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Police Surveillance of Muslims and Human Rights in Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Asia-Pacific Journal Feature
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In societies governed by the rule of law, what limitations should apply to police surveillance? What protections should be accorded to religious and ethnic minorities who may be subject to police profiling? Does police profiling of members of minority groups unfairly discriminate against them or violate fundamental rights such as the right to privacy or to practice religion? Questions like these are at the heart of ongoing litigation in Tokyo concerning police surveillance of Japan's Muslim community.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 39 , September 2014 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014

References

Notes

1 “Concluding Observations” of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination (CERD Committee), August 29, 2014 (Advance Unedited Version). The CERD Committee was created pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination.

In a completely separate proceeding conducted by the UN Human Rights Committee, it issued concluding observations that included the following statement: “The Committee is concerned about reports on widespread surveillance of Muslims by law enforcement officials (arts. 2, 17 and 26)”, and the recommendation that the Japanese government should “(a) train law enforcement personnel on cultural awareness and the inadmissibility of racial profiling, including the widespread surveillance of Muslims by law enforcement officials, and (b) Ensure that affected persons have access to effective remedies in cases of abuse.” United Nations Human Rights Committee, “Concluding observations on the sixth periodic report of Japan” (Advance Unedited Version). The United Nations Human Rights Committee was created pursuant to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.

2 Tokyo District Court Decision, January 15, 2014. In this article, all English expressions are derived from the translation in the UN submission by the attorneys' team.

3 The website of the “Attorney Team for Victims of Illegal Investigation Against Muslims” is located at http://k-bengodan.jugem.jp

4 The full submission is available on the website of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and also check Extensive and Systematic Surveillance and Profiling of Muslims: Japan's Violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

5 For a 2010 report on the leak, see David McNeill, “Muslims in shock over police ‘terror’ leak – Japan residents named in documents want explanation — and apology — from Tokyo police force,” The Japan Times, November 9, 2010.

6 An English translation of Japan's Constitution is available. Article 13 does not expressly mention a “right to privacy,” but many of Japan's constitutional scholars interpret the broad language of Article 13 to encompass such a right.

7 “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism (Mr. Martin Scheinin).”

8 See A/HRC/4/26, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism (Mr. Martin Scheinin).”

9 The Scheinin report notes that the German profiling program (the so-called “Rasterfahndung programme”), failed to identify any significant suspects.