Ethnic profiling by police is a “daily phenomenon” in Japan, a Japanese man of foreign origin who is among a group of three plaintiffs suing the government over the matter said on Monday.
In the lawsuit, the first of its kind in the country, the three men accuse police of repeatedly questioning them about their ethnicity or appearance.
They are each demanding 3.3 million yen (20,600 euros) in damages. “There is a lot of apathy here that leads to people like me being mistreated,” Maurice S., an African American in his 40s who asked to remain anonymous, told reporters.
“It is an everyday phenomenon.” “We must act to prevent this from happening to future generations,” he added.
Despite increasing immigration, foreign-born residents make up just 2.3% of Japan's population, one of the lowest proportions in the OECD.
Maurice, whose family members are Japanese, says he was interrogated by police 16 to 17 times in the decade he spent in Japan.
Japan's National Police Agency (NPA) did not immediately comment on the matter.
Another plaintiff, Matthew, a 50-year-old Pacific resident and permanent resident of Japan, was questioned hundreds of times, according to his lawyers.
Matthew explained that these experiences caused him to become socially isolated. “Every time I finish work, I hide at home… because I don't want to have another encounter with the police,” he told the Tokyo District Court.
The third complainant, who was born in Pakistan and has been a Japanese citizen since the age of 13, said he was interrogated more than a dozen times, including once outside his home.
Lawsuits for excessive interrogations have been filed against police before, but this is the first complaint of racial profiling during interrogations, lawyers for the three men said.
In 2021, the NPA discovered “six cases of inappropriate interrogation,” although “police officers had no intention to discriminate on the basis of race or nationality,” a senior agency official told Parliament in 2022.
The NPA continued to sensitize its agents on respect for human rights, the official said at the time.