2008-06-29
Last night (June 27), three Hong Kong citizen journalists who have
been registered with the Citizens’ Media Center (Sapporo) were
detained by Immigration, and were on the verge of being deported.
This morning, Susan George (ATTAC France) was stopped and questioned
at the airport. Ms George is 74 years old, and her detention
demonstrates a lack of humanity on the part of authorities.
REPORTS OF DETENTIONS UPON ENTRY AT TOKYO IMMIGRATION
Recently, as the eve of the G8 Summit approaches, we are seeing
incident after incident of non-Japanese being stopped at airports.
NJ who are coming here for G8 Summit activities (including reportage
and convocations), without connections to governments or major press
outlets, are apparently being subjected to background searches.
24-hour detentions are not unusual.
Last night (June 27), three Hong Kong citizen journalists who have
been registered with the Citizens’ Media Center (Sapporo) were
detained by Immigration, and were on the verge of being deported.
This morning, Susan George (ATTAC France) was stopped and questioned
at the airport. Ms George is 74 years old, and her detention
demonstrates a lack of humanity on the part of authorities.
Similar measures on the part of Immigration are forecast to continue
in this vein.
Japan, as host to this Summit, is a developed country with a
democracy. It is shameful for a member of the international community
to treat visitors from other countries in this fashion.
And detaining, even refusing entry to, international journalists and
media coming in for the Summit is a suppression of freedom of
expression.
This is developing into a large international issue, with constraints
being placed upon the length of stay for journalists belonging to
international journalistic associations.
Journalists and international media people often have to cover
unforeseen events, and cannot always tell Immigration in advance their
exact itinerary or schedule. This is normal. However, people having
schedules with free days are apparently being turned away at the
border.
Journalists who are not members of the major media are also coming to
Japan, covering the Summit from the point of view of the general
public. Suppressing those people’s activities is depriving the
public of a chance to have their voices heard, and only promotes
overemphasis on the reports from the powers that be.
We wish to draw more attention to this problem so that more visitors
can come overseas and enter Japan more smoothly. We would like your
help. Anything you can do would be welcome.
Further, here is the phone number for Narita Immigration:
0476-32-6774
Also, the G8 Media Network will be having a press conference on
Monday, June 30, with the detained media figures and Dietmembers in
attendance. More details here as they become available.
(japanese edition: g8medianetwork.org/ja/node/183,
chinese edition: inmediahk.net/node/1000328)
translated by Arudou Debit