Immigration

Foreigner vote not reciprocal

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The Democratic Party of Japan is likely to give local election voting rights to foreigners with permanent residence status and who are from countries or regions with diplomatic links or other ties to Japan, sources said Monday.

They include South Korea, which has diplomatic ties, and Taiwan, which lacks diplomatic links but has a strong working relationship with Japan, they said. The ruling party may submit the relevant bill in the current extraordinary Diet session, they said.

The bill will not take the so-called reciprocal approach of granting voting rights to long-term foreign residents on the basis of whether their countries confer similar privileges on Japanese citizens, they said.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200911110133.html

Bill eyed to give vote to foreigners

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The Diet affairs chief of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan said Friday that DPJ lawmakers were planning to introduce a bill to grant foreign nationals with permanent resident status the right to vote in local elections.

Kenji Yamaoka also said the current extraordinary Diet session may have to be extended beyond its scheduled end on Nov. 30 because of the need to deliberate on this and 12 other bills.

DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa has pushed for giving voting rights to permanent residents of Japan, many of whom are Koreans.

The opposition New Komeito is also in favor of the move.

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200911070139.html

DPJ exec eyes suffrage bill this term

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The Democratic Party of Japan may submit a bill during the current extraordinary Diet session that would grant permanent foreign residents the right to vote in local-level elections, DPJ Diet affairs chief Kenji Yamaoka told reporters Friday, noting the session may also have to be extended.

His comments come a day after Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama indicated submitting such a bill anytime soon would be difficult, indicating next year would be the earliest proposed legislation would appear.

Speaking after attending a meeting with Liberal Democratic Party Diet affairs chief Jiro Kawasaki, Yamaoka said he told his opposition counterpart the bill may be submitted as lawmaker-sponsored legislation and asked for cooperation from the conservative LDP, which has been against foreigner suffrage.

“Considering the various opinions that exist within (the DPJ), depending on the circumstances we could ask lawmakers to vote on an individual basis,” Yamaoka said.

Yamaoka also said the Diet session may have to be extended from its current Nov. 30 deadline to allow enough time to deliberate various legislation and treaties.

Hatoyama has been playing down the prospects for drafting the foreigner suffrage bill, saying a consensus has not been reached within the ruling coalition, let alone the general public, over the issue.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20091107a4.html

Immigration showing signs of ninjo

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[The recently released Harrison Ford film] “Crossing Over” is made up of a series of small but interconnected human dramas. It focuses on what the Japanese call ninj?, meaning “heart” or “humanity.” This is clear from the accompanying Japanese pamphlet, which proclaims, “Even (immigration) inspectors have ninj?.”

In recent years, this “foreign crime” (gaikokujin hanzai) discourse has become so widely promulgated by the media that it has come to drive policy, specifically the targeting of foreigners by the police and immigration inspectors. Thus, 2003 saw the implementation of a five-year plan to half the number of illegals known as the Kyodo Sengen. The resulting increase in arrests can be used as “proof” that non-Japanese are more likely to commit crime: In this way, the image, to some extent, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Recent changes to the Immigration Control and Refugee Law — to be implemented within the next three years — give little hope that the system will become less bureaucratic and more human. While there are some provisions — such as permit-free re-entry — that will make life easier for legal residents, failure to report a change of address or other personal details within three months will lead to revocation of residence status. For “illegal” residents, the revisions, which at root are about increased central government scrutiny and monitoring of non-Japanese, will inevitably result in more deportations.

There are some signs [Japan’s bureaucratic immigration system] might be changing. One sign of bureaucratic softening relates to naturalization, which in recent years has become a much more straightforward process. In 2008, for example, 15,440 applied for Japanese citizenship and 13,218 were accepted. These figures would inevitably increase if Japan were to recognize dual nationality; many permanent residents, this author included, would welcome the opportunity to contribute more fully to Japanese society if they didn’t first have to give up their original citizenship. Given Japan’s growing need for jinzai (human resources) in order to remain internationally competitive, it is no surprise that more and more politicians are calling for the Nationality Law to be revised.

In 2004, the justice minister announced a more flexible and “humanitarian” stance toward over-stayers. Specifically, the minister said he would apply more discretion in granting special resident status (zairyutokubetsukyoka) in cases where deportation would result in hardships, such as the breakup of families. The Immigration Bureau’s home page explains how “worried illegal migrants” who appear at their local immigration office and fill out the relevant forms (shutto shinkoku) will be allowed to “go home” without first being detained and may even, in special circumstances, be given leave to remain in Japan (see http://www.moj.go.jp/NYUKAN/nyukan87.html ).

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20091027zg.html

2010 bill eyed to give foreigners local-level vote

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The government might draft legislation next year to give permanent foreign residents the right to vote in local-level elections, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Thursday.

“We are not yet in a situation where a bill has been prepared, and therefore it would be fairly difficult in the next Diet session,” Hatoyama told reporters Thursday, referring to the extraordinary session slated to open Monday. But submitting such a bill could be “an issue in the near future,” he said.

Permanent foreign residents, including ethnic Koreans who have grown roots here since the war, aren’t allowed to vote in local elections, much less national ones, despite lobbying for the right on the grounds that they pay taxes just like Japanese.

Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party), one of the DPJ’s two junior coalition partners, has opposed giving foreign residents voting rights in local elections.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20091024a2.html

Schools for foreigners, technical colleges included in DPJ’s free high school lesson plan

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Technical colleges and schools attended by foreigners will be included in the Democratic Party of Japan’s pledge to make high school lessons free of charge, it has emerged.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has decided to make high school courses at technical colleges and vocational schools subject to the move, together with various schools for foreigners. It plans to include the necessary expenses in next fiscal year’s budget allocation request.

“We want to support learning chances for as many people as possible,” Deputy Education Minister Kan Suzuki said when questioned by the Mainichi.

Various schools operating under the School Education Law will be included in the measure, even if their students are of foreign nationality, meaning the DPJ’s move will apply to schools for Korean students and to international schools. However, Suzuki indicated that schools operating without approval — commonly seen among schools such as those for Brazilian children — would not be included.

“It is desirable that support is provided within the framework of the system,” he said, adding, “There is a need for revisions such as lowering the bar for approval.”

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20091014p2a00m0na012000c.html

Haraguchi positive on foreigner voting rights

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Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi responded positively Thursday to the proposed granting of voting rights to foreign nationals with permanent residency in gubernatorial, mayoral and local assembly elections. 

“Some conclusion should be reached on the matter, and I want to seek a realistic response,” he said in an interview with news organizations.

A number of DPJ lawmakers are hesitant about granting local voting rights to foreigners. Opponents also include financial services minister Shizuka Kamei, head of Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party), one of the DPJ’s coalition partners.

Liberal Democratic Party President Sadakazu Tanigaki is also cool on the idea.

In a 1995 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not forbid a law being passed to guarantee local voting rights to foreign residents.

The DPJ, New Komeito and the Japanese Communist Party have submitted such bills to the Diet a total of 12 times since 1998. However, the bills were scrapped due to opposition mainly from the long-ruling LDP, which was recently ousted from power.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20091009a1.html

Ozawa positive about granting local voting rights to non-Japanese

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Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa says he will try to take the issue of giving foreigners local voting rights to next year’s regular Diet session.

In a meeting with South Korean lawmaker Lee Sang Deuk in Tokyo on Saturday, Ozawa told Lee he favors granting local suffrage to permanent residents of Japan, including South Koreans, participants said.

“I want it to take form somehow during the regular Diet session,” Ozawa was quoted as saying, suggesting he intends to compile the opinions of DPJ members during the session.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090922a6.html

Political shift gives hope to gays

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The likelihood that the Democratic Party of Japan, the last party to submit [an antidiscrimination law] bill, will dominate the powerful House of Representatives in an alliance with the Social Democratic Party, which speaks out for homosexual rights, has raised hopes that the inertia may at last be overcome.

This was echoed by Boris Dittrich, advocacy director of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender program at Human Rights Watch, who visited Japan last month. He met with key opposition party figures to discuss Japan’s future on issues of sexual orientation.

“There is no law in Japan that protects people who are being discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation,” Dittrich told reporters on July 22.

“So for instance, a landlord would evict somebody because he is gay or she is lesbian and there is no law that you can refer to for protection,” he added. Dittrich himself was a publicly gay politician in his home country, the Netherlands, where he was a pioneer in securing homosexual rights.

In Japan, a government-sponsored antidiscrimination bill submitted to the Diet in 2002, but later abandoned, would have protected the rights of homosexuals along with other groups, including “burakumin,” or descendants of former outcast communities such as tanners, according to Kanae Doi, Tokyo director of Human Rights Watch. The 2002 bill and another one proposed by the DPJ were both scrapped because the lower chamber was dissolved before they could be fully deliberated and voted on.

SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima, who also met with Dittrich during his trip, agreed human rights is a sensitive topic in the Diet, and the subject of sexual orientation faces a particularly tough time as people do not necessarily feel it is relevant to them.

If the DPJ wins Sunday, Fukushima predicts a slow but steady improvement in homosexual rights.

“It won’t be, for example, that same-sex marriages will be recognized immediately. But for now we must educate people, eradicate bullying and make people understand that these problems exist in society,” she said

According to Human Rights Watch’s [Tokyo director Kanae] Doi, Japan is falling behind global standards by not having an antidiscrimination law other than that protecting gender equality.

“An antidiscrimination law exists almost everywhere else in the world. But in Japan, since there is no law protecting sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity or race, it is difficult for such people to prosecute,” she said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090827f2.html

Mindan fights for foreigners’ local-level suffrage

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Foreigners won’t have the right to vote in Sunday’s election but the national association of South Koreans, the largest ethnic group of permanent foreign residents, is waging a rare political campaign to win local-level suffrage because it believes there is too much at stake this time.

The Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan), which represents permanent South Korean residents, is campaigning for candidates in favor of foreigners’ suffrage in local-level elections.

Whether to give permanent foreign residents suffrage has long been a contentious political issue. Mindan has been pursuing the right for many years, and the election is viewed as a big chance to improve the odds, a senior Mindan official said.

“We are working to get as many candidates who are in favor of giving permanent residents local suffrage rights elected to the Diet,” Seo Won Cheol told The Japan Times.

“We are local residents just like Japanese citizens, but our rights have been ignored for too long, and our frustration has reached its peak,” Seo said, noting Mindan will push legislators to submit the bill to the next extraordinary Diet session.

“We are local residents of the community,” he said. “It is unthinkable that more than half a century has passed without giving us the right to participate in the community in a democratic society.”

Political parties are sharply divided over the issue. New Komeito, the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party are clearly supportive of granting foreigners local-level suffrage. But the DPJ is still trying to unify its stance.

Critics of the idea of foreigner suffrage say the Constitution stipulates that sovereignty rests with the people, who are defined as as those who hold Japanese nationality. Thus one must obtain that before being given the right to vote.

Meanwhile, many countries, including South Korea, have given foreign permanent residents the right to vote in local elections, believing community-level political participation to be necessary and no threat to their sovereignty.

“What’s important is that we get as many people supporting the suffrage issue into the Diet,” he said.

Giving local suffrage to special permit holders is beneficial for the entire country, Seo said, adding that South Korea gave permanent residents local suffrage in 2005.

“To respect the rights of foreigners means that the country is keen on protecting the human rights of Japanese citizens as well, so I believe it’s actually a national benefit,” he said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090827a3.html