Since 2008, I have always devoted my end-year columns to counting down the Top Ten human rights issues as they pertain to Non-Japanese residents of Japan. This year I’m moving this feature to the Shingetsu News Agency.
Japan’s decision to exclude most foreigners, including many foreign residents, from entering or reentering the national borders during the Covid pandemic has had a human and reputational cost which the mainstream media has tended to either ignore or to downplay.
On November 16, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced the disciplinary dismissal of a 28-year-old school nurse for moonlighting as a sex worker for more than a year.
Less than two weeks after the Shingetsu News Agency issued its SNA Covid Variant Handbook, the World Health Organization finally stepped up to plate and belatedly offered its own new nomenclature.
The government announced that it widened the door to foreign nationals’ entry to Japan starting from November 8 for short-term business travelers, foreign students, and technical interns, but byzantine regulations continue to signal that the welcome mat for foreigners is not yet out, and students in particular are feeling the brunt.
Despite the drastic decrease of new Covid cases in recent weeks and more than two-thirds of the population having become fully vaccinated, the Japanese government has still given no explanation why it is continuing to refuse to let international students and some foreign workers back into the country.
Surprise! Debito Arudou admires something about Japan! It’s time for a little “gaman” during the pandemic era.
Amidst political chaos, military violence, and a lethal pandemic, some Myanmarese are lining up in the thousands to go out of their homes, onto the streets, and to risk their lives.
The Venezuelan refugee crisis has become the largest exodus ever witnessed in Latin American history, triggered by a series of intertwined political, economic, human rights, health, and humanitarian struggles.
Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz is being revered as the Philippines’ first Olympic gold medalist, but it has only been two years since she found her name “red-tagged,” or blacklisted, by the Duterte regime.
