Contact Center Solutions Industry News

[April 05, 2006]

Human rights groups oppose bill for fingerprinting foreigners+

(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, April 5_(Kyodo) _ Human rights groups, lawmakers and lawyers gathered Wednesday in Tokyo pledging a solid alliance in a fight to scrap a bill that enables the Japanese government to fingerprint foreigners as part of counterterrorism measures.

Amnesty International Japan, which co-hosted the gathering with Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, criticized the House of Representatives for passing the bill on March 30 without thorough review and discussions.

The government-proposed bill, now at the House of Councillors, would allow immigration authorities to collect personal information including fingerprints and facial photographs on foreigners entering Japan.

The groups said the government plans to keep the data in a database to share with other authorities to be used for criminal investigations.

"The data will also be provided to foreign immigration authorities. Anything goes (under the bill)...We don't know how it will be used," said Mizuho Fukushima, leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party.

About 60 people, including lower house member Nobuto Hosaka of the SDP and upper house member Shokichi Kina of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, gathered at a rally in a Diet building.

Some members of Japan Federation of Bar Associations who joined the event voiced their opposition to the bill, saying it allows the government to forcibly remove foreigners suspected to be terrorists.

"Are terrorists always foreigners? No one has answered my question so far. It seems that there is a fundamental idea that it is OK to introduce the system because it is just for foreigners," said Chang Hang Nyeon, a Korean lawyer in Japan.

The groups, however, stressed that though the law targets foreigners for now, it could also be expanded to include Japanese nationals in the end.

The bill on amending the Immigration Law was on the table for two weeks before passing the lower house, and the government hopes it will become law by the time the current Diet session ends on June 18. "We will do anything to scrap this bill by then," said Fukushima.

The bill, aimed at preventing the entrance of terrorists into Japan by using other people's identities, requires foreigners age 16 and above to provide digital identification data to the immigration authorities.

Foreign nationals with special permanent resident status, mainly Koreans, and guests visiting Japan on diplomatic or official purposes and those invited by the state are excluded from fingerprinting.

It also allows any foreign nationals the Justice Minister recognizes as terrorists to be removed from Japan and requires aircrafts and ships entering Japan to provide a list of people on board.

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