“Liberty of Speech” vs “Freedom of Speech”
We would like to write what we think about freedom of speech.
Of course, there may be many opinions, but we hope you will read this as one of many opinions.
Freedom of speech may exist in theory.
However, in reality, complete freedom of speech is not allowed. There is a consideration for speech. The consideration is to be sued for defamation, insults, blackmail, threats, etc. In addition, you may lose the trust from many people. Even though it is freedom of speech, it does not allow to threaten or hurt people unilaterally, in spite of the presence or absence of grounds.
We feel our perception of “Freedom of Speech” has changed after one law was enacted.
As you may know, that is “Hate Speech Elimination Law”, officially called “Act on the Promotion of Efforts to Eliminate Unfair Discriminatory Speech and Behavior against Persons with Countries of Origin other than Japan”.
As you may understand from the official name, the law does not apply equally to all people.
If this law applied equally to all people, we have no objections, but hate speech against Japanese people is not applied by this law. In other words, it is treated as freedom of speech for foreigners to make hate speech against Japanese people.
When enacting such a law, it is important to consider not only Japanese nationals but also residents of Japan in the scope of application of the law.
Act on the Promotion of Efforts to Eliminate Unfair Discriminatory Speech and Behavior against Persons with Countries of Origin other than Japan : Preamble
SOURCE: Japan Law Translation(2022/10/22)
In recent years in Japan, unfair discriminatory speech and behavior has been used to incite the exclusion of persons with countries of origin other than Japan, or their descendants, who are legally residing in Japan, from local communities, on the grounds that they are from countries or regions outside of Japan. This has caused great suffering to persons of the origin or their descendants and serious rifts in the local communities.
Obviously, the unfair discriminatory speech and behavior should never have been tolerated, and it is not appropriate for Japan to overlook this situation in light of its position in the international community.
It is therefore declared that the unfair discriminatory speech and behavior is unacceptable, and this Act is established to promote efforts to eliminate the unfair discriminatory speech and behavior by informing the citizens and obtaining their understanding and cooperation through further human rights education and awareness- raising, etc.
https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/4081
There are discrimination issues against Korean residents in Japan that we have seen for a long time, and in recent years we have heard about this issue with displaced people from Ukraine. We probably have many friends of Korean residents in Japan. The behavior of some Japanese is very sad issue.
They support Japanese society together with the Japanese. In other words, we need to understand that this issue is a shameful behavior that excludes these people from the social structure.
As we mentioned before, the law should be equal in the scope of application to the people, but we should to think carefully and understand the background of enactment of this law.
Still, we think there is a problem with this law. The reason is that the Japanese government does not take any actions against the state-sponsored anti- Japanese policies by South Korea.
The root cause of this problem is probably due to the negligence of the government and Diet members. I feel that enacting this type of law while the government and Diet members ignore the root cause of the problem is like arbitration of a fight that is restraining the hands and feet of only the friend and letting the foe beat them up unilaterally.
- Are there clear criteria for hate speech?
The criteria here are the criteria for identifying a subject as guilty of hate speech.
Some may disagree, but we think it necessary to clearly indicate to the public what kind of things can be hate speech. We understand that there may be an objection that the criteria may depend on the situation and that it is not possible to indicate a clear criteria.
We think people who accept that “the criteria may depend on the situation” have accepted that some people will be punished for saying the same thing and others will not.
Is there no problem that there is the law that punishes the people with such ambiguous criteria?
Recently, we sometimes see news reports that “it has been identified as hate speech.” Since there are no clear criteria for identifying hate speech, it should be clear explained who has identified a subject guilty of violated this law and based on what criteria.
If it cannot be clear explained, It would not be an exaggeration to say that the government is suppressing speech.
- Are government and Diet members addressing the root causes?
As we mentioned above, it is true that there is sad discrimination issues in Japan.
Another cause is the dislike that comes from South Korea’s continuous territorial aggression and anti-Japanese policies and actions.
There are a certain number of people who say on TV program and SNS that “Japan should put up with it forever and continue to apologize forever.
In other words, this statement has said, ‘We must never forgive a person or country that has made mistakes forever. (Huh? It is the same as what some countries are doing to Japan.)
If Diet members think we enacted great law without addressing the root cause, it would be nothing more than state-sponsored discrimination against the Japanese or propaganda.
Freedom is a very difficult word. Freedom without any restrictions is just a lawless area.
Freedom of speech should be interpreted as freedom under the law.
“Liberty of Speech” might be a better expression
We would also like the government and Diet members to understand that not taking decisive actions against countries that continue to implement anti-Japanese policies, actions, and words, including territorial issues, is only encouraging discrimination against Japan and the Japanese people by themselves.
If the government and Diet members ignore the causes of the problem, even if it enacts relevant laws, they will not spread to the people.
Reference: MINISTRY OF DEFENSE(2022/10/22)
https://www.mod.go.jp/en/d_act/radar/index.html
Thanks.
2022/10/23