Japanese Government to Keep ‘Hooligans’ Away from Summit
TOKYO - The Justice Ministry has begun preparations to put into force a hooligan provision of the immigration law to prevent anti-globalization activists from entering the country to protest the Group of Eight summit meeting to be held in Hokkaido in July.
Relevant ministries and agencies will discuss criteria for defining anti-globalization activists, to whom the provision will be applied for the first time, and seek additional information from other countries.
The hooligan provision was added when Japan’s Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law was revised in 2001 and enforced in 2002 to keep hooligans out of the country for the 2002 World Cup soccer finals.
The provision states immigration authorities can refuse entry to people who have injured, assaulted, threatened or killed people or damaged buildings to disrupt international sports events or meetings.
It also disallows entry to people who have been imprisoned in Japan or other countries or have been deported before if immigration officials believe they might be involved in similar actions again.
Under the provision, 19 hooligans were prohibited from entering the country in 2002. The provision has not been applied in other cases.
Unions and environmental protection groups have often been involved in protests against economic globalization, which activists assert has widened the gaps between rich and poor and harmed the environment.
© 2007 Times Argus
“we the hooligans, in order to form a more perfect union…”
Globalization.
Hoa binh
The real hooligans are people like Bush, Cheney, and their corporate puppet masters.
So anybody who has been arrested for non-violent protesting will go on the list as hooligans. The Bush administration can make a list of targets to trump up charges against. Come to think of it, S. 1959 Homegrown Terrorists bill, if passed by the Senate in January, should do that trick nicely.
I’ve always maintained that THIS is exactly the reason BushCo let 9/11 happen. Anyone remember Genova in 2001? And the DC protests that were halted due to the attacks? And now BushCo and every other country continues to stop activists from crossing borders, as well as refusing entry visas for academics whose views they don’t like. Welcome to the new world order.
¿ WHO•ligans ?
And don’t forget the new fingerprinting law that came into effect a couple of months ago.
Do you like Japan? Well, the Japanese government doesn’t like you - foreigner.
Official policy is to let the dangerous hooligans in to run the conference while the relatively harmless hooligans who pay the bills are excluded.
As long as we keep thinking of “criminals” and “hooligans” as “those” people, not us, we allow the powers that be to use this fear of “bad guys” against whoever they want to demonize for whatever political purposes. It was only matter of time before dissent could overtly be called an illegal activity. Now WE are the bad guys. Reminds me of the lines:
First they came for the Communists,
- but I was not a communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists,
- but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews,
- but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Every prisoner is a political prisoner.
Hooligans are cool.
Reminds me of the great “hooligan” scare campaign the government and media put on before the World Cup in 2002. It got so bad that many of the shop keepers closed down on the days there were watches out of hooligan hysteria - potentially their best business opportunities ever. (For the record, the World Cup went fine with zero hooligan problems.)
When the hooligans have a meeting they don’t want it interupted by peace activists now do they. What would you do if you were meeting your hooligan friends and these placard holders were reminding you that the mess in the world was your fault. You’re there to carve up the world for the benefit of just a few what would the riff-raff do to encourage that, nothing.
Pardon the sarcasm.