Japan Press Weekly

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2015 February 18 - 24 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Both seat and residential segregation deserve condemnation

Akahata “Current” column

A report about an incident related to racial discrimination again attracted public attention. It occurred at Metro station in Paris. A group of passengers in a train car prevented a black man from boarding it.

Foreign news agencies reported that they were Chelsea Football Club fans, a member of the English Premier League. Video footage of the incident taken by a passerby shows the group shouting, “We are racists!”

The video image depicting the racist incident in full public view gave a shock to people in not only European countries but also throughout the world. Chelsea F.C. issued a statement and condemned the action, saying, “Such behaviour is abhorrent and has no place in football or society.”

Just recently, in Japan, a discriminatory statement caused controversy. Author Sono Ayako praised South Africa’s apartheid system of residential segregation in her column in a major daily, Sankei Shimbun. She wrote without hesitation, “It would be better to have residential areas divided according to race.”

Sono insisted that she did not mean to approve of apartheid. However, it is obvious that residential areas divided by race as she wrote are equal to that notorious system. It is a matter of course that people inside and outside Japan severely criticized Sono and Sankei Shimbun for advocating the introduction of a system that has been denounced as a crime against humanity by the international community.