OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court on March 26 ordered three local governments to pay partial damages totaling 570,000 yen to six foreign residents who demanded compensation from the state and seven prefectures after being unjustly arrested and tried for refusing to be fingerprinted under the Alien Registration Law.
Presiding Judge Mitsuo Maesaka ordered Osaka, Kanagawa and Hiroshima prefectures to compensate the six residents. The group brought the suit after being arrested for failing to report to police as ordered after they refused to be fingerprinted upon registering at their local district offices.
The court said the arrests of three Koreans and a Chinese, and the detention of two other Koreans were illegal because it was obvious that they would not flee or destroy evidence. The plaintiffs, who had demanded 1 million yen each in damages, include a Chinese, an American and 11 Koreans. All had refused to be fingerprinted in the early 1980s. Eight of them were arrested and all 13 were indicted for violating the law.