Spotlight: "Hate speech" group in Japan ordered to pay compensation in landmark case

The Osaka District Court on Tuesday ordered a notorious "citizens' group" to pay compensation to a Korean resident of Japan for defamation of character as a result of the group's hate speech, in an unprecedented case that could pave the way for legislation leading to the criminalization of such racially- motivated verbal assaults that plague the nation.

Local media reported that Lee Sinhae, who herself works as a freelance journalist, claimed the group called Zainichi Tokken wo Yurusanai Shimin no Kai, the official name of the ultra- nationalist group better known as Zaitokukai, and in particular its leader at the time, defamed her by dubbing her anti-Japanese in speeches made between 2013 and 2014.

She also claimed that the right-wing, self-proclaimed "citizens' group," who believe "special privileges" are being given to Korean and, also sometimes, Chinese residents in Japan, repeatedly made discriminatory remarks and also mocked her looks in person and online, according to a report by Japan's public broadcaster NHK on Tuesday.

For the group's part, they said that their actions were in line with laws governing free speech and hence should not even be the topic of potential compensation in the first place.

However, presiding judge Tamami Masumori at the Osaka District Court, determined that the group, who often amass in large numbers in public and hold riotous rallies often teetering on the edge of being under police control, in areas known to be populated by non-Japanese, including in front of some elementary schools, had crossed the acceptable limit of criticism.

Masumori also said that the group's persistent degrading of Lee was clearly intended to fuel anti-Korean sentiment here and intensify discrimination against Korean residents living in Japan, and, as such, ordered the ultra-nationalist group to compensate Lee to the tune of 7,600 U.S. dollars.

Lee's lawyer on Tuesday maintained that it was the first time a court in Japan had recognized hate speech as being discriminatory against an individual.

Lee, who highlighted her ongoing battles with Zaitokukai two years earlier at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ), told a press briefing after the ruling Tuesday that the victory was momentous and held huge value. She also vowed to continue to work towards creating a society that does not discriminate.

Zaitokukai, led by the infamous Makoto Sakurai who was arrested along with eight of his cohorts for a physical altercation with a Korean resident of Japan during a protest, often turn out in force for hours of high-decibel, intimidating, anti-Korean rabble-rousing; dressed in Imperial Army-inspired uniforms and using megaphones while waving Imperial flags and carrying banners with despicable comments written on them such as "Korean Cockroaches Leave Japan" and "Koreans here are dirty Rats."

Zaitokukai believe that some Koreans, known as "Zainichi Koreans" are being given special legal privileges by the government here to help integrate them into Japanese society and the group, many of the members of whom are physically aggressive, menacing and have proven violent tendencies, ardently object to, among other things, the fact that some Korean residents here can use Japanese names.

They argue that if a Zainichi Korean, meaning permanent ethnic Korean residents of Japan, or long term Korean resident of Japan, who can trace their roots back to Korea from when it was under Japanese colonial rule during WWII and have retained their "Joseon" or South Korean nationalities, were to commit a crime here, for example, in news reports, the offender would come across as being Japanese.

Zaitokukai also vocally oppose long-term Korean residents who have been given permanent residence status by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and, as such, are eligible to claim the same welfare benefits as Japanese citizens. Somewhat ironically, however, Zainichi Koreans also include Japanese citizens of Korean descent, who have acquired Japanese nationality by naturalization, or by birth from one or both parents who have Japanese citizenship.

Zaitokukai's hate-infused diatribe, calls for Zainichi Koreans, as well as other non-Japanese residing here, to be stripped of their legal citizenship, kicked out of Japan, belittled in public, harassed on the streets and in their places of business, and, in the most extreme and mind-boggling cases, assaulted, raped and murdered.

The political landscape in Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's right-wing regime has changed at such a rapid rate that regular Japanese citizens have yet to grasp the gravity of the situation and the fact that since coming to power, Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party have, in the blink of an eye, ushered the nation down an ultra-nationalist path, which has wrongly demonized Japan's closest neighbors, including South Korea and China, and underscored this by brushing aside Japan's pacifist Constitution and remilitarizing the country.

And while in terms of Japanese law there is a clear distinction between a "hate crime" and a "hate speech," groups like Zaitokukai consistently exploit the law and operate in a grey area making thousands of people's lives of all ages, including young children, utterly miserable, as hate crimes are punishable by law, but individuals and groups who make hate speeches can do so with complete impunity.

Human rights groups here have been tirelessly calling for legislation to curtail instances of hate speeches, but have seen their efforts gain little traction in parliament, yet today's ruling will be a milestone for these groups, and of course Lee and others like her, whose lives have been so heinously unsettled on an almost daily basis.

A survey of attitudes toward discriminatory language revealed that of 700 Japanese lawmakers polled, only 46 of them even had an interest in the notion of introducing a law to deal with what in many countries around the world is criminal behavior.

This runs contrary to the fact that Japan has been a signatory to the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination since the mid-1990s.

Japan is home to around 600,000 ethnic Koreans, many of whom are the descendants of the nearly 800,000 Korean workers forcibly brought to Japan to work during Japan's brutal colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsular from 1910 to 1945. Endit