THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
June 5, 2024 at 07:00 JST
A 34-year-old man who called himself Tayfun appeared on a computer screen at the precise time of an online interview on April 3.
He agreed to tell The Asahi Shimbun how his social media posts from Turkey promoted anti-Kurd sentiment in Japan, and why he did it.
Discrimination against Kurds in Japan, particularly in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, has intensified, as hate-filled posts increase on social media.
But many anti-Kurd messages that go viral come from outside Japan. And some posters, like Tayfun, totally misrepresent their true identities.
In a post uploaded on X seven months ago, Tayfun wrote in Japanese: “Japan is the homeland of Kurds. We are not guests but hosts. The official language should be Kurdish.”
In the interview, Tayfun said he is a “Turk who has never been to Japan” and works in the information technology industry in Istanbul. He admitted to pretending to be a Kurdish resident in Japan on X.
His message was repeatedly reposted and generated several xenophobic responses. Some generalized that “Kurds are scary,” while several called for Kurds to be “driven out” of Japan.
Tayfun said that reaction was exactly what he was seeking.
Last September, he learned through X about Kurds in Japan and also found allegations that supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were among them.
Republic of Turkey established in 1923 adopted harsh assimilation policy. The PKK was organized to oppose it and is seeking separation and independence. The Turkish government has designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Tayfun said he thought he must “issue a warning for the Japanese.”
Through Google Translate, he wrote at least 180 posts in Japanese the hopes of provoking antipathy. One such message asserts, “Kurds will exert force on Japan.”
His comments spread more widely than he had expected, and he deleted some posts. He received hostile replies, like, “Go back to your own country.”
“If I had posted comments as a Turk, my activity would not have garnered so much attention,” Tayfun recalled. “Bitter medicine works better.”
In a past post, Tayfun wrote in Turkish on X: “Japanese are so naive that they believe everything. Influential accounts on X can set the agenda for Japan if they want to.”
Tayfun was not the only overseas person who posted messages in Japanese about Kurdish residents of Japan.
One account owner called on “lying Kurds to get out of Japan.”
That poster told The Asahi Shimbun that he is a 27-year-old Turkish worker who resides in South Korea.
“Kurdish residents of Japan are tarnishing the image of Turkey,” the man said. “I thought I had to do something to address the issue.”
Another account on X uploaded a post that said, “We, Kurds, set the rules in Japan.”
The user told The Asahi Shimbun that he is a Kurdish man in Iraq.
On why he wrote the post, he said he was “angry” at Japan because a relative living in the country was reportedly “assaulted while singing in Kurdish.”
Kurds have their own language and culture, and they inhabit an area straddling Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
They are subjected to discrimination and oppression.
Kurds have been arriving in Japan since the 1990s. An estimated 3,000 Kurds with Turkish nationality now live in municipalities such as Kawaguchi, a city north of Tokyo.
Many Kurds in Japan have been provisionally released from custody and are awaiting decisions on their refugee applications.
With the assistance of social media analysis software Brandwatch, The Asahi Shimbun found 40,000 posts and reposts about Kurds in Japan on X in March last year.
The figure jumped to 240,000 in April, when a bill to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law was being discussed. One objective of the changes was to deport foreign overstayers even when their refugee applications are pending.
The post and repost number reached 1.08 million in July, after a stabbing incident in a brawl among Kurds in Kawaguchi. About 100 people turned out in front of a medical center in the case.
The figure came to 2.42 million in March this year.
The Japan Kurdish Cultural Association filed a lawsuit against journalist Takaaki Ishii in March, claiming he has repeatedly defamed Kurdish residents of Japan through his online posts.
Ishii has 170,000 followers on X. He describes himself as the first to “report on the issue concerning Kurds.”
“I never try to reject Kurds,” Ishii said in response to an Asahi Shimbun inquiry. “Japanese hardly discriminate.”
He continued: “This problem should have been discussed far earlier than the debate on discrimination and co-existence. The point is that ordinary people are raising their voices because mass media do not give coverage to the trouble and illegal acts caused by Kurds to struggling citizens of Kawaguchi.”
Koichi Yasuda, a journalist who has authored a book about the internet and patriotism, argued: “The Kurdish threat has been forged on social media within less than a single year. The acceleration speed was unprecedented.”
Last June, a nonprofit organization working primarily in the United States and Britain released survey results showing that X failed to act on 99 percent of hate posts written by paid users.
The findings indicated the platform’s algorithm that prioritizes posts for views is amplifying toxic comments.
The hatred expressed on the internet has seeped out into the real world.
Around 100 people marched in a demonstration in Kawaguchi and elsewhere on April 28. One of their placards said, “Kurdish overstayers who destroy the Japanese-Turkish friendship should be expelled.”
The Kurdish operator of a restaurant in Kawaguchi said it receives nuisance calls from people shouting, “Get out of Japan.”
The Kawaguchi city office has received at least 400 calls demanding that “Kurds be repatriated.”
A Kurd support group once received an email bearing “wishes for a massacre of Kurds.”
“I had rarely experienced something this bad,” said a Kurdish man, 32, who has lived in Japan for 20 years and manages his own business.
A grocery store owner in Kawaguchi said Kurdish residents have been among her customers for more than two decades.
They initially left trash on the street in front of her store. But she continued communicating with them by using gestures and speaking broken Kurdish.
They now call each other by their first names.
“Why can people who don’t even know them say ‘get out’?” she said. “The so-called problem with Kurds spreading from social media sounds like a story from an imaginary world to me.”
She added, “For me, the daily life before me represents reality.”
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