Photo/Illutration Protesters criticize an event on the Ainu people outside a civic center in Sapporo on Nov. 15. (Kohei Uwabo)

SAPPORO--Protesters denounced as hate speech an event here that claims the Ainu people are not indigenous to Japan, which flies in the face of the law of the land.

About 30 people gathered outside a civic center where the Ainu no Shijitsu wo Manabu Kai (Group to study Ainu’s historical facts) organized a speech and panel exhibition on Nov. 15.

The group contends the Ainu, who mainly inhabit Hokkaido, are not an indigenous people, unlike the Aborigines in Australia and Native Americans in the United States.

It said the Jomon people, who are the ancestors of Japanese, lived in Hokkaido for more than 10,000 years from around 16,000 years ago before the Ainu people.

Protesters demanded the organizers stop “spreading false information that distorts history and denies (the Ainu’s) indigeneity.”

They carried cards and banners that said, “Ainu denialism constitutes hate speech” and “Anti-Ainu discrimination violates the law.”

The rally was organized by Counter-Racist Action Collective North, a group opposed to hate speech.

The Ainu policy promotion law enacted in 2019 defines the Ainu people as “indigenous people of the northern part of the Japanese archipelago, in particular Hokkaido.”

It prohibits discrimination against the Ainu people and “any other act that infringes upon the rights or interests of an Ainu person for being Ainu.”

The law is based on a report compiled in 2009 by an expert panel set up under the chief Cabinet secretary, which stated the Ainu are an indigenous people.

The report defined indigenous peoples as ethnic groups that have continued to reside with a culture and identity that is different from the ethnic majority since before statehood reached them.

Related News