3rd Quarterly, 2006 No.141
Large Amount of Buraku List Data Distributed on the Internet
A large amount of data containing information on 430 Buraku areas in 37 prefectures was recently discovered on an Internet site called 2 Channel. While some of the information was incorrect, the data did include correct information on the locations of many Buraku areas around the country. The information was removed from the site shortly after it was discovered. The Human Rights Protection Bureau of the Ministry of Justice immediately launched an investigation fearing that the information may cause incidents of discrimination. According to the Bureau and Osaka City, a local government employee in Mie Prefecture discovered a compressed file containing Buraku lists on the 2 Channel bulletin board on October 21, 2006. The employee reported the finding to the National Human Rights Dowa Administration Promotion Council. When the Council checked the site on 25th, the file had already been removed.
To date, ten different Buraku list versions have been found in printed form. At the end of September 2006, the BLL located two of the ten versions on floppy disks. The data on the Channel 2 site is reported to differ from that contained in previously discovered lists. A BLL official commented, “The file contained information about non-Buraku areas. It may have been created for malicious purposes by a person using the existing lists.”