On 2006/05/18, at 0:46, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> This article examines the impact of Japanese local government's
> initiatives for promoting the protection of foreigners' rights.
> Evident in this study is the premise that local government is the
> single most important factor for promoting foreigners' rights in
> Japan.
>
> <http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/as.2003.43.3.527></
> blockquote>
>
> Aside from the voting rights issue, the author ably summarizes the
> extension of welfare laws to non-nationals that began in the 1980s.
Thank you for the reminders. I live in Kagawa, the first prefecture to declare in its assembly that foreigner did not have a constitutional right to vote in local elections. Right after the declaration I organised a forum on the subject, with prefectural assembly members, "North" and "South" Koreans living here (among them a person who was one of the first to officially refuse to carry a registration card and send it back to the Justice Ministry) etc. It was a relative success, at least to inform the locals that the assembly had been totally mislead and that the supreme court had never considered that right to be unconstitutional...
I have no doubt that working with Koreans here will have some effect in the (very ?) long term, but besides for the right to vote, this new gvt policy, while all the local gvts have banned finger printing at registration, in only another decision made in a very consistent way since the late 90' with the deliberate criminalization of foreigners starting with the Crime White Book and Police WB published every year. All the data they have and the way they show it is real crap, it is scapegoating all over the place.
Now they they are in Irak, they take all the possible pretenses to "fight the war on terrorism" inland as well, since they are not doing much abroad, and that starts with demonizing "us".
Also, I worked for the prefectoral gvt for 3 years, and anything that had to do with foreigners there had to be "shiny happy people" otherwise it would not happen. All the legal help was limited to a strict minimum: on request free advice 2h a week, exclusively in Takamatsu, when most of the foreigners who need help are in the factories in Shirotori, Sakaide or Marugame and their working schedule certainly does not allow for them to get that help.
As an interpreter I also worked with the Labor Office to interview "trainees" working on a local shipyard, I heard horror stories from Japanese friends who worked in construction sites (think Nagano), and the "help us fight againt illigal foreigner's labor" are not on the walls of the Labor Office but of the Immigration Office...
Ok, I stop the rant here. Need to get some sleep.
Jean-Christophe