The Japan Federation of Bar Associations and nonprofit organizations voiced concern Wednesday that bills to revise immigration laws will violate the human rights of foreign residents.

The bills were submitted to the Diet earlier this month and will be deliberated on soon.

Critics of the bills also said punishments for violators of the revised laws, including a fine of up to ¥200,000 for those not carrying the new “zairyu” (residence) card that will replace the current alien registration cards, are too harsh.

The bills propose consolidating the management of foreign residents’ data under the Justice Ministry, replacing the current system in which local governments take charge of foreign resident registration, while the ministry handles immigration control.

“Overall, the revision greatly lacks consideration of foreigners’ privacy. The level of consideration is so much lower than that for Japanese,” Mitsuru Namba, a lawyer and member of the JFBA’s human rights protection committee, told reporters in Tokyo.

Social Democratic Party chief Mizuho Fukushima, who was at the briefing, is ready to oppose the government in the House of Councilors. “The bills suggest monitoring of foreigners will be strengthened. Management of information will lead to surveillance of foreigners,” she said.

Namba and Nobuyuki Sato of the Research-Action Institute for the Koreans in Japan urged lawmakers to amend the bills so the state can’t use the zairyu card code number as a “master key” to track every detail of foreigners’ lives.

“Such a thing would be unacceptable to Japanese, and (the government) must explain why it is necessary for foreigners,” Sato said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090326a3.html

An independent panel formed by court-entrusted citizens has ruled unjust last year’s decision by prosecutors not to slap criminal charges on the failed English conversation school operator Nova Corp. and its former president for failing to pay salaries to foreign instructors and employees, the panel said Tuesday.

The decision was made by Osaka’s No. 2 committee for the inquest of prosecution, which urged the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office to reopen investigations into Nova and former Nova President Nozomu Sahashi, 57.

The panel found that Nova and Sahashi were aware of a revenue shortfall, ran the language school chain on a hand-to-mouth basis, and continued to hire instructors and employees without any clear prospect of ensuring the source of their salaries.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare filed with the prosecutors in June 2008 an investigative report on Nova and Sahashi on suspicion of violating the labor standards law for failing to pay about 105 million yen in salaries to some 400 language instructors and employees in September and October 2007.

But in July 2008, the prosecutors decided against indicting Nova and Sahashi, saying they did not intentionally fail to pay the salaries.

Sahashi is currently on trial at the Osaka District Court on charges of professional embezzlement for allegedly diverting about 320 million yen from an employment benefit fund to reimburse tuition fees to people who canceled contracts for language courses.

An 11-member committee for the inquest of prosecution is established at all district courts across Japan to check decisions by prosecutors, who have a monopoly on the authority to indict.

Its main mission is to review prosecutors’ decisions not to indict, usually acting upon a complaint from crime victims or their relatives.

The panel’s decision is nonbinding, but prosecutors will usually launch re-investigations if the committee rules against their decision not to prosecute.

Nova went under in October 2007 and Nagoya-based G.communication Co. took over some of Nova’s operations in November that year.

Sahashi started running English conversation classes in Osaka in 1981 and set up Nova in 1990. His venture grew into the nation’s largest chain of English conversation schools before going bankrupt.

http://www.breitbart.com:80/article.php?id=D974C6JG0&show_article=1

Debito Arudou sees growing evidence of judicial double standards

If you’re a foreigner facing Japan’s criminal justice system, you can be questioned without probable cause on the street by police, apprehended for “voluntary questioning” in a foreign language, incarcerated perpetually while in litigation, and treated differently in jurisprudence than a Japanese.

Statistics bear this out. According to [Professor David T.] Johnson [author of "The Japanese Way of Justice"], 10 percent of all trials in Japan had foreign defendants in 2000. Considering that non-Japanese residents back then were 1.3 percent of the Japanese population, and foreign crime (depending on how you calculate it) ranged between 1 and 4 percent of the total, you have a disproportionate number of foreigners behind bars in Japan.

Feeling paranoid? Don’t. Just don’t believe the bromide that Japanese are a “peaceful, law-abiding people by nature.” They’re actually scared stiff of the police and the public prosecutor. So should you be. For until official government policy changes to make Japan more receptive to immigration, non-Japanese will be treated as a social problem and policed as such.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090324zg.html

The 2009 Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus Annual General Meeting will be held on Sunday April 19th from 1-5 pm at the Shimbashi Fukushi Kaikan, a short distance from Nambu HQ.

The proposed agenda includes the annual election of officers, the 2009 Shunto, t-shirts, the Friends of the Union campaign, 2009 March in March review, ALT NTV interview(s), and more.

Shimbashi Fukushi Kaikan Map

Single males in non-regular employment have a much lower marriage rate than that of regular employees, a government survey has shown.

Moreover, the birth rate is lower among female non-regular workers than their regularly-employed peers, according to the survey.

The results of the survey conducted by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry suggest that the low marriage and birth rates are due partly to Japan’s insecure job market.

“Salaries for irregular employees are lower, and it’s harder for irregular workers to take child-care leave. These factors apparently discourage them from marrying and having children,” a ministry official said.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090313p2a00m0na002000c.html