Fingerprinting foreigners


OK, I don't travel much outside of Japan these days. Too expensive, and too far, and I'm trying to cut back on CO2 emmissions. HRRM! (Climbs up on soapbox, clears throat for today's rant:) I remember having to put my thumb to the ink pad when I first applied for the Alien Registration Card that all foreigners in Japan are required to carry at all times. Seven years ago, that law was changed, and my sparkling new card, which has a lot of other fancy features, is no longer blessed with my unique imprint.

Should we all be subjected to fingerprinting as we enter Japan? Well, if Aliens need to do it, why not also Japanese citizens. The "terror law" that Japan has imposed would not have stopped Japanese citizens belonging to Aum Shinrikyo from coming up with the Tokyo Subway gas attack 12 years ago. Fingerprinting would not have stopped the Japanese citizens joining the infamous Japanese Red Army from killing innocent victims in Israel and elsewhere in the 1970s. Japanese people didn't take much responsibility for these autrocities; most people - and lawmakers - here probably have "forgotten".

So what is behind all this nonsense?

I really do not know.

Join Amnesty International or its English-speaking branch in Tokyo.

(U.S. Visit, the system that Japan appears to have copied, currently holds a repository of over 50 million persons, primarily in the form of two-finger records...)

(Photo from The Mainichi: Protesters 'flip the bird' at Justice Ministry over forced fingerprinting)

Comments

Pandabonium said…
Paranoia sets in...they are looking for ME!

This is no doubt a way for Japan to help the US track people that the US wants to find.

Finger printing is a poor way to identify people and is subject to a lot of abuse by "experts".

Perhaps just another layer of control and intimidation for us peasants by the people who run the world.
3:14 pm, November 21, 2007
vegetablej said…
Thanks, Martin for the post and for the links. There are some good materials to download for teaching about human rights at the Tokyo group's website. Tomorrow I am going to do the "workshop" on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with my adult students. I feel it's quite urgently needed.
6:52 pm, November 21, 2007
Martin J Frid said…
Thanks for your comments.

Just today, there is news from the UK - someone "lost" data on 50 million people, that was stored on two (2!) computer discs. Paranoid? Almost.

Good luck with the human rights class, that is an inspiration.
9:16 pm, November 21, 2007
Don Snabulus said…
If I decide to become evil, I will make sure I wear gloves. So much for that security system.
3:26 pm, November 25, 2007
zichi said…
I'm a Permanent Resident of Japan, from the UK and have lived here since 1994. Japan has never been attacked by foreign terrorists and if such attack is likely it will happen overseas. Japan has been attacked by home grown terrorists. The introduction of fingerprinting is against the Japanese Constitution which affords protection to all peoples who are in Japan and not just Japanese nationals.
11:36 am, December 14, 2007
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