4th Quarterly, 2006 No.142
Internet Site Reveals Locations of Buraku Districts
In February, an Internet site was discovered that contained detailed information about Buraku district locations in Aichi, Mie and Gifu prefectures. The site also contained photos, movies and maps of the districts. On March 14, BLL Aichi filed a criminal complaint for defamation against the site with the Aichi Prefectural Police Department, which officially accepted the complaint.
The front page of the site contained statements seemingly opposed to discrimination against Buraku, but other pages within the site revealed it to be highly discriminatory. The dissemination of detailed information indicating the exact locations Buraku districts in particular can never be condoned as the use of such information in conducting personal background investigations in marriage and employment, and during real-estate transactions, can cause serious damage in the form of discrimination against Buraku.
The Nagoya Regional Legal Affairs Bureau deleted the site in February. However, is almost impossible to track and recover information once it has been uploaded and distributed over the Internet. The person who created the website has not yet been identified. No Japanese law explicitly bans and punishes discriminatory acts or behavior. There is an urgent need for such a law to identify those responsible as well as to develop legal systems to adequately deal with such incidents. This is evidenced by the fact that, after the closure of the website, an announcement was made on a bulletin board that the website may be reopened.
The website contained the equivalent of 320 printed pages of information. The background of the front page was a photo of a Buraku district in Nagoya city, displayed under its real name. The foreground was decorated with the BLL symbol of the martyr’s crown of thorns, a “BKD” logo (probably standing for the Japanese name for the BLL, the Buraku Kaiho Domei) on the right, and an animation of a woman wearing clothing displaying the BKD logo and speaking against discrimination on the left.
The page also contained hit counter and links labeled “read more,” “profile,” “B-map” (B standing for Buraku), and “BBS” (bulletin board). The links all led to pages containing much discriminatory information. In particular, the B-map pages contained detailed maps with marks indicating the precise locations of Buraku districts and photos taken within those districts. One of the B-map pages contained a movie taken in the indicated Buraku district. These pages also contained many heavily discriminatory messages.
The criminal complaint filed by BLL Aichi was made on the grounds of defamation under Article 230-1 of the Criminal Code. The page containing information about the Buraku district located in “J” town displayed photos and names of several business firms operating in the district. Specifically, it falsely stated that if a company named “A” in the district caught a person that he/she would never be released alive. The same page also stated that the district was “the most dreadful town” and contained a “warning” which read, “It is very dangerous for common people to enter a Dowa district. Buraku people harbor negative feelings and are antagonistic against common people. You are taking your life into your own hands if you enter a Buraku district.”
Calling for the Full Ratification of CERD
It is extremely difficult to completely recover information once it has been distributed on the Internet. It was confirmed that the website in question was accessed by 15,000 visitors. Also, some of the information contained in the website was discovered on another site after the original website was deleted. Unlike the hard-copy “Buraku Lists” which once commanded high prices, such websites are accessible by anybody at no cost.
They can be easily and quickly browsed on both mobile-phones and computers. In fact, the number of accesses to the site exceeded the number of copies of Buraku lists sold to companies and other bodies. However, these two different types of media share a number of common aspects, including the fact that discriminatory information is made available without the knowledge of those who would be victimized by its use, and that it is almost impossible to verify a causal connection between the disclosure of such information and the damage or suffering caused by its use.
At a press conference held by BLL Aichi after it brought the case to the police, Mr. Yoshida, the chairperson of BLL Aichi, stated, “The website was created with the intention of facilitating Buraku discrimination. It was as serious an incident as has ever occurred and cannot be ignored. When a discriminatory incident occurs, we usually sit down and discuss it with the people responsible. However, the Internet is different. It is very difficult to identify the perpetrators. That was the reason we filed a complaint with the police.” He also quoted a marriage discrimination case involving the nephew of the owner of company “A”, and stressed the need for the full ratification of CERD by the government of Japan.
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