Police have come under fire after it emerged they stopped a schoolboy for interrogation, as he was wearing a dark veil, and then asked him if he was a member of the Taliban, the former Islamist rulers of Afghanistan, adding insult to injury.
His veil was in fact due to being afflicted by porphyria, an illness rendering the skin highly susceptible to the sun.
The boy, an 18-year-old high school student, was riding home with a companion on a bicycle, when two vigilant policemen spotted him.
Immediately recognising the danger of him being up to no good, one of the policemen stopped them, barking “You with the funny clothes, stop!”
After this the sharp witted officer questioned him: “You a member of the Taliban?”, and then demanded he remove his funny veil. Satisfied that he was not in fact an Islamic terrorist, the pair were apparently allowed to be on their way.
The next day, the boy and his mother submitted complaints to the police station responsible, and received an apology; police brass then ordered a DVD explaining the illness distributed through the force, and directed that illness awareness be pursued to prevent future incidents involving potential Taliban.
Porphyria itself is a disorder which can result in hypersensitivity to sunlight, with skin swelling and being damaged by exposure.
A dermatology professor at Kobe university commented that “In order to restrict exposure to sunlight, we advise such coverings. Calling such a sufferer “Taliban” is pure ignorance, and is quite outrageous.”
The incident came to light when it was brought to the attention of the Tottori prefectural assembly, who sharply criticised police conduct. The police chief with whom the buck stopped apologised, saying “It was inappropriate.”
Via Yomiuri.
An example of the garb:
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Highly unlikely for the Taliban to walk around in broad daylight dressed so.
Well... just some cop being somewhat too enthusiastic at his job.
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/wp-content/gallery/cache/34514__448x_porphyria-veil.jpg
well, that's highly suspicious for me
Then you are an ignorant moron
Then when starts being suspicious for you? When he starts to ignite a stick of dynamite?
Someone who looks like that, just IS suspicious. Besides, if there were a criminal out there who wanted to hide his face, than he would probably doing cosplay with a mask. So whoever sees the guy on the picture knows, that he is suspicious and if criminal not very smart. But suspicous nevertheless.
he's a black mage!
That is so effed up. Screw the cops, got to feel sorry for him having that illness. Either he goes out of his house during daylight with everything covered out, go out at night or force to live as a hikikomori.
That has to suck one way or another...
Well, this isn't the right way to approach someone, regardless of what he's wearing, but the fact is that no one got hurt over it.
If it was in US, or SPECIALLY UK, the guy could end up shot. Several times even. Remember the guy that got shot in London subway who wasn't even a muslin?
I mean, compared to all overreactions on this side of the planet regarding supposed terrorist threats, this is a joke. :P
strange....reminds me of people confusing anime with cartoons..
which is for me a bit insulting saying that clannad after story is the same as tom and jerry...
Tom and Jerry was better.
Least he didn't get tased...
I believe the police officers had their hearts in the right place. That doesn't excuse their ignorant racism, though.
Taliban is a race? I tought it was just a synonym for being a terrorist from a specific country...
But in either case, asking someone if he is something hardly goes under racism. Especially when the questioned person looks like THAT. If I were the police officer I surely would have made a joke, like "excuse me, are you Darth Vader?" xD
He should have sneezed on the police officer and said sorry, "It's just Ebola"...
The third paragraph has a typo referring to the boy as a "her" instead of "him" at the end of the sentence.
Also, is it not typically the women that would wear a veil? Why would the police think that a male wearing one would be part of the taliban.
A secret ninja among the modern Japanese
Hmm... would they have stopped him and accused him of being a Taliban member if he was Yui in Taiyou no Uta?
That looks fucking awesome.
Personally, I fail to see how it even matters why the kid wore a veil. Would it really have made a difference if the kid was Islamic? Or even some other religion? Since when does a choice of religion imply guilt? Would the kid have been let go so easily if he wasn't sick and just wore it because he liked it? I don't think educating people about a disease does anything to address the underlying problem of viewing a whole religion as a member of a terrorist organization that probably doesn't exist anymore. To me, this is no different than Nazi's rounding up Jews, and Americans rounding up Asians.
Darth Vader in summer clothing XD
WTF.....stupid police
serious question: didn't Michael Jackson have a similar skin disease
HAHAHAHAHA... too funny for words... XD
the first time i saw that pics, the one i thought was Zorro.
sunabouzu?
The kids looks more like a goth/bee-keeper.
I think its strange. Everyone thinks the police is at fault, but look at the picture. This... thing, ... is looking suspicious. Maybe not taliban, but who cares. I would have stopped this.. thing, too. Looks suspicious and the job of a cop ist to look out for those who are suspicious.
Stopping the boy wasn't the problem, it's asking him 'You a member of the Taliban?' for wearing the veil. That's why it is seen ignorant. So the police are at fault. If they were to ask 'Why are you wearing that?' this probably wouldn't have made an article.
The fact they suspected Taliban straight away is wrong. Besides what happens if he was and had a bomb? Not the best question to ask 1st.
Police FAIL
This illness reminds me of a girl that had a skin allergy to water!
I just looked it up after you mentioned and that is very weird. That would suck unbelievable amounts of ass. Kinda makes pool parties a no-no.
Yeah.. and the shower. How would one bath?
She's asked that a lot, apparently.
The answer is really quite depressing. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-520329/The-teenage-girl-allergic-WATER.html]
Oh.My.God.
I swear, if I'm ever to swear again, I will include a curse to such a fate ...
same illness with Kaoru Amane in Jdrama Taiyo no Uta a.k.a. Song of the Sun :D
I think they call the disease "XP" in that series though
Or the superior feature-length movie version with YUI.
Terrorists are everywhere in Japan- those cops boss, the Justice minister, admits to being friends with them! Can't be too safe...!
Good thing it was a Japanese schoolgirl, a foreign-looking one would've been hauled off...
Calm down mister japanese police guy. The taliban ain't interested in japan.
Shit she must be hiding a bomb in her sailor uniform.
School girl? The source article clearly says school boy that was arrested.
Yeah thats what I thought. Its either that or I don't know how to read Japanese anymore.
Corrected - the gender is only actually mentioned once in the whole piece...
Just tell them it's cosplay.
Could have been worse...
The cop could have run her heart through with a stake while yelling "Die, vampire!!"
Die vampire, you dont belong in this world
What is a man? I miserable pile of secrets!
But enough talk... Have at you!
no kidding. with a hat like that...hellsing, black blood brother, or hunter d?
Don't stake me bro!
Taliban? In Japan? Either the Police are ignorant or they stereotypes gaijins too much.
I wish the japan police force wouldn't go to afghanistan or any arabe country. They would stop every women and ask : are you a taliban? LOL
But still, we are talking about only 2 cops who act too fats and didn't thought for a sec. I don't think all the police force is like that.
Who's to say that they really didn't know of this physical ailment? And how many Japanese are muslim? Perhaps they should have known something was odd about her covering her whole body though...
You're ignoring the centuries-long persecution of the Kirishitan population of Japan. Granted, it's a very tiny population, but religious persecution for or against any religion is wrong.
Let's not even mention how similar social policy leads to prejudice against burakumin (read: People unlucky enough to have descended from people who did dirty jobs that the other Japanese people didn't want to associate with. Such as shoemaking.)
There do exist proselytizers who honestly do believe that converting people to their faith is a good thing for the sake of those peoples' immortal souls, good fortune, and moral character.
Whether or not that's true is another thing entirely.
And I'm pretty sure it was actually merchants and traders who were more interested in exploitation of the populace. Being Christian had nothing to do with it. They could've been Buddhist for all anybody else cared. It was all about the money.
lol, why do I have to think about Al Bundy now..
Lol, as far as I know less than 1% of japanese are christians, but there are NO muslims. Japan is a great country. No fucked up religious people on the island in the far east. Even those 1% are only a result of christians invading japanese. But they were chased out and burnt, because the guys in charge were pretty smart, realizing, that the christians only wanted to exploit the country.
It's just Japan doing what America does: racial profiling.
taliban isn't a race you retard. neither is being completely covered in clothing. there are other types of profiling other than racial.
Not to say that Japan and America have a monopoly on racial prejudice. Or Europe. Or the Middle East. Or Latin America.
Let's just say that assuming Americans are somehow more bigoted than anybody else is to underestimate the ill will people you've never met can and do bear for their fellow human beings.
Outrageous~
definitely not outrageous, they just asked a guy with suspicious clothing some questions.... no need to freak out on them
Fucked up.
I think a real Taliban or terrorist, would be smart enough not to dress so conspicuously if they were on a 'mission'.
and i think talibans don't wear veil. the female muslims do, and they don't wear it with funny jew-like hats and skinny pants.
What if the taliban terrorst was cross-dressing a Jew? you never know
true, but in a way, i'm not angry at the police officer. they guy "WAS" doing his job. he just jumped the gun a little bit >_>
Doing his job by insulting people. That's a fine way of doing it. They could have asked about the meaning of the veil without acusing a person of terrorism. No one would take offense for the curiosity of a police officer who would be doing his job that way, not by insulting a person before the officer even understands the situation or the gravity of his own words.
what's an alternative, anyway?
The cop must have been a member of the Bush administration. They've been having a hard time finding work in the US.
You really think they'd let them anywhere near japan?
what about singh when they going to japan...
maybe they will arrest them to or at least questioning them are you a member of osama...
hilarious stuff...
i would have stopped that old guy on the left he looks out of place
If that happened in America, that's a lawsuit. It's pleasant to see that an apology and some educational classes for the cops can appease the victim. But making the victim provide the DVD is just being cheap...
I think you've misread something.
Ah, I saw, "...received an apology; police brass then ordered..." and thought that was part of a list related to what happened to the victims. That was due to the punctuation used. A period would have been more appropriate.
I am gratified to be recognised as a master of punctuation.
EDIT: I'm sorry. It was Artefact's doing.
Not enough people appreciate the black sheep of punctuation.
Semicolons are only used for series if the listed items in said series are punctuated within commas themselves (preventing the use of commas to, say, divide separate items in a list).
No, semicolons are actually closer to the full stop's curiously bent, rambling cousin. Hence why semicolons (";") appear to be a full stop over a comma--they're actually somewhere in between. If you have two sentences that actually rely quite a bit on each other for context then it's perfectly fine to bunch them together by way of semicolon.
And so two separate clauses were divided yet combined. Quen had the option to write them as individual sentences but decided not to; he is truly a MAN OF THE WRITING SEA.
"If you have two sentences that actually rely quite a bit on each other for context then it’s perfectly fine to bunch them together by way of semicolon."
That's exactly my point. Those two clauses lack equivalence to necessitate the use of a semicolon, i.e., they don't rely quite a bit on each other. It's use here is just to make a sentence needlessly verbose. That's why a period is MORE appropriate. "More" implies out of two choices: period or semicolon. I never stated the semicolon was improperly used.
I know that if he wanted, Artefact could use semicolons to link sentences in an article indefinitely and still be grammatically correct, but that doesn't mean the article would be written any better. Clear and concise writing is usually better.
And you are a successful writer where?
Don't listen to anon, Quen. Congrats on the PROPER use of a semi-colon. ^__^
ignorant officer >.>
Is the Taliban even AWARE that Japan is a country, give me a fucking break. Their sites are set on whitey, they don't give a damn about Asians, Africans, hell, ironically not even Aussies.
Actually, the Taliban is mostly concerned with trying to oppress their own people. Their sights are actually set on Afghans.
It's just that "whitey" happens to be in the way of their crosshairs, standing between them and their potential victims.
Not to say that they won't attempt to take out both at the same time. Suicide bombs tend not to discriminate between "whitey" and "muslim."
anyone know what the picture is from?
Ta.
the police might as well stop all people with dark or close to dark skin for they suspect them of being an American gangster. Same goes for anyone who wears a "FUCK YOU" T-Shirt out on the street.
*sighs* Just goes to show idiotic police are everywhere, Japan is no exception. A pure example of ignorance.
at least they doing their job... and apologize... and do something about it... unlike somewhere i belong to =_=
like hell this will happen...
officer: "You a member of the Taliban?"
Dark veil Wearing Schoolboy: "Duh!"
PROTIP: Talibans don't travel, because they ban fucking everything including picking your nose and making babies.
Yeah, just love the thinking of these police.
Taliban secretly infiltrate Japan only to wear beekeeper hats openly on streets. Something nefarious must be afoot.
Genius.
Awww fuck, this police-state shit is there too?
Goddammit Japan, stop mimicking America. Next you'll be tasering teenagers to death, and shooting unarmed, handcuffed civilians execution-style. ><
Don't forget making it's citizens just disappear...
Honestly, we've tried disappearing Dane Cook for a long time now.
He just won't stay disappeared.
Don't get me started on Paris Hilton.
Also: Tasering teenagers to death?
You mean like what happened to this jerk? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7Qef8oPmag]
The Today Show gave him a Phoenix Down [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b5eHcN-Bdc] and he tried to pretend that he wasn't trolling the entire auditorium.
In Other News!
There's a lot of countries where I'd be afraid of saying anything that might get me killed or jailed. (Hey, like what happened to more than a few of my relatives! Including my own grandfather. Funny, that. Communism is not happy fun time, people.)
America isn't one of those countries. Neither is Japan.
But damn if anybody listens to reason these days. It's just easier to pick on the countries that won't kill you for pointing out their wrongdoings.
Don't you people have any sense of perspective?
Wow. I see masked people on the street all the time. If the police stopped them cause they were middle eastern and wearing a mask we'd be getting a lot of complaints.
Some say ignorance is bliss...
You there in the funny clothes, stop!
Are you a member of that gang of outlaw beekeepers that robbed a bank and tried to assassinate Nicholas Cage?
Yes.
All I can say is lol. Not lol at the chick but the police. Just lol.