|
外国籍住民への差別を助長し、
密告社会を生む入国管理局ホームページでの情報受付を許さない
法務省入国管理局は2004年2月16日より開始した同局ホームページで「不法滞在等の外国人情報」をメールで受け付けはじめました。インターネットを通じ、入管法違反者の情報を一般市民から募ろうというものです。いわば、密告の奨励です。しかし、このなりふり構わぬ情報収集のやり方は反民主主義的で野蛮極まりない行為といえます。
こうした入国管理局の行いが日本社会の外国籍住民に対する差別・蔑視、さらには民族排外主義をいたずらに煽ることになるのは必至です。1999年9月以降、在留特別許可を求めて入国管理局へ集団自主出頭した人々が突破口となり、現在は「不法滞在者」であっても、長年にわたり日本に居住し、日本国内で生活基盤が形成されたことをもって在留特別許可を認められる人々が次々と出てきています。
つまり、「不法滞在」であっても日本社会に定住し入国管理局自身が在留資格を認めざるを得ない真面目で善良な人々が多く存在しているということです。こうした事実を無視し、あたかも「違反者であると思われる」外国籍住民をすべて犯罪者のごとくに描き出し、その情報を市民に求めるという入国管理局の姿勢は、人権無視もはなはだしいものがあります。実際、いかに入国管理局が人権というものを軽んじているかについては、在留特別許可を求めて行政訴訟をおこし、一審で退去強制令書発布処分取消しの判決をかちとったイラン人家族の控訴審で、東京地裁において原告の証人となった人の過去を秘密裏に調べあげ、その人間の前科前歴を裁判所に提出するという信じられないことを行いました。
今回の入国管理局による密告奨励は、日本も１９９５年１２月１５日から加入している『あらゆる形態の人種差別の撤廃に関する国際条約』で厳しく指弾されている「人種差別の扇動、並びにいかなる人種又は皮膚の色、若しくは民族的出身を異にする集団に対するあらゆる暴力行為又はこれらの行為の扇動」に該当する可能性があります。メールによる密告の奨励は、同条約に関し外務省が宣言している「差別の撤廃については、法制度面のみならず、意識面、実態面においても普段の努力によって向上させることが大変重要です」なる文言と全く齟齬をきたしている差別的制度であり決して許されるものではありません。
同時に今回の情報受付は市民社会の中に相互監視、密告を押し付けるものであり、極めて危険なものであると考えます。権力が市民をお互いに監視させ、隣人の情報を売るように迫る………。あたかも隣組制度によりがんじがらめにされた戦時中の日本社会を思い起こさせます。これほど恐ろしい社会はありません。市民同士が疑心暗鬼となり不信感が充満する暗黒社会を私たちは絶対に拒否します。
今、私たちに必要なのは外国籍住民との相互理解を基礎におく多文化共生社会の実現です。その中で「不法滞在等」の問題を人道的に解決する道を模索すべきでしょう。今回の「密告奨励キャンペーン」はこれに全く逆行するものであり、かかる反人道的、排外的制度の速やかなる撤廃を強くもとめるものです。
２００４年２月２５日
ASIAN PEOPLE'S FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY
(APFS)
We Will Not Tolerate
The Immigration Bureau's Orwellian Tactics Of Accepting Internet Tip-Offs
On Foreign Residents!
On February 16th, 2004, the Immigration Bureau under
the Ministry of Justice began accepting "information on illegal and
other foreigners" through their website homepage. By using the internet,
they appear to be making efforts to involve all citizens in the process
of gaining information on violators of immigration law. However, this
brash manner of "doing their jobs" is both undemocratic and
barbaric.
This action by the Immigration Bureau will only inevitably fuel disdain
and prejudice within Japanese society against foreign citizen, as well
as ethno-centric anti-foreignism. From September 9th, 1999, persons who
have collectively presented themselves to the Immigration Bureau in order
to request Special Residence Permission have been making a breakthrough.
Currently, despite their once-"illegal" status, foreign residents
who have lived in Japan over an extended amount of time and securely established
their lives here are successively being granted legal permission to stay.
In other words, even where they may be "illegal," foreign citizens
who have made their place as earnest and good members of Japanese society
exist in such great numbers that even the Immigration Bureau itself has
no recourse but to grant them legal recognition of their stay. By ignoring
this fact and openly painting a picture of foreign citizens who "appear
to be illegal" as criminals while asking the public to provide tips,
the Immigration Bureau is showing flagrant and willful disregard for human
rights. In fact in order to see just how little the Immigration Department
thinks of human rights, one only needs to look at the case of an Iranian
family here in Japan that filed a district court appeal to their forced
repatriation as demanded by the Bureau. And they won. However, the as
the government filed an appeal to their victory, the Bureau went into
the past records of people who had taken oath as guarantors for the family
in an unbelievable attempt to discredit the family's legalization through
individual attacks.
The Bureau's promotion of the public's involvement is likely to be an
incendiary act "of racial discrimination or of divisionary aggressive
tactics targeting a group because of their race or skin color" as
expressed in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Racial Discrimination that Japan became member to on December 15, 1995.
This act of requesting the public's involvement through the internet also
differs greatly from the Ministry of Justice's statement regarding the
same International Convention that decrees, "It is of absolutely
necessary that we make continual efforts to eliminate racial discrimination
not only through legal systems but also through changes in consciousness
and real conditions." This established systematic means of gaining
information is discriminatory and not to be tolerated.
At the same time, this means of gaining information is extremely dangerous
as an example of official pressure on the public to monitor and file confidential
reports on each other. What comes to mind when we think of authority insisting
that people watch the actions of their neighbors and surrender "suspicious"
information? It is not so unlike the neighborhood associations Japanese
citizens were bound to during the Second World War. There is nothing more
fearful than the possibility of reliving that. We refuse to take part
in any darkened social reality inundated with mistrust and suspicious
paranoia
What we need now is to make a multi-cultural society based on a mutual
understanding with residents of foreign citizenry a reality. As part of
that, it is necessary for us to solve issues involving "illegal"
immigrants in a humane and sensible manner. This advertising campaign
to gain tips is absolutely retrograde and we demand that these inhumane
and exclusionary tactics be eliminated immediately.
February 25, 2004
ASIAN PEOPLE'S FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY
(APFS)
|
