As suggested in the [Justice Ministry] panel’s interim report released in May, the panel said foreigners who want to work in Japan, including those of Japanese descent, must have a certain degree of proficiency in the Japanese language to be granted legal status.

[Senior Vice Justice Minister Taro] Kono called the government’s current policy of granting preferential treatment to people of Japanese descent a “mistake” and said the policy must be reconsidered.

“Many children of those ethnic Japanese who do not speak (the language) are dropping out of school, which must be stopped,” he said, adding that the lack of language ability is becoming a major problem for foreign workers.

“The government must take responsibility for building a system to teach Japanese to them,” Kono said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060923a1.html

…before official discussions on foreign labor go much further, national legislation to outlaw all forms of racial and ethnic discrimination is needed, according to the United Nations and nearly 80 Japan-based human rights organizations, many of which work to protect long-term foreign residents.

Without such a law, they argue, Japan will have serious problems with new arrivals, regardless of the restrictions on them, their Japanese-language skills or efforts to educate their children.

But the central government is not seriously considering such legal protections at the moment. In a comment reflective of the views of many senior policymakers and ordinary Japanese, [Vice Justice Minister Taro] Kono said he did not think such a law would be useful.

“Even if we were to pass such a law, Japanese attitudes toward foreigners wouldn’t change. It’s more important to change the culture of Japanese society to one that is accepting of foreigners,” Kono said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060912f1.html

A petition addressed to the Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly, the Governor of Kanagawa Prefecture, and the Kanagawa Board of Education is being circulated by a group of concerned citizens in support of the teachers dismissed by the Kanagawa Board of Education last April, and calls for the return to direct-hiring in the schools. A copy of the petition can be downloaded from the kanagawapft.org website. To add your name, please download the petition, print it out, and, after signing it, return to the address indicated in the petition info section of the website.

http://kanagawapft.org/petitionexplanation.pdf

Three courts have refused to allow three Korean residents working as lawyers to assume commissioned jobs despite being nominated by their bar associations, because they are not Japanese, attorneys said Thursday.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060901a2.html

Takahashi’s frustration underscores a critical disconnect in Japan—a split between what the country is becoming and what most Japanese want it to be. For mostly economic reasons, Japan must open itself to other ethnicities. Japan’s population is not only aging rapidly, but starting to decline. By the year 2050, it is expected to fall from 128 million now to around 105 million. To keep the economy viable, experts say, the country must let in more immigrants—not just guest workers, but foreign-born naturalized citizens. A government panel acknowledged that in a report this summer, while at the same time recommending that the foreign percentage of the total population not exceed 3 percent, roughly double what it is now.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14640269/site/newsweek/