The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsInaction risks hate speech normalization in Japan
Both Southeast Asia and Japan are experiencing new forms of hate speech that are increasingly played out over social media platforms.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
B
oth Southeast Asia and Japan are experiencing new forms of hate speech that are increasingly played out over social media platforms. Updated measures in Southeast Asia to tackle new forms of hate must move away from the negative impact of old rules that threaten democracy. The Japanese government, for its part, must take effective measures against the normalization of hate.
Asia Centre, in its latest report, “Hate Speech in Southeast Asia: New Form, Old Rules”, discusses these and other related matters in this 40 page report released on July 22, 2020.
Hate speech has no universally accepted definition. The UN has noted that in all of its forms, hate speech characteristics comprise any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, “that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender or other identity factor."
Japan is no stranger to hate speech: UN human rights bodies have criticized Japanese government inaction in the face of virulent, racist hate demonstrations in minority neighborhoods of Tokyo and Osaka, calling for the mass expulsion, or even killing of ethnic Koreans and Chinese.
Apart from the historically race and religion based hate speech in Southeast Asia, newer forms of hate speech have emerged. These include hate speech directed at foreign nationals such as refugees and migrant workers; hate speech against the LGBTI community; and hate speech based on political affiliation, ideology and values.
In Southeast Asia, hate speech against foreign nationals, including refugees and migrant workers has recently spiked amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. In Japan, the pandemic has fed into a right wing, anti-Chinese narrative.
Hate speech against migrant workers and refugees has also started to emerge over recent years: in 2015, for example, a meme made by a right wing manga artist calling refugees cheats living the good life on other people’s money went viral. It’s notable that, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan closed its borders not only to foreign visitors, but foreign nationals who had lived and worked in Japan for years.
