Tetsu Katayama served as Japan’s first socialist prime minister in 1947-1948. His moderate approach, however, proved unable to satisfy the increasingly contradictory demands of his political base and the US occupiers.
The Supreme Court ruled that a law requiring surgery to remove a person’s reproductive capabilities to register a gender change was unconstitutional, but it upheld a requirement, at least temporarily, for transgender people to undergo surgery that alters the physical appearance of genitals.
Exclusionary businesses have a long history in Japan, and people seem to be forgetting it. Here’s a reminder from somebody who has studied them more than anybody.
It’s the next stage of evolution in Japan’s variant of racial discrimination: a naturalized Japanese citizen was last year denied membership at a golf course—explicitly for being a former foreigner.
Many commentators portrayed Article 8 of the new Part Time and Fixed Term Employment Act as the point at which Japan finally recognized the principle of same work-same pay for regular and irregular workers. But one word threatens to undo its promise–“unreasonable.”
Police have opened investigations into dolphin and whale meat being sold in Wakayama Prefecture after accepting a criminal complaint regarding illegal levels of dangerous toxins.
The Supreme Court ruled in three separate cases that Japan Post illegally discriminated against its contingent employees in comparison with its regular staff. At first glance, this seems a victory for workers that will raise all boats, but a closer look suggests it’s part of a design to sink all boats.
Even after political leadership has finally shed Shinzo Abe, the Japanese government has found new ways to discriminate against foreign residents of Japan.
Sometime during your life in Japan, you will probably feel a chilling attitude in Japan’s bureaucracy: as a foreign resident, you don’t really matter. To Japan’s policymakers, you’re at best an existence to be tolerated, at worst an unpredictable element that needs constant policing.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the last half of July 2020.
