Photo/Illutration Lawmaker Mio Sugita enters the Lower House plenary chamber on Nov. 20. (Takeshi Iwashita)

Discrimination should not be allowed, says Mio Sugita, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker.

But this very person continues to spew provocative double-talk in defense of her own many discriminatory remarks and still keeps getting away with it.

This issue has gone too far. It is no longer just about Sugita’s personal idiosyncrasy. It’s about time that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his LDP decided to part ways with this truculent lawmaker for her repeated bigoted remarks.

Even after the justice authorities officially recognized Sugita’s comments about the indigenous Ainu people and Korean residents in Japan as violations of human rights, she kept insisting that she has never practiced discrimination.

She even went so far as to accuse the victims of her bigotry of “talking to the media despite the off-the-record nature of the issue.”

At the time she was effectively fired from her post of parliamentary vice minister for internal affairs and communications, Sugita noted, “I’d rather resign than apologize to this (Ainu-related) group.”

She also asserted the existence of certain discrimination-related rights and entitlements.

So, when she told the Diet last year of her intent to apologize to the parties concerned, what was that really about?

Sugita refuses to explain herself at news conferences and other public functions, but reaches out to her supporters through social media and video-sharing platforms, getting them to rally around her and also “reproduce” her bigoted statements.

So long as Sugita resorts, as a sitting lawmaker, to such a modus operandi to gather support and maintain her influence, she has only herself to blame for being condemned for her bigotry. 

And yet, the LDP has done nothing to censure her.

Rui Matsukawa, an Upper House member, was reprimanded for posing before the Eiffel Tower in Paris and posting pictures on her social media account while attending a training program in Europe.

How is it that the LDP is leaving Sugita alone when her deliberate violation of human dignity is incomparably worse than Matsukawa’s “slipup.”

Kishida has nothing to say other than his usual “not-my-business” mantra: “I would like (Sugita) to fully live up to her accountability.” Nor does LDP Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi appear ready to do anything.

Minorities are voicing fear and anxiety, but the LDP’s overall level of human rights awareness is so low that it appalls us.

Just the other day, a man claiming to have been sexually abused by the late Johnny Kitagawa died, apparently by his own hand. Reportedly, he had been slandered as an attention-getter just after money.

In Japan, society does not rally to the support of minorities who make their rightful complaints. Instead, society rebukes the minorities, and we see no signs of this deplorable situation getting any better.

Could the LDP be partly responsible for condoning this atmosphere? We say this because the party just recently gave Sugita another important post and is apparently overlooking her reprehensible comments.

Recently, Kishida has frequently used the words “human dignity,” including in his policy speech. And he says Japan’s stance is to set this “most fundamental value” at the core and guide the rest of the world toward collaboration, away from division and conflict.

The mismatch between his words and deeds couldn’t be more spectacular.

The prime minister’s words mean nothing because he is not facing the reality. In the meantime, the Diet surely has things it needs to do, including offering a resolution to censure Sugita.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 22

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