Complaints that Japanese hotels are treating quake victims from Fukushima prefecture as radioactive lepers and refusing them board have surfaced.
Japan’s ministry of health reports receiving a number of complaints from people forced from their homes in Fukushima prefecture, saying they were refused rooms at hotels and inns, apparently on the grounds that they came from the same prefecture as the crippled nuclear reactors and must therefore be considered dangerous.
The ministry is instructing local governments to tell their hoteliers that they should not refuse lodgings to people just because they have visited Fukushima prefecture, pointing out that the radiation levels involved are tiny and pose no risk to human health.
Such discrimination may be illegal under Japanese law, which only allows hotels refusals based on infectious diseases, suspicion of criminality and, of course, lack of room.
However, in practice hotels and landlords happily discriminate against potential patrons with no real legal repercussion, and for those affected is exceptionally difficult to demonstrate mysteriously disappearing vacancies are the result of such practices.
Further complicating matters is the fact that after the quake one large hotel chain has actually begun forcing those who wish to stay in its premises into signing a contract saying they will not sue the hotel for any reason, despite such provisions themselves being illegal.
There are now concerns that Japan may start seeing widespread discrimination against those from Fukushima prefecture, with some evacuation centres now insisting refugees submit to radiation screenings.
Discrimination against Japanese overseas also seems another unpleasant possibility – a number of nations have apparently been subjecting people leaving Japan to radiation tests with the intent of refusing them entry if sufficient radiation is detected.
The case has particular resonance in Japan – “hibakusha,” survivors of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have at times been the subject of discrimination due to the hysterical superstitions the public frequently attaches to radiation.
Online, the reaction has largely been one of disgust, but with the public unable to comprehend the notion that minuscule amounts of radiation are harmless, it does not seem likely the hardships of quake victims will be end with recovery from the earthquake itself.
If they were irradiated to the point where they could contaminate others, wouldn’t they be struggling to walk and be extremely sick? You know those hotels are full of s♥♥t.
Too bad it isn’t against the law to refuse a gaijin to stay at your hotel…..
Now they know what it is like.
The sad thing is they will still justify treating foreigners this way because they assume that if they aren’t Japanese they are barbaric or violent or criminal or unclean. And foreigners rarely win discrimination cases over there, even in cases that are EXTREMELY obvious discrimination or prejudice. It’s sad.
japanese hatin’ on japanese, the insanity…
If you want to read a very good book about this type of discrimination get a copy of “Black Rain” by Ibuse Masuji. It’s about a family of Hiroshima survivors and the difficulties they encounter in arranging a marriage for their neice several years after the war. Both humorous and heartbreaking.
Give them the Uncle Fester test. If they can light a light bulb in their mouth kick them out, if they can’t let them in.