Race Ban in Melbourne Nightclubs: What's being done about it (Japan, take note)

[arudoudebito]

In related news:

Australian Commissioner appalled at club owner's race ban
THE AGE, July 23, 2002

"The head of Victoria's Equal Opportunity Commission is appalled at a Melbourne nightclub owner's admission that Asians in groups are barred from his venues for fear of gang violence...."

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...332370421.html

COMMENT: An Australian version of the Otaruesque fear of foreigners (in this case, fears of violence from the local Vietnamese community), some Aussie nightclubs are barring larger groups of Asians.

The thing that stops one from going all relativist, throwing up one's hands and saying, "Discrimination is everywhere in the world, so it's hopeless to try to pursue something like exclusionary onsens and nightclubs in Japan!" is the fact that antidiscrimination laws in Oz are here being cited and public commissions are very publicly looking into the affair. There are societal checks and balances kicking in.

On the other hand, Japan has no anti-racial-discrimination laws, and government followups of issues raised (such as by the Ministry of Justice's Jinken Yougobu, or Bureau of Human Rights) are cursory at best, and officials are not required to make public reports (or even answer those who file the issue, as happened with the Aomori Jinken Yougobu over the Misawa Exclusions Case, March-April 2002).

Related pages:
http://www.debito.org/otarulawsuit.html
http://www.debito.org/misawaexclusions.html

Arudou Debito
One Community Coordinator
http://www.debito.org/TheCommunity

[shintemaster]

I guess I'm obliged to say something about this one, seeings as it'shappening literally in my back yard.
The incident cited in the newspaper happened not so far from my place and in an area where I've been know to paint the town red...
It's definitely good to see people jumping on innapropriate behaviour by businesses so quickly. I'm sure there are incidents of suspect racial behaviour that happen here, but the difference between this situation and the same one occuring in Japan is, I think obvious to see. Can anyone imagine the Japanese media/government/general population actually being upset about a similar thing happening in Japan? Seems unlikely from experience...

Something that WE need to constantly work on in Japan as people with a vested interest...(i.e. we like the place;)

Thanks to GWT for the info

GWT-Great White Troublemaker!
()