Mr. Kazuo Ishikawa, of Buraku origin, was sentenced to life imprisonment after being arrested and falsely charged forty years ago. He has continued to fight with support from the Buraku liberation movement for the retrial of his case. Though he was released on parole in 1994, he will remain in invisible handcuffs until he is declared not guilty.

Mr. Ishikawa attended the National Convention of the Buraku Liberation League in May and sought support from the League. He said, "On May 1st this year, with my forced confession as a guide, I walked around the area where the Sayama incident took place forty years ago to the day. There are several parts of the confession that, while not impossible, lack credibility. For instance, it reads that the suspect consumed two bottles of milk and an ice cream in seven minutes as well as stealing a rope from a residence in broad daylight." Mr. Ishikawa also said that if his appeal to the Supreme Court is not taken up, he must re-start litigation from the district court. He thinks that, if this becomes the case, then it will take at least ten years to reach the stage where he currently stands. He will be seventy-three years old by then. Mr. Ishikawa asked the audience to support him by appealing the injustice of the decision by Judge Takahashi.

The Sayama Incident

The incident is named after Sayama city, Saitama Prefecure, where it took place. On May 1st, 1963, Ms. Yoshie Nakata, aged 16, went missing on her way home from school. Later that night, a ransom note was delivered to her house. The police, however, failed to arrest a possible suspect. In order to cover up their mistake, the police went into a Buraku community where Mr. Ishikawa lived on May 23 and arrested him on a different charge. While in custody, the police forced him to make a false confession by threatening him in exchange for a number of unfulfilled promises.

For further information about the Sayama Incident, please refer to Buraku Liberation News No. 122.

"Tarachine" (mother), a documentary film about the Sayama Incident, hit theaters in Tokyo in June and Osaka in July 2003. The film was produced by three young men who learned filmmaking from Director Kazuo Hara. They made the documentary as an assignment to demonstrate what they had learned.

They chose the Sayama Case for their theme after one of the filmmakers read a flyer that was being distributed at a train station to seek public support for the retrial of the case. Later that year, they visited Kazuo Ishikawa and his wife, Sachiko, in Saitama Prefecture to ask for their consent to film them. That was in 2001. It took nine months to complete their work.

Mr. and Mrs. Ishikawa said that they were deeply moved by the three young men, who passionately told the story of the Sayama Incident from the perspective of the humanity of Mr. Ishikawa. The documentary focuses on the theme of "family". Talks by Kazuo and Sachiko were organized in both Tokyo and Osaka along with the film showings.