Tag - human-rights

 
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September 06, 2025
 

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HUMAN RIGHTS

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida receives a petition from victims of forced sterilization on Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 17, 2024
Kishida apologizes to victims of forced sterilization
The apology from the prime minister follows a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month declaring that the now-defunct eugenics law was unconstitutional.
If the billions of people who will watch this summer's Paris Olympic Games were to take inspiration from history and call for cease-fires in today's wars, many lives could be saved.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 17, 2024
Restore the Olympic peace
International collaboration and moral leadership are essential for achieving peace, paralleling the ancient Olympic Games as symbols of halting hostilities.
The North Korean flag flutters at the North Korea consular office in Dandong, China, on April 20, 2021.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 17, 2024
'Shocking': U.N. report details North Korea's widespread forced labor
In a damning report, the U.N. rights office detailed how people in North Korea have been "controlled and exploited."
The plaintiff, who is in her 50s, is suing the government, contending that the gender dysphoria law is unconstitutional because it violates Article 13 of the Constitution, which protects an individual's right to pursue happiness.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 16, 2024
Trans woman challenges marital status condition for legal gender change
The plaintiff, who has been married since 2015, argues that the legal requirement for one to be unmarried in order to change one's gender is unconstitutional.
A Palestinian youth walks past piles of smoldering waste, as garbage collection and any other municipality services come to a halt due to the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at the al-Maghazi Palestinian refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 16, 2024
Israel accused of waging a 'war of revenge' on Palestinian prisoners
Israeli authorities have denied all accounts of alleged mistreatment including torture, rape and other sexual abuses in Israeli jails.
A lesbian couple, consisting of a 35-year-old woman (left) and 40-year-old woman, cover their faces with bouquets as they pose for wedding photos in Yokohama on Nov. 1.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 14, 2024
Amid same-sex marriage ban, LGBTQ couples opt for 'photo weddings'
These carefully choreographed images are often kept hidden in conservative Japan.
Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy speaks in New Delhi in 2020. Roy is currently facing prosecution in India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, an anti-terrorism law, for comments she made back in 2010 about Kashmir.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2024
The show trial of India's Arundhati Roy
Comments made by Roy, a Booker Prize-winning author, 14 years ago have put her in the crosshairs of the BJP, which is wielding an anti-terrorism law to punish her.
People on a train from India's northeastern states stretch out their hands to collect free food being distributed by an NGO at a railway station in Kolkata in 2012.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 12, 2024
Empty beds, lost jobs: The price of India's crackdown on NGO funds
Only 15,947 NGOs remain active in India, while 35,488 licenses have been cancelled or expired, according to the country's FCRA dashboard.
Plaintiffs in a series of lawsuits over forced sterilization and their lawyers hold banners that read "victory ruling," after the Supreme Court ruled in their favor in Tokyo on July 3.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 10, 2024
Amid discrimination, Japan's eugenics missteps could be repeated, expert warns
After a landmark ruling that finally declared Japan's defunct eugenics law unconstitutional, some may ask how Japanese society openly endorsed eugenics.
A Japanese high court decision on Wednesday touched on the contentious issue of whether transgender people need to undergo surgery in order to have their gender changed in official records.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 10, 2024
Japan high court backs gender status change without surgery
The development is likely to put more pressure on the government to revise the contentious 2003 law on gender dysphoria.
An 81-year-old man using the pseudonym Saburo Kita speaks during a hearing of plaintiffs in lawsuits over forced sterilizations, held by a cross-party group of lawmakers in the parliament building on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 10, 2024
Japanese lawmaker group hears from forced sterilization victims
Three people, including two plaintiffs who underwent forced sterilizations, attended the hearing by the cross-party group.
University of Texas at Austin Anthropology Professor Craig Campbell leads chants with other university faculty members during a pro-Palestinian protest on the campus in Austin, Texas, on May 5.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 10, 2024
Doxxed, disciplined: U.S. students tally price of Gaza protests
Many protesting students fear they will be penalized academically or professionally as they prepare to enter the workforce or return to classes.
Pichamon Yeophantong from the U.N. Human Rights Council's Working Group on Business and Human Rights is interviewed in Tokyo last week.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 9, 2024
U.N. expert urges Japan to tackle structural discrimination
Structural discrimination that stems from harmful norms are "something that needs to be dismantled as soon as possible," Pichamon Yeophantong said.
Hong Kong protesters face off against riot police at a rally in support of the human rights of Xinjiang Uyghurs in Hong Kong in December 2019.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 5, 2024
China rejects key Western calls for human rights reforms at U.N. meet
Beijing has striven to fend off criticism following a 2022 U.N. report.
A man from North Africa (right) embraces his lawyer after a verdict was handed down by the Osaka District Court revoking a decision by immigration authorities not to grant him refugee status, in Osaka on Thursday.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 4, 2024
Osaka court recognizes gay African man as refugee
The court concluded that the plaintiff had been nearly killed by his family and could be harmed if he returns home.
Plaintiffs of a series of lawsuits on forced sterilization and their lawyers hold banners saying "victory ruling" after the Supreme Court ruled in their favor in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 3, 2024
Japan's top court orders compensation for forced sterilization victims
The landmark ruling was made on the basis that the now-defunct eugenics law was unconstitutional.
Environmental activist Phuon Keoraksmey is arrested after a verdict in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, where a Cambodian court sentenced 10 environmentalists to between six and eight years in jail for plotting to commit crimes in their activism.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 3, 2024
Cambodia sentences green campaigners over their environmental activism
A lawyer for the activists in Cambodia condemned the sentences, saying he would consult with his clients on whether to appeal against the ruling.
Security officers escort Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan as he appeared before the Islamabad High Court, in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 12, 2023.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 2, 2024
Pakistani prime minister's detention is unlawful, U.N. group says
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been in jail since last August and was convicted in some cases ahead of a national election in February.
Hanako and Taro Nomura, who are suing the government over forced sterilization, show their late daughter's birth register issued by a temple, in their living room in a city in Osaka Prefecture. For years, the couple wondered why they could not conceive after the death of their firstborn.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 2, 2024
Seeking justice, deaf couple confronts issue of forced sterilization
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will rule on lawsuits against the government filed by the Nomuras and others who were sterilized under a now-defunct eugenics law.
A Taliban spokesperson addresses a press conference in Kabul on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 2, 2024
Taliban told to 'include women' in public life at U.N. talks
Excluding civil rights groups from the talks was the price for the Taliban government's participation in them.
Surrounded by Chinese bases, a tiny Philippine island stands firm
A Philippine Navy sailor looks at a China Coast Guard vessel just off the coast of Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea last month.
Anger in Japan after Instagrammer drinks burial site offering
Foreign tourists visit a park near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in August.
Tamagotchi hatches 100 million shipments worldwide thanks to ’90s nostalgia
The latest version of Tamagotchi, called Tamagotchi Paradise, is awarded the best digital toy at Tokyo Toy Show on Aug. 28.
Tropical Storm Peipah forms off southwestern Japan
Tropical Storm Peipah, which formed off southeastern Japan, is expected to travel east off the Tokai area and the Kanto region.
What we know about the supplements scandal linked to Suntory’s ex-CEO
Takeshi Niinami, the former chairman and CEO of Suntory Holdings, at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday
London’s calling and sumo’s top division — along with Hello Kitty — are ready to answer
Yokozuna Hoshoryu and Hello Kitty, an ambassador for sumo's upcoming tour to London, at Tokyo's Kokugikan on Tuesday
Resonac creates 27-member consortium to pursue advanced chip developments
Representatives from member companies of JOINT3, a consortium working together on semiconductor-related developments announced by Resonac, pose for a photo in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Haru Nemuri’s radical new album refuses easy listening
Musician Haruna Kimishima, better known as Haru Nemuri, confronts Japan’s politics, nationalism and censorship on her recent output.
Overseas sluggers step up to bat in small-town Hokkaido
The Betsukai Pilot Spirits welcomed new players (left to right) Yuta Yamanaka, Roman Guthrie, Scott Bellina and Leo Jiminian this year, pictured here with Yassir Lachkar of the Ishikari Red Phoenix.
Xi — joined by Kim and Putin — delivers stark warning at military parade
Chinese leader Xi Jinping walks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Beijing on Wednesday.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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