| Diene was addressing a press conference in Tokyo, Monday.
He however said racism was not an official policy in Japan though it was widely practiced against specific races through various ways including the utterances of Japanese government leaders.
Addressing a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, Doudou Diene, said, after first expressing its displeasure at the November 2006 United Nations draft report on racism in Japan, Tokyo had facilitated his return to the country in an apparent acknowledgement of the existence of the problem.
He said he was summoned by the Japanese foreign ministry of Japan to object to his report saying Diene had overstepped his mandate which shouldn't have included the historical context of racism in Japan.
But their calling him back, he said, marked a change of heart, and indicated that Japan was willing to do something about the problem.
Japan has to draft leislation which criminalises the practice of racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination in line with the international community.
However freelance Japanese journalist Fukuyo Nishisato said whether that meant a law against discrimination would be enacted was another story.
| Japan’s problem of racism against people of other races is embedded in the utterances of its leaders such as Tokyo governor, Shintaro Ishihara, police actions and some vigilante groups.
During the press conference held at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, a journalist from India asked whether such a country as Japan which practiced discrimination so avidly should be allowed to become a member of the United Nations Security Council as Japan aspired to.
However, Doudou Diene said if the issue of racism were used to determine Security Council membership, then the whole Security Council as it is would have to dissolve as racism existed in all the developed countries.
Diene said racism in Japan existed in society at the level of intercultural relations and communication and wasn’t a legally enforced doctrine.
The difference would be whether the system of racism was institutionalized as during the apartheid era of South Africa.
Diene said racist political parties all over Europe, including France, Germany, Denmark were gaining control of important levers of power in those countries.
Freelance journalist Fuyuko Nishisato (above) expressed scepticism that Japan would be pressurised enough by the United Nations into enacting an anti-discrimination law |
