{"id":3144,"date":"2016-09-20T21:08:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T12:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/?p=3144"},"modified":"2023-10-25T09:44:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T00:44:24","slug":"okinawa-hrc-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/news\/2016\/09\/20\/okinawa-hrc-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"HRN joined the NGO oral joint statement on freedom of expression in Okinawa, Japan, at the 33rd session of Human Rights Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

Human Rights Now, a Tokyo based international human rights NGO in special consultative status with the ECOSOC, joined\u00a0the NGO oral joint statement on<\/strong> \u201cFreedom of expression in Ryukyu\/ Okinawa, Japan,” <\/strong>together with The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), Franciscans International and All Okinawa Council for Human Rights, at the 33rd session of the Human Rights Council, which is being held in\u00a0September 13-30, 2016. This statement was delivered by IMADR on September 19, 2016.<\/p>\n

Whole text can be read and downloaded below.<\/p>\n

NGO oral joint statement on freedom of expression in Okinawa<\/a>\u00a0[PDF]<\/p>\n

\n

19 September 2016<\/p>\n

Thank you Mr. President,<\/p>\n

Together with the All Okinawa Council for Human Rights, IMADR, Franciscans International and\u00a0Human Rights Now would like to draw this Council\u2019s attention to the human rights situation in Ryukyu\/Okinawa, Japan. The Okinawa islands host about three quarters of the U.S. military\u2019s exclusive-use\u00a0facilities in Japan. The large presence of the foreign military has caused a countless number of human\u00a0rights violations for decades, including sexual violence against women and girls, environmental\u00a0destruction, land grabbing and forced displacement. Yet, victims\u2019 access to justice remains limited.\u00a0Despite the persistent opposition from the people of Ryukyu\/ Okinawa, the Government of Japan has\u00a0been advancing the plans to construct new U.S. military facilities in Henoko and Takae.<\/p>\n

In this April, the Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression shared his\u00a0specific concern regarding \u201cdisproportionate restrictions on protest activity\u201d and \u201cthe use of force\u00a0against journalists\u201d in Okinawa.[1] Yet, the Government has continued to employ oppressive measures\u00a0including forced evacuation and temporarily detention of sit-in protesters by an excessive number of\u00a0riot police officers.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, in May, it was revealed that a security company contracted by the Defence Bureau had\u00a0compiled a list of 60 protesters including leading environmental human rights defenders and peace\u00a0activists in order to monitor and report their protest activity in Henoko. Since the list contained\u00a0personal information of protesters which was not publicly available, the Defense Bureau and police\u00a0forces were suspected of involvement. We regret that not only the Government denied its involvement,\u00a0but also they announced that no investigation to the incident will be conducted.<\/p>\n

Moreover, we are alarmed by the report that on 20th August journalists were prevented from reporting\u00a0the scene of protest in Takae. Press freedom is under threat in Okinawa. High ranking government\u00a0officials and law makers have repeatedly made repressive comments against the two major local\u00a0newspapers in Okinawa. However, most of those comments have not been condemned by the\u00a0Government, and no specific action has been taken to protect press freedom. We call upon the\u00a0Government of Japan to fully respect the freedom of expression in Okinawa including the rights to\u00a0information and privacy.<\/p>\n

Thank you Mr. President.<\/p>\n

[1 ] UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Preliminary observations at the end of\u00a0his visit to Japan (12-19 April 2016),
\nhttp:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/en\/NewsEvents\/Pages\/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=19842&LangID=E<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human Rights Now, a Tokyo based international human rights NGO in special consultative status with the ECOSOC, joined\u00a0the NGO oral joint statement on \u201cFreedom of expression in Ryukyu\/ Okinawa, Japan,” together with The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR), Franciscans International and All Okinawa Council for Human Rights, at the 33rd session of the Human Rights Council, which is being held in\u00a0September 13-30, 2016. This statement was delivered by IMADR on September 19, 2016. Whole text can be read and downloaded below. NGO oral joint statement on freedom of expression in Okinawa\u00a0[PDF] 19 September 2016 Thank you Mr. President, Together with the All Okinawa Council for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[154,145,135,5],"countries":[248],"class_list":["post-3144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-statement","tag-defenders-democratic-space","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-un-activity","tag-united-nations","countries-japan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3144"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3876,"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions\/3876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3144"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrn.or.jp\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=3144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}