Kyōgaku no Gaijin Hanzai Ura File - Gaijin Hanzai Hakusho 2007

Infobox Magazine
title = Foreigner Crime White Paper 2007


image_caption = The cover of "Gaijin Hanzai Hakusho"
image_size = 200px
company = Eichi Publishing Inc.
paid_circulation =
unpaid_circulation =
total_circulation =
circulation_year =
language = Japanese
category = Crime, Foreign Crime
frequency = 1 Issue
editor = Shigeki Saka
issn =
firstdate = January 31 2007
country = Japan
website = nihongo|"Kyōgaku no Gaijin Hanzai Ura File - Gaijin Hanzai Hakusho 2007"|驚愕の外人犯罪裏ファイル―外人犯罪白書2007 meaning "Shocking Secret Foreigner Crime File - Foreigner Crime White Paper 2007", was a mook (nihongo|ムック|"mukku" a Japanese word for a cross between a magazine and a book) published in Japanese on January 31, 2007 by Eichi Publishing Inc.^ja. The mook was distributed in convenience stores and online at Rakuten Books and Amazon.com. The cover price was 690 yen.

Content

The mook contained images and descriptions of what it says are crimes committed in Japan by non-Japanese, including graphs breaking down crimes by nationality. The mook's cover, in red and black, shows caricatured images of foreigners grinning maniacally with glowing red eyes under its banner headline. No advertising content was included in the mook.

The mook included a caption describing a black man as a "nigga", an article entitled "Chase the Iranian!", and calls Tokyo a "city torn apart by evil foreigners." One cartoon re-enacts a murder on a pig farm in Chiba, east of Tokyo, allegedly by a Chinese man who overstayed his visa.cite web
url=http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aYcwt1Z7zy_E&refer=japan
title= Japan Store Withdraws `Foreigner Crime File' Magazine
accessdate= 2007-02-18
publisher= Bloomberg.com
date= 7 February, 2007 ]

Response

The mook was criticized for being racist by various Japan commentators including Debito Arudou. Arudou, a naturalized Japanese citizen and author of "Japanese Only," posted a bilingual letter for readers to take to FamilyMart stores protesting against "discriminatory statements and images about non-Japanese residents of Japan." [cite web
url=http://www.debito.org/index.php/?p=192
title= GAIJIN HANZAI FILE” pubs spectre of evil foreign crime
accessdate= 2007-02-18
publisher= debito.org
date= 1 February, 2007 ] Richard-Lloyd Parry, Asia editor of "The Times" also criticised the mook. [cite web
url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1336740.ece
title= Tiny reasons for a furious storm
accessdate= 2007-02-18
publisher= "The Times"
date= 6 February, 2007 ] Citing the publication's "inappropriate racial expressions" FamilyMart decided to stop distributing the mook on February 5.

The editor of the mook, Shigeki Saka, defended his decision to publish in an editorial in "Metropolis" [cite web
url=http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/673/lastword.asp
title= Why I did it
accessdate= 2007-02-18
publisher= "Metropolis".
date= 16 February, 2007 ] . Saka stated that, "there are no lies, distortions or racist sentiments expressed in Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu. All the statistics about rising crime rates are accurate, and all the photographs show incidents that actually occurred." His stated purpose was to create an informed dialogue on the "taboo" topic of foreigner crime.

ee also

*Manga Kenkanryu
*Japanese nationalism

References