Anti-Korean activists must pay for hate rallies outside school in Japan
In a landmark court ruling, Korean school in Kyoto wins compensation after group's racist speeches scared children and disturbed classes
A Japanese court has ordered a group of anti-Korean activists to pay a Korean school in Kyoto 12 million yen (HK$954,500) in compensation for disturbing classes and scaring children by holding "hate speech" rallies outside the school.
The landmark ruling acknowledged for the first time the explicit insults constituted racial discrimination, and it could prompt a move to exempt hate speech from Japan's constitutional right to free speech.
Handing down the ruling at Kyoto District Court, judge Hitoshi Hashizume said: "The actions are deemed intended to arouse a sense of discrimination among the public toward Korean residents in Japan."
He said the hateful language the members of the anti-Korea group Zaitokukai and their supporters shouted and printed on banners disturbed classes and scared children. The judge said the video footage of the racist rallies posted by the group on the web was illegal.
The court said the rallies "constitute racial discrimination" defined under the UN's convention on the elimination of racial discrimination, which Japan has ratified.
Monday's ruling also banned the group from staging further demonstrations in the neighbourhood of the pro-Pyongyang Korean elementary school in southern Kyoto, according to a court spokesman Naoki Yokota.
Several hundred thousand Koreans comprise Japan's largest ethnic minority group, many of them descendants of forced labourers shipped to Japan during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea, and still face discrimination.