The DPJ lawmakers in favor of alien suffrage held seminars almost every other week until the end of March, inviting guest speakers on both sides of the issue to clarify their ideas.
In early April, the group declared that voting rights should be given to all permanent residents who come from countries with which Japan has official diplomatic ties, thus excluding North Koreans.
Under the envisaged bill, permanent residents who wish to vote would be granted the right upon application.
“Japan is increasingly depopulated, and it’s important to get foreign residents to join together in the process of developing local communities. But to encourage their sense of being an interested group themselves, it’s necessary to give them their rights and duties,” said Shinkun Haku, an Upper House lawmaker and member of the group. “This in the end will benefit Japan.”
TozenAdmin
Japan May Issue Longer Visa for Foreigners With Language Skill
Japan plans to increase the length of stay for long-term visa holders who have Japanese-language ability, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said today.
The government may expand the period of stay for foreigners who know Japanese to five years from three, Komura told reporters at a briefing in Tokyo today. Non-Japanese who use the language in their work, such as flight attendants, may face easier entry requirements, he said.
“This is to relax regulations, not to tighten them,” said Komura. “We will never deny those who were previously accepted to Japan simply because of their lack of Japanese ability.”
Today’s announcement came as Japan’s population of 127.7 million is projected to drop 4 percent by 2020. Japan currently allows only skilled foreign workers and descendants of Japanese immigrants in Latin America to work in Japan as well as Asian trainees who often perform low-paid labor.
A study group of the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry, set up in January, recommended in an interim report released today that the government expand the maximum period of stay for foreigners with a basic level of Japanese-language proficiency. The Justice Ministry issues one-year and three-year visas, which can be extended.
The level of proficiency required to receive an extended visa won’t be high, according to a Foreign Ministry official who briefed reporters today on condition of anonymity. The details of the level of proficiency and how to measure ability have yet to be decided. The Justice Ministry may submit a bill to revise the immigration law in the parliament session that will start January 2009, he said.
The number of foreign residents in Japan has steadily increased to 2.1 million in December 2006, or 1.63 percent of the population, the latest available statistics, according to the Ministry of Justice Web site. In contrast, overseas-born residents comprise 12 percent of the population in the U.S.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aUKfPI1P0OAQ&refer=japan
Ex-Nova teachers face firings half year on
Foreign and Japanese employees hired by Nova Corp.’s successor complained of unreasonable dismissals and pay cuts Saturday as they marked the half-year anniversary of the giant language school’s collapse.
Nagoya-based G.communication said it had hired about 1,400 foreign instructors by the end of December, but that about 400 of them had quit by the end of March.
G.education operates 169 language schools across Japan under the Nova name. Before going bankrupt, Nova was the biggest English language school chain in Japan.
Method in the madness?
Japanese firms stand to gain from tougher border controls in a post-9/11 world
In November, Japan became only the second country in the world (after the United States) to introduce mandatory fingerprinting and photo-taking at all international entry points, as part of beefed-up “antiterrorism” measures by the Ministry of Justice.
The move was greeted by howls of protest from human rights groups, lawyers and foreigners, who warned that it would help create the perception that “outsiders” disrupt domestic harmony and fuel crime. Many questioned the need for such elaborate security measures in a country where the chance of being attacked by a terrorist is about on a par with being struck by lightning.
“Why pick on us?” said one angry letter-writer to The Japan Times, calling the initiative “discriminatory” and “stupid.” Another critic was even harsher. “The motive of the new biometrics clearly is not stopping terrorism, but rather a new expression of Japan’s deep-seated racism and xenophobia,” wrote Donald M. Seekins.
Perhaps. As some pointed out, Japan’s minuscule terrorism problem is mostly homegrown. The country’s most lethal terrorist incident ? the Aum Shinrikyo gassing of Tokyo’s subway in 1995 ? was partly dreamt up by graduates of the country’s top universities. But there could be method in this apparently xenophobic madness, argues lawmaker Nobuto Hosaka of the Social Democratic Party.
“Business is behind this, no question,” he says. “There hasn’t been a terrorist incident in this country since Aum, so how else do we explain it?”
Hosaka has blogged extensively on biometrics ? technology that checks and stores information on unique individual characteristics such as irises, veins and voice to verify identity ? and is one of the few Diet politicians to publicly state that he finds its proliferation “alarming.”
Report urges closer watch on foreigners
Critics deride proposal to let Justice Ministry handle all data
Foreigners living in Japan should be allowed five-year visas but kept under the eye of a new unified Justice Ministry-run nationwide identification system, a government panel on immigration control said in its report released Wednesday.
The panel, made up of university professors and private-sector executives, said a new foreigner registration system and revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law should aim at creating “a symbiotic community” by providing a “pleasant environment for foreign residents in Japan.”
While the report emphasizes that the proposed measures will enable the government to provide better services for foreign residents, critics view the new registry system as increased state control.
Key pitches in the proposal include abolishing the current alien registration cards and replacing them with IDs issued by the Justice Ministry and creating a registry system of foreign residents on a household basis ? rather than an individual basis.
The report also proposes deregulation, including extending the renewal period for visas to a maximum of five years. Currently, visas must be renewed every one to three years.
“It remains unclear how the government will respond under the proposed system to each unique case of overstayers. Unified control by the Justice Ministry could result in aggressive deportations,” said Hiroo Osako, chief secretary of the nongovernmental group 119 Network for Foreigners.
The Saitama Prefecture-based activist said improving administrative support for foreigners can be achieved without revising current regulations. The proposed tighter controls, he warned, endanger privacy and basic human rights of foreign residents in Japan.
“For the government to think that strict control over foreigners will solve their issues is wrong,” Osako said.
Kurdish man, Filipino wife granted special residence permission after overstaying visas
The Justice Ministry has decided to grant special residence permission to a Kurdish man, his Filipino wife and their 7-year-old daughter, overturning its earlier decision to deport the couple for overstaying their visas.
The ministry’s move came after the Tokyo High Court suggested a settlement in the case in which the family’s request to nullify the ministry’s order to deport them had been turned down by the Tokyo District Court.
“After the high court proposed a settlement, we determined that this would be the best way to grant them special residence permission from a humanitarian perspective,” said Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama during a press conference following a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080325p2a00m0na009000c.html
Arudo Debito Book Tour
Author and activist Arudo Debito will be speaking at Tokyo Nambu HQ on Sunday, March 16, at 5:00, about his new book, “Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants to
Japan”. Read on to find out more, and come to Nambu on Sunday night to talk to the author in person.
“HANDBOOK FOR NEWCOMERS, MIGRANTS, AND IMMIGRANTS TO JAPAN”
ISBN: 978-4-7503-2741-9
Authors: HIGUCHI Akira and ARUDOU Debito
Languages: English and Japanese (on corresponding pages)
Publisher: Akashi Shoten Inc., Tokyo
372 Pages. Price: 2300 yen (2415 yen after tax)
Goal: To help non-Japanese entrants become residents and immigrants
Topics: Securing stable visas, Establishing businesses and secure jobs, Resolving legal problems, Planning for the future from entry into Japan to death.TABLE OF CONTENTS AND PREFACE (excerpts)
Migration of labor is an unignorable reality in this globalizing world. Japan is no exception. In recent years, Japan has had record numbers of registered foreigners, international marriages, and people receiving permanent residency. This guidebook is designed to help non-Japanese
settle in Japan, and become more secure residents and contributors to Japanese society.Japan is one of the richest societies in the world, with an extremely high standard of living. People will want to come here. They are doing so. Japan, by the way, wants foreigners too. Prime Ministerial cabinet reports, business federations, and the United Nations have advised
more immigration to Japan to offset its aging society, low birthrate, labor shortages, and
shrinking tax base. Unfortunately, the attitude of the Japanese government towards immigration has generally been one of neglect. Newcomers are not given
sufficient guidance to help them settle down in Japan as residents with
stable jobs and lifestyles. HANDBOOK wishes to fill that gap….
LABOUR-JAPAN: Foreign Workers’ Grievances Erupt At Rally
With its own population both aging and declining, Japan needs migrant workers to sustain its economy. But the government?s failure to formulate an accommodative policy was evident at a rally in the capital on Sunday attended by some 300 foreign workers.
Waving banners and shouting slogans such as “stop discrimination against foreign workers” and “Japanese look at us like we?re terrorists,?? workers from different parts of the globe marched through the capital?s Shibuya district.
Protestors from the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa heard angry speeches over a variety of grouses and frustrations, such as a trend towards hiring the cheapest available foreign labour and exploit it to the maximum.
Foreign workers rally in Tokyo for equal rights, job security
Angry and frustrated, nearly 300 foreign residents of Japan rallied in the streets of central Tokyo Sunday to demand equal rights and job security. At the fourth annual demonstration, workers from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas spoke about unfair treatment they received on the job in Japan. South Korea’s song for democracy, “Great China” and “Venceremos” echoed in a park in the trendy Tokyo district of Shibuya, where demonstrators gathered before they took to the streets.
“We must take matters in our own hands and raise awareness of the problems foreign workers face in Japan,” said Satoshi Murayama of the Kanagawa City Union, whose members come mostly from Latin America.
While Japan has accepted an increasing number of foreign workers, many employment problems have been reported.
“In Japan, companies hire foreign workers as cheap labour, and that has to stop,” Zentoitsu unionist Ippei Torii said. Torii has received many phone calls from trainees who were brought from China to work at farms or factories in the outskirts of Tokyo for 300 yen (2.9 dollars) to 500 yen an hour.
Zentoitsu has 2,600 of its total 3,600 members from outside of Japan.
Ali Nusrat from Pakistan is currently asking his company to pay worker’s compensation for burns on his hands. He was working at a bread-making company after he retired from a factory filling lunch boxes for five years for 750 yen per hour.
Tony Dolan said he was on strike for two weeks demanding social security benefits from a company where he worked for 12 years as a full-time teacher. The US citizen holds a permanent visa and has lived in Japan for 13 years.
Last year, Japan’s largest English school went bankrupt and hundreds of teachers, mostly from Australia, were laid off.
A Japanese onlooker agreed with the foreign workers’ demand for equal rights because he said they are forced to bear worse working conditions than most Japanese people.
“Some Japanese people try to ignore the problems faced by foreign residents, but we should all know about the issue and think about it,” he said.
Foreign workers rally in Shibuya for equal rights
JOB SECURITY, SOCIAL INSURANCE DEMANDED
Foreign workers staged a rally in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, on Sunday as part of their annual spring labor offensive, calling for proper and equal treatment on par with Japanese working conditions.
Hundreds of people from various countries gathered in Miyashita Park for the afternoon “March in March” event.
“Employers must begin to treat foreigners as equal as Japanese and give them job security and equality,” said Louis Carlet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, which jointly organized the rally with Japanese labor unions.
Before the march, music and sports performances were staged at Miyashita Park, and keynote speeches were given by representatives from various labor unions.
Around 3 p.m., the participants, foreign and Japanese, left the park and began marching down the middle of Meiji Boulevard, chanting demands for improved working conditions and saying “no” to discrimination, including mandatory fingerprinting for foreigners upon entering Japan.
The props for the rally included not only signs and flags, but also a casket to draw attention to the failure of Nova Corp., the giant language-school chain that went bust last year, leaving thousands of teachers jobless.