Letters to the Editor,
The Daily Yomiuri,
1-7-1 Otemachi,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8055
The November 7, 2009 report “Death sentences upheld for 2 ex-Aum members”quotes Supreme Court Justice Yukio Takeuchi accurately describing the infamous crimes of the former Aum Shinrikyo cult as “organized and premeditated acts of indiscriminate mass murder.” In other words, terrorism. Aum Shinrikyo, the Nippon Sekigun, the wartime Kempetei before it, and other groups in Japan that I can name, are evidence that the threat of terrorism in this land comes entirely from within. So when politicians go on television and are quoted in the press framing foreign immigration as a crime control issue, or when they and the media describe the government’s increasingly strict, intrusive and controlling immigration procedures and protocols as beneficial and even necessary security measures against international terrorism in this day and age they are talking about a state of affairs that is not entirely truthful and more than a little less than accurate. The only terrorists in Japan are Japanese terrorists, and accurately identifying Aum Shinrikyo as a terrorist organization would be as step in the right direction. But I could be wrong.