Hawkers frustrated with Japanese police / Ichihashi suicide rumor
The 2nd anniversary of Lindsay Ann Hawker’s death has passed, and a few new stories about the murder case have appeared over the last week:
Lindsay’s sister still seems optimistic about keeping the manhunt in the news:
If it was a murder that had taken place in this country we’ve been told that resources would have been scaled down much sooner and it would have perhaps taken more of a back seat than it has done in Japan.
Because Japan’s got such a low crime rate and because it was such a horrific crime it’s remained in the public conscience and it’s remained a serious case. So we’re still positive that there’s going to be a positive outcome.
But the family doesn’t seem so positive when they speak about the way Japanese police have been carrying out the investigation. Richard Lloyd Perry of the Times has reported that the Hawkers think the police decision to great large cutouts of Ichihashi is a frustrating “gimmick” meant to make them feel the police are doing something:
“It was really quite upsetting because it seems that they are no closer to finding him now than when he slipped through their fingers two years ago. We would have respected them more if they’d said honestly to us, ‘We’re doing all we can, but we’re struggling’, instead of trying to appease us with cardboard cut-outs.”
Meanwhile, a British Newspaper has printed a rumor about Ichihashi’s father committing suicide:
Police refused to confirm or deny that Masayoshi Ichihashi, a wealthy doctor and the father of Tatsuya Ichihashi, 29, had killed himself last September.
Japan’s strict privacy laws make it difficult to confirm that he had committed suicide.
However, the death was reported to The Daily Telegraph by a local journalist.
Miss Hawker’s father, Bill, said he was “shocked” but added he “wished it had been his son instead”.
And finally, in his latest Japan Times column, Debito claimed that the police seeking Ichihashi on the charge of “abandonment of a corpse” instead of murder is evidence of discrimination against foreigners in Japan:
Now triangulate that with the case of Lindsay Ann Hawker, who was allegedly murdered by Tatsuya Ichihashi in 2007. The evidence here is damning too: video evidence of her accompanying him to his apartment building, her beaten and strangled body found in a tub of sand on his apartment balcony, and his fleeing barefoot when police visited to investigate. He’s still at large today. You can see his mug shot on police posters with five other suspects wanted for “murder” (satsujin). That is, except for Ichihashi. He’s just accused of “abandonment of a corpse,” again.
Apparently it is not rare for Japanese police to seek fugitives on lesser charges they can definitely get a conviction for, with the expectation that they can later ask for more serious charges once the criminal is in custody and under interrogation. Given the level of international and domestic media attention that has fallen upon this case, it’s unlikely that Ichihashi wouldn’t be charged with murder should he be captured alive. Readers have pointed out that the police are in fact naming Ichihashi as a suspected murderer.
[hat tip to Ken Y-N and Big in Japan (via Japan Soc)]
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Does he expect the police will turn Japan up side down only beacause the victim is american?
Wow. That’s the stupidest trolling I’ve ever seen.
At least get the facts right (giving up reflexive anti-Americanism would be a good first step..HINT She’s not American)
But anyway, for serious readers, the reason the police OWE the family far more effort than they would normally give to a murder is because they royally fucked up by letting him escape in the first place. 9 cops find dead girl in his apartment while he’s there, and he just walks away.
Any cops in ANY country regardless of race issues are obligated to correct such an unforgivable fuckup.
On a side note: the father offing himself..wonder why?
Your waste-of-space son, whose loser-go-nowhere well-off lifestyle was funded by your own wealth proves to be a murderer. After months of denial and telling yourself the evil gaijin harlot must have done something to him, or “the real killers” are still at large (since the mass media tells you that most crimes are committed by gaijin, and all gaijin are mixed up in drugs and crime, after all) you finally realize that the evidence is no longer deniable, your son is a murderer and didn’t even have the decency to turn himself in and confess like a good Japanese psycho-killer.
But I’m just guessing. I could be wrong.
But I’m probably doing better than the Chiba police. >:[
I agreed with you up until you got to the father part…sounds like some bad case of Gaikokujinron.
“At least get the facts right… 9 cops find dead girl in his apartment while he’s there, and he just walks away.”
*ahem* At least get the facts right yourself, please.
9 cops went to his apartment building. 2 (or perhaps 3) went to his door, and just happened to catch him as he was on his way out. IMPORTANT POINT: they were not showing up to arrest him for murder. They did not know, at this point in time, that a murder had been committed. He was a “person of interest”, potential stalker, known weird guy. He was not known to have committed a crime when the cops went to his door - although since they had the building staked out, they doubtless suspected something. As far as I have been able to determine from the reporting, they did not have a warrant.
They asked some questions, he broke and ran. The cops look like idiots, but let’s think here: Guy in his early 20s, in apparently reasonably good shape, in fight-or-flight mode with adrenalin pumping. He is also fleeing from his home turf - he knows the building and almost certainly the surrounding area. His opponents: 9 middle-aged cops, probably in suits, probably not wearing sneakers, and they’ve got to guess which exit he’s going to bolt out of, or if he is even going to use an exit (and not jump from a balcony), and then guess again which way he’s going to break once out of the building. At night. Ichihashi had some good breaks going for him, the fact he was actually able to get away (and remember again, the cops did not know there was a dead body in the apartment at this point, they were still trying to figure out what he knew) does not particularly surprise me. It disappoints me to no end, but if the cops had caught him it would have been a really good trick, IMHO.
Now, after he’s gone the cops think “well, let’s check out the apartment”, and lo and behold a body turns up on the balcony. Now they know why he ran, and now they know a crime has been committed. Let’s try to keep the events in the order they happened.
LB,
Thanks for the clarification. If the cops didn’t know the dead girl was on the balcony when he ran off, it at least makes the whole situation “make sense”..as it just doesn’t click that they’d let him run after finding a dead girl [except under the context of just general "J cops tend to be incompetent" where it SEEMS almost believable]
Still, at the end of the day, cops show up and question a dude about a missing woman, he gets away, and they find the woman deceased on his balcony. It just reduces it from a 11 out of 10 Fuckup with 3 gold stars and what should be immediate invites to Hello Work for all involved down to a career-ruining, but-you-still-get-your-pension [they are civil servants after all] 9 out of 10.
It still doesn’t click that apparently they thought he was worth the attention of 9 cops, but not worth the attention to actually keep an eye on?
Now, some people might bring race into it, perhaps correctly in a hyptothetical sense, that if a gaijin were the one being questioned about a missing J girl, the cops would probably have been a bit more vigilant about not letting the gaijin flee the scene even before finding a body.
[Not saying it's a pro-Japanese bias, but that an anti-gaijin bias would have proven to be a GOOD thing in such a hypothetical case, helping them do their jobs correctly. Unfortunately the cost of such bias is that all innocent gaijin are more likely to be needlessly detained or even arrested, or semi-arrested in a koban questioning (if you try to leave, you're interfering with the duties of a public official, but you're "not under arrest, and free to leave") or just held for 23 days and persuaded into giving a false confession, thus "solving" the case, a tactic used plenty often with Japanese as well, but I digress...]
Yeah, I agree it was a f-up. And yes, the fact they posted cops outside the building as well as sending a couple up to his door tells us they probably suspected something, even if they didn’t have enough to get a warrant.
Or, they could all have been on their way to Krispy Kreme and one of them said “Mind if we stop at this guy’s apartment on the way?”
I’ve never really seen the 9 cops issue analysed in detail (apart from wild blog-based speculation, of course), as it is one of the biggest questions for me.
If as Level3 claims that they let him escape, why send 9 cops and make yourselves look utterly incompetent? Why not just send round the local plod on a bicycle and use the “but we didn’t suspect him of anything at the time” line? Who decided to let him escape?
On the other hand, why send 9 cops? Had he previous? Did the neighbours report anything?
Level 3
I laud you for writing on both blogs in an identical handle.
May I suggest you to ask people on Debito blog to come and talk on an open forum rather than cursing Japan and Japanese on an exclusionary blog?
Nobody is against promoting positive image of foreigners in Japan. Nobody is against pointing out injustices in Japan.
But when the lies are allowed, the truth and corrective comments are blocked, the blog is only planting the seed of fear among Japanese for the foreign-born in Japan and the seed of fear for Japan and Japanese among foreign kids who have little knowledge of their mother/father country and Japan.
And the foreigners preferring to write on a blog where lies are allowed and the truth and corrective comments are blocked when they curse Japan are promoting negative images of foreigners in Japan.
The blog of cowards is just promoting separatism and antagonism
I agree that lies are bad, and debito does have a tendency to stretch the truth or ignore things to suit his purposes as an agitator. Such practices only hurt himself.
But he is NOT responsible for Japanese xenophobia and racism. Don’t pretend he is.
If some Japanese are using debito as an excuse to hate foreigners..well, I’m sure they’d have another excuse if there were no debito.
Thanks Level 3
The blog IS partially responsible for Japanese xenophobia by promoting negative image of the foreign-born and by promoting separatism and antagonism
Nobody is justified in hating foreigners. But justified or not, socially and psychologically the antagonism evolves when an stubborn extreme exclusionary group of one party express the contempt and hatred toward another, tells lies about it, block the truth and corrective comments, and agitate,
Please tell them to go and talk on another open forum or create an open forum of their own preferably where the Japanese and foreigners can work together rather than post where lies and insults on Japan and Japanese are allowed but the truth and corrective comments are blocked.
Isn’t that fair enough?
Don’t you think they look cowards?
Ponta, you’ve claimed before that Debito is “promoting negative images of foreigners in Japan” but you’ve outdone yourself this time in suggesting he is “planting the seed of fear among Japanese for the foreign-born in Japan and the seed of fear for Japan and Japanese among foreign kids”. Where are these legions who apparently are on the verge of a race war because of what some middle-aged American crank is writing on his blog?
It’s disappointing that Debito censors your comments on his blog but it appears to be making you ratchet up your criticisms of him to hysterical levels. I am quite confident that most Japanese people have never heard of Debito, let alone read his books and articles. Any Japanese who do bother are probably more internationalized than the average citizen because he writes almost exclusively in English. Consequently, they are unlikely to allow any distaste they might have for what he says to colour their views of foreigners in general. Surely that’s true for you so why not have more faith in the intelligence of your compatriots? Or maybe I’m wrong and, as I write, you are busy stocking up on Nissin cup noodles and House Food curry in preparation for the coming clash of civilizations unleashed by a bumbler from Hokkaido.
Can I recommend you simply ignore the man? If everyone who rushed to condemn him in the blogosphere would do so then fewer people would know he existed. All you are doing by attributing any significance to what he writes is helping to increasing his audience. Perhaps if Debito was starved of this attention and genuinely wanted to improve the position of foreigners in Japan then he would have to do something concrete which might be worth acknowledging. Or he might just carry on in his current vein in which case ignoring him would also make for a good long term plan.
ハリーさん
おひさしぶりです。
有道氏の活動の日本人および外国人子女に与える影響については、これは正確にはわかりません。しかし、相変わらず、訂正や批判を恐れる臆病者の読者ーーしかも、かなり日本・日本人に悪意のあるーーーがコメントを続けております。批判や訂正をおそれ、日本や日本人に悪意のある嘘コメントを書きたければあそこにかきこめばよい、という訳です。そうして、こうした嘘や誤解を招くブログが、比較的無知な若者を誤った方向に導いてしまった例をハリーさんもご存じでしょう。
http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=908
以前にも話しましたが、JapanProbeなどでも有道氏のブログを情報源として奇妙奇天烈なコメントをされていた方を散見したこともあります。
日本人一般に与える影響に関しては、まったく未知ですが、人種問題の繊細さ、また、waiwaiなども日本人一般に知られていなかったことなどを勘案すると、過小評価もできないのではないでしょうか？
感心できるコメントではなありませんね。ハリーさん。
なるほど、みんな無視すれば影響力は減少するでしょう。そして、名前は挙げませんが、かつて協力していたブログや人々も無視するようになった場合もあります。こうしたブログや人々は歓迎しますし、仲良くやっていきたいと思います。しかし、なぜ、そうなったかと言えば、LBさんやその他の方々の批判があったからでしょう。
私個人に関して言えば、ハリーさん、例えば、あなたが、有道ブログにおける誤った情報をいちいち訂正するブログでも開設していただければ、私が有道氏に言及することもなくなるでしょう。
やっていただけますか？
誤った情報の発信、卑怯な方法を訂正する活動を抑止しようとするハリーさんの意図ははかりかねます。
The blog IS partially responsible for Japanese xenophobia
No - the xenophobic are responsible for their xenophobia
it appears to be making you ratchet up your criticisms of him to hysterical levels.
I agree. Here is yet another thread that has turned - out of nowhere [*eyeroll*] - into a debito hysteria thread. Its ironic that over-the-top comments of ponta et al probably direct significant numbers of the curious to debitos site. Its effectively viral marketing, whether intended or not.
I’m well aware of your efforts to counter Debito. Not least because you refer to them almost every time you mention the man which is an unhealthy amount and points towards a worrying obsession on your part. That is another reason why you should consider ignoring him.
I know very well Debito’s penchant for exaggeration and error. I encountered him in usenet groups well before he appeared on your radar screen and, if I think it will affect his thinking or that of his audience, then I will take him to task. I’ve done so in the past and also quite recently. I don’t need any validation from you.
What I won’t do is make outrageous claims about his influence on relations between Japanese and non-Japanese which you are prone to do. You insult the intelligent and reasonable members of both communities by doing so.
leitmotiv さん Harryさん、
おふたかたが、誤った情報を訂正したり、卑劣な方法を非難したりすることをHysterical 形容することこそHystericalだと思わざるえません。また、私は有道氏の活動方式の方がよほどhystericalのように思えます。また、なぜ、そうした有道氏のブログの誤った情報や方法を訂正、非難したりしようとするたび、例の如くおふたかたが登場して、それを抑止しようとするのか、理解に苦しむところです。
leitmotiv さん
responsibleとは、ある事柄の一因になっている、 being the partial cause of something,の意味で使っております。responsible を辞書で引いてみて下さい。
Harryさん
これについては、多少考慮しましょう。
もっとも、日本人外人間の対立をうむのが必然といっているわけではなく、それを促進する方向の活動である、といっているのですから、まんざら間違っているとも思いませんが・・・・
それにしても、、日本人、外国人の知性や理性への侮辱というのもかなり誇張された表現でしょうね。
この問題は例えば、leitmotiv さん Harryさん、が、有道氏の誤った情報を訂正し、新来の外国人のための情報センターとなるようなブログを設立すれば、解決する問題です。情報提供には私も協力しましょう、と従前から提案しているのです。
そうした提案は等閑視し、有道氏のブログの誤った情報、間違った方法を非難するならともかく、有道氏のブログに批判的な言説がでるたびに、むしろそれを抑止したり、そうした訂正活動をhystericalなど罵倒したり、私に関して日清焼きそば云々などの言葉を出す側にまわるというのはいかがなものか、と思わざるえません。
ひとつお聞きしたいのですが、有道氏のブログの誤った情報や方法を訂正・非難することの日本人・外国人に与える有害な影響とはなんでしょうか？
むしろ、日本に関する誤った情報を訂正する活動に対して、こうして、それを執拗に抑止する動きというのは大概の日本人には不穏にうつるのではないでしょうかね？
Why on earth would you imagine that I would be interested in setting up a separate website to correct Debito’s errors? That would be to confer on him an importance which he doesn’t have in my life and shouldn’t have in yours. The fact you suggest it indicates that you have missed my point. Don’t get bogged down in refuting such a minor figure. It’s your prerogative to work yourself up into a lather over Debito but I’m convinced that the relentless negativity it entails is causing you to lose all sense of proportion. Why let Debito set the agenda by constantly responding to him? Why not ignore him completely and set your own agenda? You’ll find ploughing your own furrow a much more rewarding enterprise. It should also help reaffirm your faith in others which appears to be wavering dangerously.
Harryさん
なぜなら、誤った情報や方法を訂正するコメントをするたびに、Harryさんやらleitmotiv さんがでてきてその訂正するコメントをやれ、ヒステリカルだ、やれ、人種戦争に準備しているか、などと、感情的に揶揄するからじゃないですか？
そして、すでに記した理由により、
１）誤った、そして偏った情報は訂正する必要がある。
２）ハリーさんらは私やLBさんなどそうした情報を訂正し、また方法を批判する活動を感情的に否定する。
とすれば、
３）ハリーさんらが、訂正する活動をされればよい。
加えて新来の外国人に役立つ情報を提供することは有益でしょうから、それには私もお手伝いしよう、といっているのです。
こちらのほうがよほどrewardingでしょう。
なぜ、しようとしないのですか？
情報の誤りを訂正したり、方法を批判することで、彼のブログにimportanceを与えるとは全く思いません。なぜ、間違いを指摘されるとimportanceを与えるとお考えになるのか理解できません。普通は、誤りばかりあるブログは評価が低くなるんですがねええ。そうなっては困る理由でもあるんですか？
というより、そもそも
the relentless negativity it entails is causing Debito’s blog to lose all sense of proportion.
でしょう。こうした訂正活動の原因となっている、そちらの方を、そもそもなぜ、非難しないのか、むしろそれを非難する活動を感情的に非難しようとするのか、頭をかしげざるえない。
私は彼等の活動がself-correctiveであってほしい、と願ってきた。そして警告も発っし、見守ってきた。にもかかわらず、今回のように、あいかわらずではないですか？
なぜ、日本に関する嘘のコメント、日本人を罵倒するコメントは許容してそれを訂正しようとする真実のコメントを拒絶するブログに対する批判を感情的に否定しようとするのか？ 日本人の読者も多いと思いますので、ハリーさん、それをちゃんとご説明いただきたい。
また、先ほどの、有道氏のブログの誤った情報や方法を訂正・非難することの日本人・外国人に与える有害な影響とはなんでしょうか？という問いにも答えていただければ幸いです。
そもそもHarryさんや、leitmotiv さん以外に、彼のブログを間接的とはいえ、擁護する人は彼のブログで住人以外に少ない。なぜ、そこまで、擁護したいのか、本当に理解しかねますね。
筋の通ったご意見であれば私もちゃんと筋を通しましょう。
よろしくお願いします。
Again, you decide to focus exclusively on your mission to put Debito right as if repeating the same mantra dozens of times gives your obsession more meaning. Foreigners have been making incorrect statements about Japan for decades, well before a man called David Aldwinckle ever visited the country, and I confidently predict that they still be making them long after my family pick over my bones with chopsticks.
You ask me to suggest other ways to counter Debito’s claims thus entirely missing the point that I do not believe it is so important for you to do so. You have drawn up your battle lines because you have convinced yourself that Debito is poisoning relations between Japanese and non-Japanese in some significant way. This is a fundamental miscalculation on your part. You appear to believe that failing to respond to Debito will someone mean that you sanction what he says. What I am pointing out to you is that by taking him seriously, and expending so much effort in trying to address his every utterance, you give him far more sanction than if you simply ignored him.
In a nutshell,
I am asking why it is wrong, or to use their words, “hysterical”, to correct wrong information and criticize unfair tactics Debito’s blog is employing.
I am asking why not criticize the wrong and/or misleading and/or malice information on Debito’s blog every time it appears rather than criticize me every time I criticize his blog.
I am saying that I wouldn’t do what I am doing if Harry and Letimotive were doing that.
Note Harry knows well “Debito’s penchant for exaggeration and error” and he is perhaps aware of the cases where people were misled by it.
I am asking why they are defending such a blog if not directly
.
I am suggesting Harry and others to set up a blog in which they correct the wrong information on Debito’s blog and they provide useful information and tips about life in Japan in English for the newcomers to Japan and Japanese and foreigners in Japan discuss the problems that the foreigners are facing if they don’t want me to criticize the blog where lies are allowed and the truth and corrective comments are blocked,
In that way people will start ignoring Debito’s blog and he will be “a minor figure” as Harry says.
I am offering the help to provide the information and perhaps i can help writing in Japanese to raise consciousness or to protest or whatever.
For some reason, all they are saying is to stop criticizing Debito whose penchant for exaggeration and error” Harry knows well. I wonder why.
投稿した後に読みました。
彼は海外の新聞社からインタビューを受け、またご自身のブログでも何十回も引用された、と自慢しています。JTのコラミストでもある。ハリーさんの評価は多少過小なのではないでしょうか？
彼のブログにおける誤った情報を客観的根拠に基づいて批判するとーーー今回の場合、例えば、不適切な引用などがありますがーーー彼の評価が必要以上にあがるのでしょうか？そこがまだ、よくわかりません。ご解説をお願いします。
And, as I have pointed out above, I do not think correcting Debito is “hysterical” because I do it myself. I do argue, however, that claiming Debito is “planting the seed of fear among Japanese for the foreign-born in Japan and the seed of fear for Japan and Japanese among foreign kids” is taking criticism of the man to a hysterical level. Just read those words again please because you appear to have forgotten you wrote them. Since your fixation with him is leading you to make such outlandish claims, I am suggesting you make the decision to ignore him in the hope that it will calm you down.
Harryさん
実はぼくは、planting the seed of fear among Japanese for the foreign-born in Japan and the seed of fear for Japan and Japanese among foreign kids”という表現があながち大げさだともおもっていないのです。
例えば、http://s02.megalodon.jp/2007-1124-1207-20/nofj16.googlepages.com/home
あるいは、他の場所で紹介した、準強姦事件のケースなどHarryさんもご存じでしょう。後に釈明するといいながら、いまだにせず、なんと今回の論文の根拠にまでしている。
あれは、外国人出身者に対する恐怖感を日本人に、あるいは、外国人子弟に日本に対する恐怖感を植え付けませんか？
それとも、例の外国人犯罪裏ファイルの類も、外国人に対する恐怖心を植え付けず、無視した方がいいとお考えですか？
これらについてもご意見があれば、うかがいます。
それともうひとつ。
私は、有道氏に粘着しているわけではありませんよ。
Rather your fixation with my criticisms of Debito’s blog lead you to make such emotional accusations.
Your accusations on the criticisms of his blog, to borrow your words, is rather ” an unhealthy amount and points towards a worrying obsession on your part”
有道氏のブログの中の欺瞞投稿や嘘コメント、あるいは、卑劣な運営方法に怒りを感じているのです。そして、前にも言ったように、ブログ内部で、内発的に軌道修正できていればそれにこしたことはない。その警告はさんざんやってきました。そうすれば、私が彼のブログについて言及することもなかったでしょう。
And I am proposing more productive way to settle this problem.
Ponta - if you are currently not getting any commission for directing traffic to Debito’s site, I hope you will negotiate for it asap. I think you have a strong bargaining position.
I thought she was English?
Funnily enough, although the poster says that he’s wanted for just abandonment of a corpse, the Chiba Police web site says he’s wanted for both.
GlobalTalk21 dissects Debito’s essay and shows that he’s talking rubbish.
Interesting.
One might even argue that this is a case of reverse discrimination against Japanese because the amount of police mobilized to this incident and the media attention are much larger in this case than the cases where the victims are Japanese.
Debito’s argument is skewed, Debito, for instance, quotes from the book in which the author says,
I haven’t read the whole book, but I wonder how Debito reached the his conclusion using the similar evidences and sources.
On the whole I agree with Mulboyne on FG
I don’t wonder. I know he’s doing it deliberately. Whatever else we may say of Debito, he is not stupid. He knows exactly what he is doing.
LB, I’m coming round to that way of thinking too. He cannot really be that blinded by his own fanaticism?
Debito has admitted (not to me personally, allow me to say, but to friends of mine who have regular contact with him) that he likes “stunts”. As one of these friends put it, “He likes to throw a hand grenade into a packed room and watch the reaction.” Or as Debito himself said:
” I would rather write up what I know and have found out, even with the risk of making a mistake or an overstatement, and start the ball rolling on the debate. … And here’s hoping those more informed than I will make the corrections and connect the dots for us later. That’s what a debate is about.”
http://www.debito.org/?p=2748#comment-176339
The thing is, in the JT “column”, he didn’t write up what he knew, or what he had found out, in fact he completely ignored everything he had found out for the sake of writing a more sensational bit of drivel.
So yes, he knows what he is doing. And I assume he also knows that debunking lies and misrepresentations is not actually “debate”.
“He likes to throw a hand grenade into a packed room and watch the reaction.”
In other words, a troll.
“In other words, a troll.”
Yes, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but…
Funnily enough, he now seems to be trolling under the name “Ulysses Gramophone” over at Global Talk 21, in the entry where Jun Okumura trashes Debito’s article. He can hide his name, but not his writing style. “Ulysses” is pure Debito.
Ponta’s point about David Johnson’s book really needs to be stressed. I checked out the book on Amazon as well, and while Johnson does indeed cite Foote as Debito cites, he then proceeds to debunk Foote’s argument. If you read Debito’s article you could be forgiven for thinking Johnson, Foote and Debito all agree. However, Debito is citing selectively and not presenting the full context. In my honest opinion, that is even worse than Debito’s usual habit of just citing himself - now he’s effectively making up citations to support himself, and apparently hoping none of the rest of us can find those citations and read for ourselves.
Well,That is not the first time.
Heck, Jun didn’t even need to write that much. All he had to do was point out, for example, Debito’s claim that Idubor was “convicted without any physical evidence” is contradicted by the court papers, which Debito has possession of and posted on his own site. Heck, as soon as he put those up people pointed that out, and he put that up on his blog too (and never tried to counter or argue with those posts). It is like he (Debito) is desperately hoping that the people he tells his tall tales to won’t ever look at the evidence, or else are unable to read Japanese and thus are completely at the mercy of “sensei” telling them what the funny squiggly characters mean.
For the sake of the readers,
as for Idubor’s case, refer to
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/01/31/japan-letters-from-the-prision/
“And finally, in his latest Japan Times column, Debito claimed…”
Smart people stopped reading right there. Debito was disabused of a lot of the BS he wrote in that article before he wrote it. He started this as a post on his blog, and a whole lot of people pointed out where he was going wrong. He went with it anyway. Then again, as he himself said (his site is down so this isn’t an exact quote, but…) “I would rather write what I know, even if I get a fact wrong or overstate, and let others discuss and bring the facts out later in the debate that follows.” Great attitude from a supposed “social activist”. Just make shit up. Let others do the research and bring out the facts, his job is just to stir the muck.
“Smart people stopped reading right there”.
One problem.There are lots of not-so smart people out there with foreign resistrwtion cards.
Natural conclusion would be some of the non-non-Japanese(shall we call them We-Japanaese,WJ?)might feel the need for securing their perimeter to minimize the risk of being branded as racist at will by those evil NJs.
“There are lots of not-so smart people out there with foreign resistrwtion cards”
Indeed. And way too many of them seem to be able to get the OK to write columns for the Japan Times…
”
Indeed. And way too many of them seem to be able to get the OK to write columns for the Japan Times”,which deems “Japanese only” ad as not implying ” any discriminatory messages”
debito.org/?p=2645
I thought Debito and his friends would call for boycott of the JT just as they did in other cases.
But their boss got a job from the JT. shouganaine, but it tells something about their activism.
Yes, particularly because he has a category on his blog which purports to expose “bad social science”.
some people say he’s a zainichi is that true?
Do you mean Joji Obara?
He is Korean Japanese.