Christopher Johnson, a Canadian journalist residing (until recently) in Japan published a ghastly account of his return to Tokyo after a short pre-Christmas trip. He was flagged at the border (he implies that this is related to his coverage of Fukushima), held, threatened, and shaken down for bribes before being detained without counsel or a phone call. He says he was eventually deported, though not before being ordered to sign a falsified confession and being threatened by an official at gunpoint, who demanded that he purchase a hyper-inflated plane ticket, which, Johnson believes, included a kickback for the official.
This time, he came back with a young, stocky guy. He was wearing a blue uniform. “Do you see this gun?” he said in Japanese, turning around to show me a weapon in its holster. “I have the legal authority to use this if you refuse to get on that flight. Now are you going to buy that ticket?”
I was angry now. They are forcing me at gunpoint to buy an overpriced ticket.
The [guards] ushered me out of the room and through the airport. They still had my bag, my passport, my wallet, credit cards, everything. I had no choice. They whisked me through the airport like a criminal. I didn’t have to line-up for x-ray machines or immigration. [They] pushed me through VIP lines, ahead of pilots and flight attendants.
Japan's outsourced airport detentions operation is the subject of its own Amnesty International report.
(Thanks, arbitraryaardvark!)
(Image: Immigration, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from bryansblog's photostream)
