U.N. rapporteur raps Japan’s law on fingerprinting foreigners

A special U.N. rapporteur on racism on Thursday criticized Japan’s new immigration legislation on fingerprinting and photographing all foreign visitors as a process of treating foreigners like criminals.

Doudou Diene, on his last day of a six-day visit to Japan to conduct a follow-up of his report on racism, said at a press conference in Tokyo the immigration bill that just passed the Diet on Wednesday “illustrates something I have been denouncing in my reports for four years. It is the fact that, especially since Sept 11, there has been a process of criminalization of foreigners” all over the world, he added.