TOKYO -- In January, a trio of foreign-born Japanese residents filed suit in the Tokyo District Court against the Japanese state plus the Tokyo Metropolitan and Aichi Prefectural governments for what they claim is frequent police questioning based solely on their ethnicities, or racial profiling. So what can you do if police officers stop you on the street for questioning in Japan?
The Mainichi asked Moe Miyash*ta, an attorney on the plaintiffs' legal team who has done extensive work on the police questioning and racial profiling issue. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
* * *
The Mainichi: What is police questioning ("shokumu sh*tsumon" in Japanese), and when do police do it?
Moe Miyash*ta: Police questioning is when police officers call out to a private person on the street and stop them to ask questions, and they do it based on the individual's demeanor.
Police can only question people on a voluntary basis. They can't force anyone. And it's not the case that police officers can ask whatever they want, whenever they want. Under the Police Duties Execution Act, they cannot question anyone without sufficient reason to believe that person is involved in a crime, based on their behavior and circ*mstances at the scene. For example, the person's clothing plus the place, or if the person looks like a suspect in a crime. Police need a concrete indicator to justify questioning someone.
The crime rate among foreign-born and native-born residents of Japan is almost the same, so just someone being foreign is insufficient reason to stop them for questioning. It is discrimination, and is in fact not legal.
TM: Are police allowed to ask anyone they think is a foreigner to show their foreign resident registration card?
MM: That is a matter of some debate. The Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act says that a foreign resident only has to show their resident card for the purposes of executing official procedures, and there is disagreement over what this covers. Is it true that police can ask anyone to show their resident card as part of their official duties, or can the card only be demanded for specific administrative procedures? That's where the dividing line is.
You cannot tell if someone is a Japanese citizen or a foreigner just from their appearance. So if police were allowed to go anywhere asking anyone to show their resident card, which would in effect be police questioning, it would run afoul of the police duties law. I would argue that you only need to show your resident card for specific official processes.
TM: If you're someone with foreign roots and police officers approach you on the street for no apparent reason, what should you do?
MM: Police can't question someone because they are a foreigner, and whether you answer an officer's questions is entirely up to you. You can refuse or walk away. But then, reasonable or not, the officer may see you as even more suspicious. If you want to get the questioning over with quickly, then you can just show them your resident card and it may end there.
But if you don't feel comfortable with that, you can ask the officer why they stopped you, or even ask if this isn't racial profiling. If you don't speak Japanese well, the officer will probably understand the english phrase, "Why did you stop me?"
Another option is to record audio or video of the encounter; that's entirely legal. That takes a lot of courage, though, so you can also make a note of when and where the officer stopped you, what they asked and other details. Make a memo or even post it on social media, as a record of what happened.
If the officer can't give you a concrete cause for stopping you, then you may be able to conclude it was because you have foreign roots. And you can use what you've recorded as evidence of that.
TM: If you have been questioned without cause, who can you tell?
MM: If it's obvious from what an officer says that they stopped you because you're a foreigner, and you have a recording of that, then you can bring it to a legal team. You can also take it to the Justice Ministry's Human Rights Bureau. But that's not a third-party organization; it's part of the government, so it's not very effective on issues like this. There are also public safety commissions (attached to each police force in Japan), but in at last one case they effectively did not respond to a (racial profiling) complaint. It's unfortunate, but court action is currently really the only way to deal with this issue in Japan.
(Interviewed by Robert Sakai-Irvine, The Mainichi Staff Writer)
* * *
Moe Miyash*ta is an attorney at Tono Tanami & Kosada Legal Professional Corp., and the author of the 2023 book "Racial Profiling" on the legal issues surrounding Japanese police questioning of residents with foreign roots.
* * *
If you believe you have been questioned by police because of your ethnicity, you can seek help and legal assistance from the Stop Racial Profiling team at stopracialprofiling.pj@gmail.com.
- Font Size
- S
- M
- L
