Lurid Japanese publication 'ignorant propaganda', says rights campaigner
A lurid 'true-crime' magazine that depicts foreigners as red-eyed criminals bent on causing mayhem in Japan has been criticised by a rights group as 'ignorant propaganda' which will increase intolerance towards people from other countries.
Secret Files of Foreigners' Crimes went on sale across Japan on January 31, according to Eichi Publishing, but quickly caused outrage with its garish depictions of Chinese, Koreans, Iranians and US military personnel.
Eichi is an otherwise unremarkable publisher which also publishes mainstream magazines, including hobby and movie magazines, as well as some soft-core pornography.
The one-off, glossy 128-page magazine, which sells for 690 yen (HK$45), includes graphic, manga-style comic strips retelling the story of the murder of a family of four by three Chinese nationals in 2003, grainy pictures of a police raid on a brothel, images of off-duty American soldiers in a street scuffle, and shots of foreigners holding hands with Japanese women under the headline, 'Yellow cab real street photo'.
One is captioned 'Hey nigger! Get your f****** hands off that Japanese lady's ass!' Another reads: 'This is Japan! Go back to your own f****** country and do that!'
'It's disgusting,' said US-born Debito Arudou, a naturalised Japanese who campaigns for foreigners' rights. 'It's fallacious, baiting, ignorant propaganda from cover to cover.