Japan is still purporting to celebrate “Yokoso Japan” or Welcome to Japan — just as it is preparing to inflict on every foreign visitor measures that are harassing, time-consuming, unnecessary, and would be illegal if done to Japanese citizens in Japan.

The measures have been condemned by Amnesty International as “a violation of basic human rights” and by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, but the justice ministry is determined to press ahead and fingerprint and photograph every foreign visitor to Japan every time he or she arrives in the country. The new scheme will start from Nov. 20.

Japan is the only country apart from the United States to resort to fingerprinting foreigners, but Tokyo is carrying it further and targeting almost everyone, including people with permanent, work or spouse visas, as well as short-term visitors. In the U.S., all permanent residents are exempt. In Japan, only children under 16, diplomats and special-status, mainly Korean, permanent residents will escape the lines and the tedious procedures.

In a statement that was smug and arrogant, and either dishonest or dangerously deluded, Naoto Nikai, an immigration bureau official, declared that the fingerprinting and photographing of foreigners “will greatly contribute to preventing international terrorist activities on our soil.”

If the immigration bureau or the justice ministry believes that fingerprinting will achieve anything other than get money to buy expensive high-tech toys and annoy queues of visitors, it needs a reality check.

It is time for foreign diplomats to protest that the fingerprinting is discriminatory. The claim has been made that this is an internal matter for Japan to decide. But if a new policy applies only to foreigners, and if it is a treatment that local citizens stubbornly resist as illegal if applied to them, then it is also an external matter. Japanese jealously resist fingerprinting, and only criminals or suspects are forced to provide fingerprints.

[japantimes, Read more...]