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Op-Ed
Crime of Conscience in a Court of Corruption
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Stott
By David Adam Stott
Two Japanese environmental activists have received one-year jail terms, suspended for three years, for the theft of a 23 kilogram box of whale meat. The Aomori district court in northern Japan convicted the two men, Junichi Sato, 33, and Toru Suzuki, 43, of theft and trespassing in a widely-anticipated verdict.
Prior to the verdict, several Japanese embassies worldwide witnessed demonstrations against the prosecution.
Sympathetic media from around the globe have been closely watching the outcome of the case which highlights the continuing protection of nationalist agendas in Japan at the expense of civil liberties.
On the contrary, the Japanese media have largely taken a critical stance towards the two men, due in part to their membership of Greenpeace, which has consistently criticized Japan's scientific whaling program.
If nothing else, this case once again underlines the engrained institutional lack of humanity in Japan towards those who dare take a moral stand on issues which contradict government policy. Other such cases in recent years include the hounding of anti-Iraq war activists and the criticism of Japanese volunteers kidnapped in Iraq.
Sato and Suzuki admitted taking the meat after a whistleblower had provided them details about smuggled whale meat being sold by crewmen on the black market.
However, they plead not guilty to both charges since they did not enter the distribution depot surreptitiously, nor keep the meat for themselves. They maintain that they intercepted the meat to unmask official corruption, and immediately handed the meat over to public prosecutors who opened a corruption investigation.
What happened next remains unclear, but it raises concerns that right-wing elements in the Japanese establishment intervened in the workings of the justice system.
Instead of pursuing the corruption allegations, prosecutors dropped their investigation and went after the activists instead. Given that Sato and Suzuki have now been convicted, the question now remains: Will prosecutors now pursue the original case of alleged corruption in its whaling industry?
They have given no indication that they will do so.
Indeed, public prosecutors actually requested an eighteen-month prison sentence for the two men.
Thus, whilst a suspended sentence seems like valediction of sorts, this type of sentence is very common in Japan for minor crimes and first time offenses. Sato and Suzuki are now saddled with a criminal record, which usually results in extreme difficulties in securing decent employment.
The Mainichi Shinbun reported that presiding judge, Kenji Ogawa, concluded that "the investigative activities went beyond acceptable levels, even if they were in the name of the public interest."
Sato and Suzuki can count themselves fortunate to be sentenced by a somewhat sympathetic judge given that trials by jury are still very rare in Japan. Countless others are not so lucky, as they run the gauntlet of an opaque justice system which still falls short of many international standards.
David Adam Stott works for The University of Kitakyushu in southern Japan. He is presently a visiting researcher at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
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