A man has committed suicide after police tried to pressure him into confessing to groping a drunk woman even after she withdrew her accusation, completely ignoring the beating the man received at the hands of the woman’s companions.
The incident began one night with a common enough occurrence – a 25-year-old man, an employee of Japan’s space agency JAXA, was accused by a drunk student of touching her abdomen on the platform at Shinjuku station.
Her two friends proceeded to attack him, pushing him down a flight of stairs and beating him. After this police arrived and promptly took him into custody as a suspected chikan, ignoring his pleas of innocence and his accusations of assault.
The man was finally released by police at 5:45AM the next morning, after signing a written promise to return for more grilling later.
Rather than heading home, he headed to Waseda station, familiar to him from his university commutes. At 6:40AM, he threw himself under an oncoming train. Services were delayed for 40 minutes, affecting some 24,000 people.
His mother was distraught at this course of events, regarding it as a grotesque miscarriage of justice:
“Police dropped the charges against him as he is dead. But my son would never have done such a thing in the first place.
His friends and teachers from university and his co-workers at JAXA all tearfully denied that he was capable of such a thing.
The police never even questioned his accusers, and they never told him the court had dropped charges.
In fact, the man had been wearing a recorder he used in his English studies, and much of his questioning and pleas of innocence were recorded, including him asking police “will my life be ruined by false charges like the people on the news?”
Even more damning were the circumstances surrounding his questioning, which was recorded completely and subsequently made public by the mother in her campaign for redress:
“The victim’s confirming all of this.”
“They’re saying you are the one who assaulted them.”
“Today is about the chikan case. If you want to bring charges for assault, do it yourself.”
As if this were not enough, the accuser is said to have actually withdrawn the charges, saying “I may have been mistaken,” but police did not tell him and instead continued trying to pressure him into confessing.
Technically he was not even arrested, instead having just been taken in for questioning.
The mother is said to be looking to bring a case against the police, but reports no lawyers are willing to take up the case, saying it is too difficult to sue the police.
Many claim Japan’s extremely high conviction rate is in significant part due to police interrogation techniques bordering on torture, resulting in confessions of questionable legitimacy.
Add to this fact chikan charges are more often than not based solely on testimony from victims in packed carriages, and it seems apparent a miscarriage of justice is underway on a grand scale on the nation’s trains, with often tragic consequences for those falsely accused.
This makes me want to travel to japan and show them what a real chikan truly is! I would be a serial groper who doesnt get caught.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA JAPANESE LOLOLOLOLOL RAEP
The zero tolerance approach to this is exactly what Japan needs. The only people who disagree are the men who want to be able to get away groping all they want.
kys faggot
“Many claim Japan’s extremely high conviction rate is in significant part due to police interrogation techniques bordering on torture, resulting in confessions of questionable legitimacy.”
“Though if he was foreign he would’ve been held for 20 days without contact with the outside world, which is completely legal in Japan…”
What kind of training do the police receive in Japan anyway? What kind of education does society get in Japan as well? This could be believed of especially violent underworld killers but not of ordinary citizens and much less police.
So much for the First World reputation Japan has. This only happens in 3rd World countries with uneducated or religious extremist citizens who believe in honour killings, or decaying developed ones like the USA who appear to have a system that breeds a culture of sadism in enforcement. I think the world expected more from this nation of supposed open-mindedness, tolerance and civility.
Nevermind that Japan has all that fabulous Harajuku sub-culture or most liberal Anime happening, or that we hear of it’s sex positive vibes and red light districts all the time. This makes a traveller want to give Japan (also USA) a miss in their travel itinerary just to punish them.
“Her two friends proceeded to attack him, pushing him down a flight of stairs and beating him.”
They could have bundled him off to the police station at most. Assaulting someone is ILLEGAL, pushing someone down stairs could have resulted in death. The police should have arrested and automatically charged the other 2 people for assault even while the groper himself also needed to be taken in but only questioned and only charged and then brought before a court to be determined if guilty.
A grope or two is results in a moment of embarrassment. Even a series of long hard rakes or a finger up you know where (don’t get any ideas guys) does little lasting harm that justifies someone being thrown down stairs. A cry for help would have alerted nearby passengers who could have mediated. In this case it could be the Chikan who needed to cry for help or needed protection and not the victim.
With this one incident involving the police as a barometer, we all know what to expect of the rest of the brittle state of law enforcement in this nation. An accused murderer could be shot dead on the spot then! Where is due process? Doing that sort of stuff also does not give the police a right to torture him.
A nation that with citizens that take the law into their own hands rather than turn over offenders to the police and courts, or that brutalizes it’s own citizens to the point of death deserves no respect. There appears to be much unpleasantness beneath all the purported open mindedness of Japan for this kind of thing to happen, where is the law when you need it?
The assaulters of this poor victim are still at large and unpunished are they not? Charge them already ! Sue the police as well and demand compensation for using torture on civilians for civilian offense to the point of causing psychological harm that resulted in the suicide of an as of yet not even proven guilty man. Who is going to take care of his old parents now? The assaulters? The police? Society owes exmeplary and aggravated damages to the poor parents, the anguish must be unimaginable . . .
You can’t demand the life of a man for a chikan case. Not even a r♥♥e case, maybe mass rapists like in the ‘r♥♥e of Asia’ by war criminal soldiers, but not this poor guy for a lousy grope!
If he really was guilty, a reasonable fine after a court conviction, a formal apology from the guy to the gropee and some counselling sessions would have been all he deserved. If he were all bad and unapologetic, a stint in jail at most ! But DON’T TORTURE HIM?!? Or throw him down stairs? Whats wrong with the Japanese? No amount of cultural events can offset or mast such propensity to barbarism by ordinary civilians and police.
So much for Japan’s justice system – damn 3rd world behaviour under a 1st world veneer, just like the USA who tasers grannies talking big with butter knives or targets harmless civilians for being of Latino descent . . .
What a horrible nation . . .
Inept Japanese police cowards.
Being drunk on the street is a crime where I live, I’m not sure how it is in Japan, but that would be enough to press charges against that student.
Excuse me while I go take a ride on of those trains, I will be right back.
make sure its packed