This Video Does Not Depict Protesters Opposing Islam and Muslims in Japan
The Claim
"Japan belongs to Japanese, Islam out of our country!" Japanese patriots also rise up due to illegal and uncontrolled immigration.
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Emerging story
Recently, accounts on X and Facebook have been circulating a video falsely claiming to depict an anti-Islam and anti-Muslim march in Japan.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar investigated the circulating claim and found it to be misleading. The video is old and does not depict a protest against Islam and Muslims in Japan.
Protests in Japan Against Immigration Policies
The video went viral on October 22, 2023. At the time, its publishers asserted that it captured a protest in the Japanese city of Kawaguchi targeting Chinese immigrants and Kurds.
During that time, tweets indicated that the 'Japan First' party, an extreme right-wing group vehemently opposing immigration, organized a march where the Japanese Rising Sun flag was prominently displayed. Participants in these demonstrations argue that immigrants have inflicted significant harm on the Japanese population.
How did the Kurds get to Kawaguchi?
Presently, around two thousand Kurds live in the city of Kawaguchi, situated north of the Japanese capital, Tokyo. The migration of Kurds from Turkey to Japan started in the early 1990s, and since then, they have not secured a legal settlement for their status.
An article published by The Economist on October 26, 2023, highlighted that these individuals fled persecution experienced by their minority in Turkey. The article also noted that Japan opened unofficial migration channels for them to address its labor force shortage.
Statistics reveal that the number of Japanese born outside Japan has doubled since 1990, reaching 3 million, which accounts for 2.4 percent of the total population as of 2022. Additionally, migrants in Kawaguchi constitute 6.8 percent of the population.
Japanese Conservative Media Incites Against Immigrants
The rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in Kawaguchi has heightened since July 2023, sparked by a clash among Kurdish immigrants that led to the temporary closure of an emergency wing in a hospital for five hours. Right-wing conservative media is accused of amplifying the impact of anti-immigrant rhetoric and any inappropriate or unlawful actions that may arise from them.
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