Gifts for all you against gitmo detainment. Don’t ever say I never did anything for you.

Not only is the United Nations aware of the potential for torture in Japan’s prisons (more below), but courts here also tend to use different judicial standards when coming to decisions in cases involving non-Japanese.

Consider the Valentine case. On the evening of Dec. 9, 2003, a Nigerian nightclub worker surnamed Valentine was one of many Africans displaying flyers in Tokyo’s Kabukicho nightlife district. Two potential customers asked to see his club. Obliging, here’s what happened next:

On the way, his “customers” were rumbled as plainclothes police, Valentine says, and he panicked and ran away. Valentine was tackled, and a cop named Tanabu kicked him repeatedly below the knee until his leg was badly broken.

The police, on the other hand, claim that guilt gave Valentine wings, and while sprinting down a narrow alleyway, he dodged another policeman, crashed into a sign attached to a building, and thus broke his leg.

Valentine was then arrested under the Entertainment and Amusement Trades Control Act for handing out nightclub pamphlets, a charge he denies. However, whatever he-said she-said, Valentine was denied access to a hospital while in custody.

According to Valentine’s testimony, hospitals and doctors were contingent on him signing a confession, in Japanese (which he could not read), that the police had not hurt him. He refused. The interrogations continued for 10 days.

According to the U.N., this sort of thing is not all that unusual. The U.N. Committee Against Torture recently criticized Japan (CAT/C/JPN/CO/1, May 18, 2007, Sections 15(c) and 17) for “the lack of appropriate and prompt medical care for individuals in police custody,” and for “undue delays in provision.”

Consequently, Valentine’s leg injury worsened. When he ultimately did sign and was released to Immigration, officials saw he wasn’t running anywhere, and immediately sent him to a private hospital for emergency treatment.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Miscellanous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.