'Foreign' crime in Japan+overstayer's protest in Tokyo

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

After Tokyo Governor said that in case of earthquake in the Tokyo area, the
Self Defence Forces should be called to protect japanese citizens against
foreigners led riots (about a month ago ?) a huge lot of people protested.
Eventualy, Ishihara (the gov.) 'apologized' (I think it was last week).

The general idea here is that 1) foreign crime has increased in the last ten
years 2) that it has become more violent.

The thing is that the imigration law changed at the beginning of the 90'
(92?) to make room for 'acceptable' foreigners as cheap labor, ie all the
descendants of Japanese nationals who now live in south america for ex
(there were massive emigration waves at the end of the 19th century, from
here to S.A). Those second or third generation japanese have almost no
trouble getting a visa, and they are the part of the foreign population that
has grown the most since the new law has passed.

I did not check thouroughly but the impression I got from the figures I saw
is that foreign crime has not progressed more than foreign population has.

Plus, most of the "foreign" crimes are related to visa/residence permit
issues (I checked yesterday in the "white book on crime" published every
year by the ministry of justice). I think the figure is about 1/3 of total
arrest cases. I don't have the book at hand (I checked in a book store) but
if people are interested in the figures I can find a way to reproduce them
here.


from Asahi :
Visa overstayers demonstrate in central Tokyo

http://www.asahi.com/english/asahi/0501/asahi050106.html


JC Helary