Setsuko Kamiya - The Japan Times

November 04, 2025

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Setsuko Kamiya

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Setsuko Kamiya

Setsuko Kamiya is a staff writer and editor covering local news, including legal issues, and has been following the ongoing judicial reform. A 2005 Fulbright journalist grantee, she studied the American jury system in California.

JAPAN / Crime & Legal

Mar 18, 2014

Hirata trial highlights evolving court system

In the same courtroom where many of his fellow Aum Shinrikyo cult members were tried years before, Makoto Hirata was convicted and sentenced earlier this month.

Japan Times

JAPAN

Jun 6, 2013

Lay judges get a peek at prison life

When lay judges hand down a prison term, many focus on the merits of the case itself and not about the life behind bars that awaits the guilty.

Japan Times

JAPAN

May 30, 2013

Tsunami hero continuing disaster education efforts

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, regional governments have been reviewing their disaster plans and enhancing preparations, from boosting buildings' quake resistance to increasing their stockpiles of emergency food and blankets for immediate use.

JAPAN / Crime & Legal

Feb 2, 2013

Somali pirate trial lay judges felt global duty

The lay judges who sentenced two Somali pirates to 10 years in prison Friday said that while they had initial qualms about a case they considered foreign, they came to believe it was their duty as part of the international community to try the defendants.

JAPAN

Feb 2, 2013

Court hands Somali pirates 10-year term

The Tokyo District Court jails two Somali pirates for 10 years for trying to hijack an oil tanker operated by a Japanese company in the Indian Ocean in 2011.

Japan Times

JAPAN

Jan 25, 2013

Schools to close but their songs go on

Music has played an important role in easing the pain of many people in the Tohoku region whose lives were affected by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

JAPAN / Crime & Legal

Jan 16, 2013

Somali pair admit trying to hijack ship

In the first case prosecuted under Japan's 2009 antipiracy law, two Somali men pleaded guilty Tuesday in Tokyo District Court to charges of boarding and attempting to hijack a Bahamas-registered tanker operated by a Japanese shipping company.

Japan Times

JAPAN / ELECTION 2012

Dec 14, 2012

Dismayed Tohoku faces first post-3/11 poll

A mere 15 minutes before Azuma Konno, a Democratic Party of Japan candidate running in Sunday's Lower House election, was set to make a stump speech in front of JR Sendai Station last Friday evening, a 7.4-magnitude quake struck deep off Miyagi's shore, flooding one coastal district with 1-meter-high...

JAPAN / EXPLAINER

Dec 11, 2012

Some election campaign rules outdated, quirky

From Hokkaido to Okinawa Prefecture, 1,504 candidates are campaigning for the 480 seats up for grabs in Sunday's Lower House election.

JAPAN / ELECTION 2012

Dec 6, 2012

The undecided to play key role in poll

Terue Ishimura has yet to decide which party she will vote for in the Dec. 16 general election. But one thing is clear — she won't be supporting the ruling Democratic Party of Japan again.

JAPAN

Dec 4, 2012

Double jeopardy practice scrutinized

Two recent high-profile exonerations have reignited calls by defense lawyers to require the full disclosure of evidence, and to let verdicts handed down by lay judges stand.

Japan Times

JAPAN

Nov 19, 2012

Visa overstayers rally in Tokyo for residency permits

A group of foreign residents who have overstayed their visas rallied in Tokyo's Ginza shopping district Sunday to call on the government to grant them special residency permits to remain in Japan and avoid disrupting the lives of their long-settled family members.

JAPAN

Nov 15, 2012

Ex-aides want to be off the hook like Ozawa

Three former aides to Ichiro Ozawa on Wednesday urged the Tokyo High Court to reverse their guilty verdicts over the political money scandal involving the former Democratic Party of Japan president, saying they had no motive to conduct any wrongdoing.

JAPAN

Nov 13, 2012

Ozawa acquittal is upheld in appeal

Former Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa did not conspire with former aides to falsify financial statements in his political funding management body Rikuzankai in 2004 and 2005, the Tokyo High Court ruled Monday, upholding his not-guilty verdict.

JAPAN

Nov 8, 2012

Tokyo High Court finally exonerates Mainali

The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday exonerated Govinda Prasad Mainali, 46, of the 1997 robbery-murder of a 39-year-old Tokyo woman for which he had served 15 years of a life sentence before being freed and deported home to Nepal in June.

Japan Times

JAPAN

Nov 7, 2012

Overseas Japanese museums' representatives share ideas in Yokohama

Museums dedicated to the history of Japanese emigrants are increasingly becoming important for their descendants to understand the history of their ancestors as they become integrated in the societies they live in, according to participants of a recent symposium in Yokohama.

JAPAN

Nov 7, 2012

Antinuclear activists denied use of park

A protest march planned for this Sunday in Tokyo to call for the abolishment of nuclear power has been canceled due to the metropolitan government's rejection for the organizer to use Hibiya Park in Chiyoda Ward as a meeting point.

Japan Times

COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP

Oct 7, 2012

Shigesato Itoi shares lots of 'delicious life'

Shigesato Itoi is an established name in the Japanese cultural scene, but what he is known for may differ depending on who you ask.

Japan Times

JAPAN

Aug 15, 2012

Palestinian plight's Tohoku parallels

The civil war in Syria is not only affecting its civilians but also the Palestinian refugees living in exile there, and the situation is deteriorating, the head of a United Nations agency supporting the refugees said during a recent visit to Japan.

JAPAN / ANALYSIS

Apr 27, 2012

Jury out on if inquest system lived up to role

The prolonged trial of former Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa marked the first time a Diet member has been tried after being subjected to mandatory indictment by a panel of ordinary citizens who received authorization to review a case prosecutors gave up on.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.

The second life of Japan's net cafes

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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