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2015 September 2 - 8 [LABOR]

Resident Korean in Osaka sues a home builder for racism

September 4, 2015
A female part-timer filed a lawsuit against a home-construction enterprise she works for and its board chairman with the Osaka District Court on August 31, seeking 33 million yen in compensation for emotional distress due to ethnic discrimination.

The plaintiff is a resident South Korean woman in her 30s. She said that her company, Fuji Corporation Limited located in Kishiwada City in Osaka, has been engaging in discriminative acts based on ethnicity for about three years.

The chairman of this company distributes copies of published materials or newspaper articles containing “hate speech” against Koreans and Chinese every day to all its employees. Items for distribution include essays of the workers writing, “Korea is full of liars. This is due to their ethnicity.”

In May this year, the builder called for cooperation in promoting particular schoolbooks which justify Japan’s past war of aggression as “for self-existence and self-defense”, and the workers had to report to the chairman on what kind of activities they specifically did in that regard. For example, one report stated that the person sent letters to all municipal heads and education commissioners to request that the war-glorifying textbooks be used in their public schools.

The plaintiff said she fears being disliked and shunned by her colleagues because they often see anti-Korean, anti-Chinese documents at work. “I’m mentally worn out,” she added.

Past related articles:
> High court finds hate speech demonstrations illegal [July 9, 2014]
> Court recognizes hate speech as racism [October 8, 2013]
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