Japan: Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) Excluded Lesbian And Gay Rights From Its New Guideline Of Human Rights
10/09/2000
FORWARDED ACTION
-PLEASE SEND YOUR PROTEST LETTER AGAINST TMG!!!-
Summary of the problem
Tokyo Metropolitan Government excluded lesbian and gay rights from their final bill of its new guideline of human rights. The final bill was released in June of this year.
TMG started making the guideline in 1998 and the specialists committee of TMG released its report which decided to include LGBT rights to TMG's guideline in 1999.
We, Japanese L/Gs were very disappointed by TMG's decision of excluding L/G rights. After the release of the final bill, we started fighting TMG against its decision by lobbying major parties, negotiating with TMG's staffs,etc. Now we can find some evidences that TMG started changing its negative attitudes against L/G rights, but until now, it is not clear whether L/G rights will be included again or not. TMG will release its new guideline of human rights in this fall (probably in November). Our purpose of fighting TMG is to make TMG include L/G rights again in the guideline.
Articles of Newspapers on this problem
You can read some articles about this issue on the web the following:
(Japan Times) http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20000919b4.htm
(Daily Yomiuri) http://www.sukotan.com/yomiuri.htm
PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTER TO TMG!
We will be very grateful if you write your letter to ask TMG and Governor Shintaro Ishihara to include L/G rights to its human right guideline.
I think that even now no Asian cities have their laws or policies which protect L/G rights and prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. If we succeed in making TMG have the policy which protect L/G rights, it will be great progress for not only Japanese but all Asian L/Gs. Please help our fighting by writing protest letters to TMG.
Our sample letter is the following:
Please send your letter to:
- Shintaro Ishihara
Governor, Tokyo Metropolitan Government - (Address) Tokyo City Hall, 2-8-1 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-Ku, Tokyo 163-8001 Japan
(E-mail) governor@metro.tokyo.jp
Please send the copy of your letter to:
- Japan Association for the Lesbian and Gay Movement
- (Address) 2nd Floor,
Ishikawa Bldg. 6-12-11 Honcho Nakano-ku Tokyo 164-0012 Japan
(E-mail) occur@kt.rim.or.jp
Sample Letter
Dear Mr. Shintaro Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo,
I read some articles of newspapers which reports that Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) excluded lesbian and gay rights from its final bill of the new guideline of human rights. I was extremely surprised at hearing that TMG, which is one of the largest and most highly-developped cities of the world, made such kind of decision. I strongly urge TMG and Mr. Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo, reconcider the decision and include protecting lesbian and gay human rights and prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in its new human rights guideline.
Recently, not only Europe and the US but also the Pacific, Latin America and other regions (Africa and Asia) have adopted lesbian/gay human rights policy as one of their human rights policies. Principal cities of Latin America, like Mexico City and Buenos Aires, and the Republic of South Africa, have the laws which prohibit discriminations based on sexual orientation. In Asia, for example, the municipal government of Taipei sponcered its first-ever gay festival and Taiwan's president Chen Shui-Bian met some lesbian/gay activists (according to This Way Out Sep. 25).
I know that Japanese national government was in JUSCANZ group (Japan, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and supported lesbian and gay rights strongly with other Non-European developped countries in the UN conference of Women (the Beijing+5 Conference) which held in New York this year.
I know that there are no national laws which protect lesbian and gay rights in Japan. Therefore, I think that TMG, which has large population of gays and lesians, must have the guideline which protects lesbian and gay rights and prohibits discriminations based on sexual orientation. By doing this, Tokyo will be able to get the honor of the first city of Asia which has the human rights policy protecting L/G human rights. On the contrary, if TMG keeps the decision of excluding L/G rights from its guideline, Tokyo will be inferior to other principal cities which have the policy protecting L/G rights, so Tokyo's international position will be less and less important.
As mentioned, I urge TMG to reconcider its decision and make its new human rights guideline which includes protecting lesbian and gay rights and prohibiting discriminations based on sexual orientation.
Sincerely,
PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING TO KNOW MORE DETAILS:
Background
Until now, Japanese central and regional governments have not had any laws which protect L/G rights or prohibit discriminations based on sexual orientation. In 1998, TMG started making its new human rights guideline and organized specialists committee to make the bill of the guideline. We urged the members of the comittee to include lesbian and gay rights into the bill, and on August of 1999, we had a hearing of LGBTI human rights problem in the commitee. Finally, the committee released its final report which stating clearly that TMG includes LGBTI rights into its human rights policy. The bill was submitted to the Tokyo's governer, Shintaro Ishihara. Ishihara is known as one of the most fanatic ultra-right politician in Japan who is called "small Haider of Japan".
The Problem
6 months after the release of the final report of the specialists committee, TMG released its final bill of the guideline on June 19 of this year. We were surprised to find that L/G rights were excluded from the bill. Answering to some congressmen of Democratic Party and Komeito Party (a party based on Bhuddists), Shoichi Taguchi, ex-director of Human Rights Bureau of TMG explained the reason why TMG excluded L/G rights as follows;
- Many of the people living in Tokyo will not agree with TMG's protecting L/G rights; because 70% of the Tokyo people were against homosexuality in the public opinion poll of Mainichi Shinbun (one of the leading newspaper in Japan) in 1997.
- None of the central and regional government in Japan has any human rights programs which include L/G rights, so it is too early for TMG to include it.
TMG will release the guideline in this fall (probably November), so we are now urging TMG very strongly to include L/G rights in it again.
Our Fight
To Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly: we Lobbied to some major political parties to support our fight to include L/G rights again, and in the assembly, three members of the assembly from three major parties (Japan Democratic Party, Japanese Communist Party and Komeito party) demanded TMG to include it again on July 7.
To Tokyo L/G community and people in Tokyo: about 400-500 people including a lot of L/Gs wrote their letters to TMG as their public comments. They urged strongly to include L/G rights again.
To TMG itself: we, OCCUR had a public meeting with the human rights bureau of TMG on September 7 and demanded strongly to include L/G rights in the guideline. From the side of TMG, Masako Seki, the Director of Human Rights Bureau of TMG attended the meeting. 30 NGO/NPOs including Amnesty International Japan and IMADR-JC (International Movement for against All-Forms of Discrimination and Racism Japan Committee) supported us and 5 NGOs including Japan HIV Center and Buraku Liberation League attended the meeting.
Until now, our fight has been effecting very good to TMG itself, and the governor Shintaro Ishihara said "I will discuss the problem again in certain meeting in TMG. Citizens of Tokyo, please give me a lot of opinions about this issue." in his public press conference on July 19. But it has not been clear whether L/G rights will be included again or not. We need your support to make Tokyo better place for all Asian L/Gs.
Contact Us
If you want to ask more details about this issue, please send e-mail (or postal mail or fax) to the following address;
- Japan Association for the Lesbian and Gay Movement (OCCUR)
- (Address) 2nd Floor,Ishikawa Bldg. 6-12-11 Honcho Nakano-ku
Tokyo 164-0012 Japan
(Fax Number) +81-3-3229-7880
(E-mail Address)occur@kt.rim.or.jp - (Contact Person of This Article) Masaki Inaba, Program Director for Advocacy
- INABA Masaki E-mail: pinktri@kt.rim.or.jp
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