Two letters to the editor on Aug. 2 — both in response to Brian Hedge's July 28 Hotline to Nagatacho letter (" Pocket knife lands tourist, 74, in lockup") — must be among the most puzzling that The Japan Times has ever printed.
No doubt, in the name of balance, The Japan Times is going to want to present both sides of a controversy, but, seriously, what justification can there be for locking up a 74-year-old tourist for carrying what was clearly little more than a key chain?
I have carried a tiny Swiss army knife, purchased at a local department store, for most of the many years I've lived in Japan without ever dreaming it might be considered a "dangerous concealed weapon." We are talking about a key chain with a folding blade, which is little more than an inch long, a tiny pair of scissors and a screwdriver: about as useful in a fight as the keys to my home and office, which are attached to the chain.
That the police are singling out foreign tourists for shakedowns is disquieting enough; that they would subject a frail old man to what must have been a horrifying experience (nine days in lockup) over something so incredibly benign, and in the name of a law that was not even in force yet, at least not for Japanese, is positively shocking. How else would one describe such behavior other than as backward and illogical?
Hedge, in his letter, probably hurt his credibility by calling Japan "horrible" and claiming it is "extremely unsafe" for foreign guests. Most certainly this was an extreme case, but anybody who would deny that this is evidence that foreign tourists are targeted as criminals simply has his mind closed to what is going on around him.