters for punishment.
Participants in the Protest Rally against the Japanese Government and Sugita Mio MP