Rarely in the history of Japan have public concerns over hate speech appeared so intense and widespread as today.
On July 8, the Osaka High Court upheld an unprecedented lower court ruling that denounced as "racial discrimination" the invective spewed by a group of right-wingers at Korean schoolchildren.
And on July 24, a United Nations human rights committee urged Japan to prohibit speech advocating "racial superiority," an apparent reference to a series of anti-Korean rallies in ethnic Korean neighborhoods such as Shin-Okubo in Tokyo and Tsuruhashi in Osaka.