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New York Times の記事

New Japanese Immigration Controls Worry Foreigners
By MARTIN FACKLER 
Published: November 18, 2007

TOKYO, Nov. 17 ・Japan has tried hard in recent years to shake its image as an overly insular society and offer a warmer welcome to foreign investors and tourists. But the country is about to impose strict immigration controls that many fear could deter visitors and discourage businesses from locating here.

On Tuesday, Japan will put in place one of the toughest systems in the developed world for monitoring foreign visitors. Modeled on the United States・controversial U.S.-Visit program, it will require foreign citizens to be fingerprinted, photographed and questioned every time they enter Japan.

The screening will extend even to Japan 2.1 million foreign residents, many of whom fear they will soon face clogged immigration lines whenever they enter the country. People exempted from the checks include children under 16, diplomats and special permanent residents,・a euphemism for Koreans and other Asians brought to Japan as slave laborers during World War II and their descendants. *Note: Most Korean residents have migrated to Japan after WWII. Especially during Korean war and Red purge.

The authorities say such thorough screening is needed to protect Japan from attacks by foreign terrorists, which many fear here because of Japan痴 support for the United States in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the measures, part of an immigration law enacted last year, have been criticized by civil rights groups and foreign residents・associations as too sweeping and unnecessarily burdensome to foreigners. They note that the only significant terrorist attack in Japan in recent decades was carried out by a domestic religious sect, which released sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995, killing 12 people.

Some of the most vocal critics have been among foreign business leaders, who say the screening could hurt Japan痴 standing as an Asian business center, especially if it is inefficiently carried out, leading to long waits at airports. Business groups here warn that such delays could make Japan less attractive than rival commercial hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore, where entry procedures are much easier.

The business groups also contend that the screening runs counter to recent efforts by the government to attract more foreign investment and tourism.

If businessmen based here have to line up for two hours every time they come back from traveling, it will be a disaster,・said Jakob Edberg, policy director in the Tokyo office of the European Business Council. This will affect real business decisions, like whether to base here.

Business groups also fault the government for bungling the few attempts it has made at explanation. Two weeks ago, the justice minister created a commotion when he defended the new measures by stating that 殿 friend of a friend・who belonged to Al Qaeda had entered the country repeatedly using forged passports. The government scrambled to say that the minister, Kunio Hatoyama, had never had direct contact with the alleged Qaeda member.

However, some civil rights groups worry that the government is using terrorism to mask a deeper, xenophobic motive behind the new measures. They say that within Japan, the government has justified the screening as an anticrime measure, playing to widely held fears that an influx of foreigners is threatening Japanese safe streets.

These groups also note that fingerprinting of foreigners is not new here. Until fairly recently, all foreign residents were routinely fingerprinted. That practice was phased out after years of protest by foreign residents and civil rights groups.

Terrorism looks like an excuse to revive to the old system for monitoring foreigners,・said Sonoko Kawakami at Amnesty International in Japan. We worry that the real point of these measures is just to keep foreigners out of Japan.・

One request made by the European Business Council, the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan and other business groups is to add special lines at airports for foreign residents, and especially frequent business travelers.

Until now, foreign residents have been allowed to use the same lines at airport immigration as Japanese citizens, speeding their entry. But the new law will bar them from doing so.

Only the Tokyo area main international airport at Narita has agreed to set aside lines for foreign residents. Others, including the nation痴 second-largest airport, Kansai International near Osaka, will force these residents to line up with other foreigners, who even before the new screening often waited an hour or more to pass through immigration.

That irks Martin Issott, 59, a Briton and the regional director for a British chemical company who has lived in Japan for 20 years. Mr. Issott said he used the Kansai airport two or three times a month for business trips. He uses the immigration line for Japanese citizens and never waits more than five minutes. He said he feared that the change in rules would result in long waits at the end of every trip.

的 have no problem complying with the letter of this law,・said Mr. Issott, who lives in the western city of Kobe. But I am utterly disgusted that they haven稚 found a way to make this quicker and more painless.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/asia/18japan-1.html?_r=1&ref=asia&oref=slogin

3年前アメリカがこのプログラムを導入した時の記事。

U.S. Takes a Closer Look at Visitors
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
Published: October 3, 2004
WASHINGTON

TOUGHER entry requirements for visitors to the United States are making sweeping changes in the way visitors from Europe, Japan, Australia and other industrialized nations are being received at American airports.

Starting last Thursday, travelers from 27 nations - including Britain, Germany and Japan, which are the three biggest sources of overseas visitors to the United States - were to be photographed and fingerprinted for the first time at American airports. On Oct. 26, passengers from 21 countries, most of them in Europe, will have to carry machine-readable passports to visit this country without visas.

The stricter requirements are part of efforts to improve national security. The government began fingerprinting and photographing visa-carrying travelers in January. But this is the first time that visitors from industrialized countries who do not typically require visas to visit for no more than 90 days will be required to provide digital fingerprints and photographs to determine whether they match computerized watch lists for suspected terrorists, criminals and violators of American immigration law.

In 2003, about 12 million of the 18 million overseas visitors to the United States came from the 27 nations, most of them European, that will now be required to participate in the fingerprinting program, according to the Travel Industry Association of America, which represents the nation's largest airlines, hotels, cruise lines and car rental companies.

Hoping to allay concerns and avoid confusion among these travelers, the Department of Homeland Security plans to start running advertisements about the fingerprinting and photographing program this month in several newspapers overseas. The program is known as U.S. Visit.

The State Department also sent out a cable last month to American consulates and embassies around the world, encouraging them to increase efforts to inform travelers in 21 industrialized nations that they need to have machine-readable passports in hand by Oct. 26. Otherwise, they will have to apply for visas.

Homeland Security officials emphasize that the fingerprinting and photographing is quick - typically no more than 15 seconds - and easy; the fingerprints are taken digitally, leaving fingers clean.

"One of our highest priorities is to make sure the United States continues to be a welcoming nation and that travelers continue to come to the United States," said Anna Hinken, the outreach manager for U.S. Visit. "We believe those goals are entirely compatible with ensuring security for both travelers and visitors.

"We're trying our best to make sure that everybody's aware of what to expect when they get to the airports," she said.

Many European travelers are bracing for the new rules with a mixture of foreboding, confusion and resignation - while others remain unaware of the changes.

"There is a bit of nervousness, especially with the fingerprints," said Simona Camerini of European Incoming Services, a travel agency in Rome, who has had to advise her clients of the changes. "They feel like they are being checked up on, and as a consequence, they get nervous." But when her clients realize that this is now a normal procedure in American airports, "it's not too traumatic."

Chris Keats, a 59-year-old office administrator in London, was a little more cautious. "I wouldn't really mind being photographed or fingerprinted, but worry that the system might be open to abuse," she said. "What happens if someone crooked in the U.S. system logs my fingerprints alongside a photograph of someone else?"

Travel industry officials fear that there may be more confusion about the deadline for machine-readable passports, a requirement that they believe has not been as well publicized as the U.S. Visit program. Rick Webster, director of governmental relations for the Travel Industry Association, said some passport holders in Spain, Italy, France and Switzerland still lack the new version, which can be read by a computer to check biographical information against watch lists.

Angela Aggeler, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, said officials anticipate that some travelers may arrive in the United States after Oct. 26 without either the new passports or the visas required otherwise. She could not say precisely how many passport-holders from the 21 countries have not been issued the new passports, but said that about 30 percent of French travelers still don't have them. She said immigration officers at airports would have the discretion to allow those travelers a one-time waiver to enter the United States.

But she warned that the waiver is not guaranteed and that some passengers might be sent home and told to apply for visas before returning.

"Clearly the best option would be to come prepared with a machine-readable passport or a visa," Ms. Aggeler said. "We're really beating the drum and asking people to get the word out."

Mr. Webster said that the new requirements were coming online outside of the peak travel season and that he hoped the government would have enough airport employees to handle the new workload.

"We're cautiously optimistic there will not be increased lines, but there's no way of knowing before you reach that point," he said.

"There's so much at risk and so much at stake in terms of visitor spending, that if there is a problem it could have real repercussions," he said. "But we hope things will proceed smoothly. We're keeping our fingers crossed."
http://travel.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/travel/03rep.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

まずタイトルからしてニュアンスがぜんぜん違う。
日本の場合は「新入国審査が外国人を不安にさせる」に対して米国の場合は「アメリカは訪問者をより詳細に審査します」という無感情なタイトル。
日本側の記事はcivil rights group（プロ市民）やらアムネスティやらの批判意見ばかりなのに対し、米国側は「たいしたことないわ」「気にしないわ」「うまくいくと信じてるよ」という調子。

つまり捕鯨問題と同じで「アジア人ごときが」という意識が根底にあるんだと思う。
オーストラリアもノルウエーの捕鯨に対してはおとなしい。

debito.orgも米国のUS-Visitに関してはスルーに近い。
google result

ここは誰がやってるのか不明な抗議ブログ。
Re-entry Japan

彼らが標的にしている役所
General Affairs Division, Immigration Bureau, Ministry of Justice
1-1-1 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo, 100-8977
Tel: +81 (0)3-3580-4111
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fingerprints-japan/index.html

抗議してる人たちのブログやコメントを読むと米国の指紋押捺は沈黙で日本に対してだけ怒っているのがわかる。
中には米国のも反対だけどと一応一言付け加える人はいるが、別に怒っている様子はなく具体的な行動は何もしていない。
これも彼ら特有の"unaware racism"無自覚の差別ってやつなのか。
仕事等で頻繁に日本に来なければならない人はとても気の毒だけど、抗議してる人たちにそういうタイプは見受けられないんだな。
でもこの制度でおそらく一番痛手を受けるのは日本の観光業界なんだから、Japanophobeな人達にしてみればざまあみろバカジャップなんじゃないの？