This rather impressive (in a bad way) tale of incarceration (or should that be In Carceration, given the way the story is being spun) takes the sting off fully-documented cases from Amnesty by telling a story so full of holes that it quite frankly stinks. By the way, if you wish to indulge in full-blown character assassination, may I recommend this thread instead.
First off, one thing not clearly stated is his visa status, although given that he went to Seoul for three days, there is a smell of never-ending 3 month tourist visa renewals, yet he is working for Japanese national newspapers, which would be a violation of his visa status.
Oh, and if this does get reported by a reputable source, I will happily eat humble pie.
Now, let’s get to the bits that are more than a bit off:
In reality, "overstaying" means they were dedicating their lives to working for Japanese bosses or employing Japanese in their own businesses
What, all overstayers? Why, they should be getting the Order of the Chrysanthemum for their efforts!
That 2010 number — 18,578 individuals with names and families, often in Japan — is enough to fill about 100 jets flying out of Japan during the mass foreign exodus from aftershocks and radiation fears in March.
That number — 18,578 — is similar to the official death toll from the March 11 tsunami, which triggered a wave of international sympathy for the plight of Japan.
"The airline let me on, so there shouldn’t have been a problem."
Wrong.
The immigration officer at Narita, however, didn’t even look through my passport, where he would have found proper visas dating back years. While taking my fingerprints, he saw my name pop up on a list on his computer.
Every time I go through immigration they verify the passport and the stamps before taking the fingerprints.
denied landing rights
No, foreigners do not have landing rights.
The Immigration Bureau said it deported 33,192 foreigners in 2005.
Yeah, how dare the Immigration Bureau enforce the law!
It is the best place in the country to make someone — anyone — disappear.
At one moment he seemed like a drunk and deranged o-taku, with zero human relations skills. Another moment, he was laughing wildly, shaking my hand. Then he threatened me, with fearless eyes that reminded me of the death row convict I once interviewed in a Pennsylvania jail.
"But I do have proof," I said.
This is the crux of the story – proof of what? The author never tells us.
I tried to make a mobile phone call but there was no signal in the room. I wandered into other rooms, hoping for a signal that didn’t appear.
I thought he’d had his belongings confiscated? What’s he doing wandering from room to room during an interview?
The immigration officers called them "KBs"
He elsewhere claims to have good Japanese, yet here seems unaware of 警備員, or is just spinning a story.
Since I could understand their Japanese, they spoke to each other in a language I didn’t recognize: a dialect of North Korean, Mongolian, Manchurian perhaps?
Oh really?
Luckily, I spotted three police officers on patrol in the tunnel. "Onegai! Onegai!" I called out for help, waving my hands in the air like a drowning swimmer. They rushed over. Seeing a foreigner being led away by two men, they sensed something sinister — an abduction perhaps? — and called in another 10 officers.
Oh really?
I dropped the names of various Japanese politicians and public figures, until it occurred to me that these guards might not even be Japanese!
I had done work for NHK dating back to 1994, and knew all about their shadows behind the scenes.
They strip-searched him, feeling everywhere. "Oh, come on! Don’t put your finger in my ass!" he pleaded, but they did.
His knuckles were badly bruised and deformed, like he had been punching a tree, or a human being.
He told me to make a "very strong argument" against the racist officers, the Nazi translator, Asiana Airlines, and the whole decrepit process.
Maybe they had been let out of prison, on condition of working here.
The great writer, Dostoevsky, sentenced to death, standing outside in the freezing Siberian winter waiting to be executed by the firing squad. I though of Solzhenitsyn, finding the courage to write about his experiences in the Gulag Archipelago. I thought about the great political leaders, such as Gandhi and Aung San Suu Kyi.
Somebody new was in the jail’s common room to listen to my phone calls. She was a foreigner, like me. "Great," I thought. "She’ll help sort out this mess." She struck me as being from India, Pakistan or Afghanistan — all countries I’ve visited. She wore a blue blazer and a name tag. The strap said "US Department of Homeland Security."
What is a DHS officer doing in a Japanese detention facility? This would make a great movie.
But within minutes, a posse of police officers showed up. Armed, they stood tall and proud over the immigration officers and the sleazy airline KBs. They folded their arms and stared down the smaller men.
Oh really?
Here was the generational divide in Japan, in full force: the younger cops warming up to the foreigner speaking Japanese, and the older cop stereotyping him as a criminal. It was an anecdote loaded with symbolism, something to write in a story.
She had grey streaks in her black hair, dark freckled skin, and the tortured look of an ex-con. She showed no hint of any Japanese manners, and I wondered if she was from North Korea.
:lol:
My heart burst open like a seawall against a tsunami.
Wait a minute, when CJ came to Japan, and decided to spend so many years here and even learn the language twice
, so can we assume all that time he was NOT worried about quakes and tsunamis?
Or maybe he just didn’t know that earthquakes and tsunamis tend to happen a lot here?
Nope, not that either, he has bragged about being one the first on the scene at the Great Hanshin Quake in 1995.
So, his living in Japan with awareness of earthquakes and tsunami is bravery deserving of a Pulitzer.
Our doing so is stupidity. Is that it?
Oh, what a tangled web we weave..
“About 20,000 died, maybe more, because they weren’t properly warned or rescued from predictable tsunami.”
My god is this man just being deliberately ignorant? Does he have a number on how many people were SAVED by the tsunami warning system? Why the death toll was far less than 2004 Christmas tsunami?
Would also love to see his “Completely evacuate 3 prefectures’ coastal population in 30 minutes or less” plan.
But the most disturbing is he seems to think he is in a position to ridicule people with real jobs…
This guy is a phenomenon, he can’t complete a paragraph without coming up with another whopper.
Saturation fabrication
RE IDP.
This one year rule only applies to foreigners with residence in Japan. One cannot obtain a driver’s license in Japan without residence, usually Alien Registration Card.
We probed the issue for my spouse who has an official visa but no ARC. (Sort of a pseudo-diplomat.) Unfortunately, the answer was that she could somehow get a Jap license, but it would surely be a nightmare.
I feel bad about contributing to the onslaught, but this guy just won’t stop. He’s now doubling down on his claim that the immigration guard had a firearm: http://www.debito.org/?p=9868#comment-307928
As a lawyer (New York-licensed only, admittedly), the first thing I homed in on here is the ambiguity of the word “weapon.” Does the usage include firearms in this case? The English translation of the law is not helpful, but the original Japanese text of the statute does shed some light on the question.
So the original Japanese is buki — not very helpful. Additionally, Article 61 is the only Article in the statute which uses the word buki. All right, so are there any specific references to firearms in the statute? Yes, it turns out. Article 5 describes foreign nationals who may be denied entry to Japan. Among them:
Unsurprisingly, when the authors of the statute wanted to make specific reference to firearms, they used the standard legal nomenclature (juuhou).
Without any further statutory clarification it’s clear that the word buki must simply refer to weapons that are not forbidden by the Act for Controlling the Possession of Firearms or Swords and Other Such Weapons: a nightstick, a telescoping baton, etc. Otherwise, we would have to interpret the text from the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act to include all weapons. This would amount to blanket permission for a standard immigration security guard to literally carry a bazooka with him at all times while on the job.
It’s possible that there is some other statutory or regulatory authority that allows immigration security personnel to carry guns. I’m not a Japanese lawyer and I haven’t studied this area of Japanese law. However, the law Chris Johnson cites does no such thing.
@FLR
Whoops, my mistake. Btw, if it’s helpful to others, I found the official Tokyo Metropolitan Police Dept. official stance on the matter:
http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/foreign/kokusai_m/pdf/koku1eng.pdf
I stand corrected on this. I’ve done some more research and it appears that immigration guards are allowed to possess firearms. Interesting!
It comes up in this discussion, among others: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%8B%B3%E9%8A%83#.E6.8B.B3.E9.8A.83.E3.81.AE.E6.89.80.E6.8C.81.E8.A6.8F.E5.88.B6
I have a hard time believing that the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act provides sufficient authority by itself. I wonder if additional regulations were issued by the government specifying the permitted weapons? Either way, it appears that this part of Mr. Johnson’s tale may be true.
I can believe without needing to see any proof that an immigration officer can carry a weapon.
However, the implication was that the civvie (and foreign) security guards were carrying, but looking at the current version of his tale, it is ambiguous as to who the person with the gun was. The Economist version, however, implies it was the KBs, though.
[edit] And earlier versions suggest that it was an Asiana employee who brought in the gunslinger.
Yes, that was yet another ignorant and offensive comment from Mr Johnson.
Chris Johnson is already asking people to do his homework for him on this issue in his twitter feed. If you truly feel bad about contributing to the onslaught, perhaps you should wait before publishing your research
But really, you should know that wikipedia is a site lacking credibility, some might call it a hate site. Chris can’t use it as a source.
I mean, I’m not going to be the one to point out that it is very likely that those regulations are relating to detention by immigration, not to the holding area for those denied entry. Surely he isn’t even in Japan at this stage, he is still a passenger in the charge of the airlines.
I had the same thought when I saw Johnson’s tweets about this – the original account had the airline security people with the guns. It was the guy negotiating the price of the ticket or the young acne-faced possibly Chinese man “in a blue uniform” that the airline guy was using to force him to buy a ticket. (The text is not really very clear).
But that isn’t the issue. Of course government law enforcement officials can carry guns! We disbelieve him because he claimed private security guards were carrying guns.
Well, here goes, another puzzle piece freely offered…
I think a likely answer is the uniform of the Immigration Officer differs from a Police uniform, and it confused him in his “delirious” state and dubious Japanese skills, so he assumed it was a private security guard, or “KB”.
And that’s a generous assumption. Maybe he just wanted to insert an evil corporation in the story. Isn’t that like, a requirement for 99% of Hollywood screenplays these days?
But it’s just a theory. And theories are hard to lock down when the “facts” change every day.
Anyway, you’re welcome CJ, please use that in your next version. But at some point I’m gonna have to start asking for a share of any earnings from the final version.
Oh, I must have missed that wrinkle; I didn’t realize that he was claiming that the gun-carrier was a private security guard. Even the Wikipedia page I linked to above specifies that an immigration guard must be an employee of the Ministry of Justice in order to be authorized to carry a firearm. Sorry, Chris.
A 入国警備官 (referring to your Wikipedia link), which can in theory possess firearms, is not a private security guard, which is what CJ said. They work for the 法務省 (MoJ) and are considered to be 国家公務員 (public servants working for the government). They are not employed or report to NAS (Narita Airport Security) etc. or any other private firm. They have more in common with a police officer than they do with a private guard, being 公安職 just like the police, coast guard, and the imperial guard.
If you’ve seen them you know they wear these formal uniforms, similar to police uniforms, that clearly identify themselves as 入国管理局 and if they work in the field (outdoors such as shipping docks) their vests say “IMMIGRATION” in big English letters.
As a 入国警備官 must past strict exams administered by the MoJ in Japanese, it’s unlikely that somebody that wasn’t fluent to near native (Mongolian or Korean) would be able to pass these exams. Also, as a public servant job, being a Japanese citizen is a requirement.
Wait, now I’m confused, was the original claim of “gunpoint threat” (not actually pointing a gun, but the guy saying he can use it) from a cop, an immigration official, a private security guard or one of these Mongol mystery men with knuckles bruised from beating people up?
Yes, agreed. Please see my comment above. I forgot (or was confused from the start about) that detail of Chris’s ever-evolving story.
And because I’m kind of having fun looking at these laws, here’s the precise text where the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act actually specifies that all references to “入国警備官” refer to public servants and not to private security guards:
Yeah, even though most of my business and home life are conducted in Japanese, if I found myself in a situation like that I’d take the interpreter just for insurance.
There’s too much riding to risk accidentally incriminating myself because I though the immigration agent said “You’re not carrying drugs?” when in fact he said, “You’re not only carrying drugs?”
Let’s not start going in circles here.
It was not Immigration Officers who “extorted” money from him.
It was Private Guards working for a company, plain and simple.
The Immigration Officers simply “pressured” him to sign contracts.
The Private Guards “pressured” him to pay for room/board/ticket.
CJ has repeatedly shown he doesn’t understand the difference.
In CJ’s mind:
application equals approval,
denial of entry equals deportation, and private guard equals immigration officer.
A bit of a tangent, but seems it’s the season for self-entitled white folk to blame others when they miss a perfectly good opportunity to stay out of trouble. Must be the season…
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120124zg.html
In this one, he brought his kid along for the ride.
debito.org has called time on it…
http://www.debito.org/?p=9868#comment-308078
It will be interesting to see which print outlet goes with CJ’s story first.
Ah yes, I saw that one – I’ve been considering how to handle it.
I felt I didn’t believe the police’s “nothing happened”, but on the other hand Mr Macdonald seemed to be exaggerating.
But, the guy starts yelling at a cop car, and then wonders why the interaction doesn’t go swimmingly from there.
But, anger management issues and racist encounters seem to go hand in hand very often. Mr Johnson wanted to punch that North Korean granny, for instance.
OK, now Johnson’s turned up at the Economist. He’s said that
How long does it take to get a visa? Did he make these trips in the space of a few weeks?
Its not worth going over this guys mistakes point by point, but they start with his first assumption (that the lights were meant for him) and then just escalate from there.
I’m sure things were heated at the time (as they often are when you take an overtly aggressive approach toward dealing with the police), but now that things have cooled off, I would hope he takes a look at that article and is simply embarrassed with how they describe his behavior.
Anywhere from 2 days to several months. Its on the shorter end when you have a common situation, towards the longer when you have an uncommon situation or don’t have a solid case for renewal (either could be the situation for CJ). But as pointed out elsewhere, you are advised not to leave the country while its processing. Under the old rules leaving would effectively cancel your application, but it seems you can now go in and out if you notify immigration first.
Again, I’m very able to believe a J cop can be an ass from experience, and there’s tons of J youtube videos.
But I hate these thuggish Charisma Man Frat Boy types with their stories. You know the ones. They say stuff like “I just lightly tapped his shoulder to get his attention!”, which means “I punched him.”
“I asked him in a raised voice because…blah ..blah.. blah.” means “I screamed at him because I was angry and/or drunk.”
Not much different from the old “I just asked (a complete stranger) if I could just borrow 5 dollars.” means “I mugged him at gunpoint.”
(Real gunpoint.)
He basically admits to following and screaming (I had my helmet on so I had to shout! – uh huh) at a cop for no good reason (they had their lights on! it was dangerous! – WTF
), leaving his bike running just to be a jerk (Umm…because I had a low battery! – My ass), and using his kid as a pawn.
I guess we’re gonna have a new genre of story in the Anlgo-wannabe-crusader-sphere. Since stories of “racism” against shops are so easily debunked by any of us with a phone call or a visit, the new trend will be random (provoked) unhappy encounters with government officials.
The government official will rarely answer detailed questions about these aggressive jerks due to privacy and legal reasons. If you only want your own version of the story out there, that’s pretty convenient!
Maybe debito fans are jockeying to be the next debito, now that he’s gone. They want their own Otaru Onsen case. Expect more and more of these staged incidents throughout 2012.
Just hope they remember debito was (un)lucky enough to have had his run-in with someone so stupid as to admit being racist. Also, that onsen owner didn’t have the power to arrest or deport him.
Good luck debito-fans!
@SMF
“Under the old rules leaving would effectively cancel your application, but it seems you can now go in and out if you notify immigration first.”
I’m curious about where you heard about these new, relaxed, rules? Personal experience, a friend’s personal experience? I sure hope you didn’t simply hear about it from CJ.
Here is CJ’s most recent quote, he says:
“I had work visas dating back to 1989, and documents from the immigration department regional office in Tokyo in 2011 that acknowledged they were processing my application to renew my visa to continue working legally in Japan as a freelance journalist.”
[The sentence above absolutely means that CJ did NOT have a work-visa-to-work-as-a-journalist when he tried to enter Narita from Korea recently, only an application and a hope-for-the-future. The sentence above probably is attempting to "imply-without saying-per-se" that he previously received a work-visa-to-work-as-a-journalist in 2008, but he doesn't say so per-se, which makes me think that he did NOT receive a work-visa-to-work-as-a-journalist in 2008, because if he did he would have bragged about it. So, in the sentence above, what CJ is really admitting-without-admitting-per-se is that he was working-as-a-journalist illegally (i.e. humanities visa) and at the end of 2011 he applied for a self-sponsored-work-visa-to-work-as-a-journalist, hoping against all odds that in the meantime no immigration officers at the border would ask him, "Exactly what work were you doing in Japan up until now on your previous, now-expired, humanities visa?"]
“Under new regulations, I was allowed to keep my passport during this time.”
[What is this bullsh*t? Of course you were allowed to keep your passport while waiting for approval/denial of your visa application. What are these bullshit "new, 'keep your passport' regulations" of which you speak?]
“Immigration officers in Tokyo kindly told me several times I could leave and return to Japan during this process, thanks to new procedures.”
[See, this is where I'm hoping SMF or anyone else here might have some real info to share with us about this. Hopefully SMF can tell us if this one sentence above might be true. Still, even if it is true, even if there are some new relaxed rules giving "legal" folks the ability to re-enter during application-consideration, that doesn't necessarily apply to "illegal" folks. Meaning, as explained above, if the immigration officer at the border chooses to ask the magic question, "So, this stamp here says you have turned in an application for a real work visa, that's nice, good luck with that, but tell me, since you are bragging to me about being a journalist in Japan, were you working as a journalist in Japan on this old-expired-humanities-visa I see here?" Yes? Then IN THAT CASE: you WON'T be allowed back in, understand CJ?]
“I had no problem returning to Japan, on this same basis, from trips to Canada and Germany in 2011.”
[Perhaps you got lucky a few times. Then reality hit.]
“In 2007, a new law went into affect, which “requires the submission of personal identification information at immigration control,” according to an Immigration Bureau press release.”
[Bingo. Now where getting somewhere. So if the above sentence is true, then before 2007 immigration officers at the border merely asked for passports, but after 2007 immigration officers gained the ability to check out alien registration cards. That's a factor that threw a monkey wrench in CJ's plans. CJ is surprised and pissed about the fact that the immigration officer asked/demanded to see his "gaijin card", which probably mentioned his brief stint at NHK, and thus the questioning about working-as-a-journalist while on a humanities-visa began.]
x where
o we’re
@John
I was of the impression that old rules (that leaving during the processing period cancels your application) still applied, but James over at japanprobe mentions in his latest post how you can leave, but at high risk of not being let back in:
http://www.japanprobe.com/2012/01/23/christopher-johnson-discloses-visa-information-work-visa-application-paperwork-but-no-approval/
But man, I must admit that I’m getting overwhelmed trying to follow the narrative on so many sites.
Ironically the “most prestigious” site running the story (the economist blog) has the worst coverage, and their comments section has devolved into racist drivel and sockpuppeting. I can’t even read it anymore.
And the site that usually pushes this kind of story (debito) has dropped it. I’m guessing the moderating was getting to be too much, and CJ’s ever changing story and the poor impulse control of his web presence is making his argument more and more unsupportable… even for debito… which is saying a lot. CJ must definitely have the stink on if debito is distancing himself from him.
John,
Nice breakdown. I’d have touched on the same issues.
And we again encounter the main problem.. he merely implies he had a valid visa. (also semi-implies he has had valid visas all along since 1989) Applied for one in 2011? What month? It should have been December, November at the earliest if he were legally renewing and still hadn’t gotten the new visa yet. And if it were, he surely would have said so. Yet he doesn’t say.
And we get back to the ARC issue. If he was legal, he would surely have a “gaijin card” which would have caused and/or prevented problems (depending on his status..I’ll lean toward caused) as he entered-exited Japan.
He has nothing to say about his gaijin card, which he SHOULD have had and presented at imigration, unless he was pretending to be a tourist.
Again, I have to speculate that his recent explanations are not entirely true, and he exited Japan pretending to be a tourist, didn’t show his ARC, so the officer didn’t bother checking if he could legally return. Then he tried to re-enter as a tourist. It didn’t work.
The Economist site will have more racist drivel because it has more people for whom Japan is not a real place because they do not live here, nor will they ever visit. I suspect half the racist comments are from people who would be mortified if they understood how they come across.
I’m fascinated by the people who live here for whom Japan is not a real place.
Thanks for replying SMF.
So, except for CJ’s claim simply being re-posted over at Japanprobe, NO-ONE has actually heard of or experienced these magical “new regulations”, which “immigration officers within japan” supposedly told CJ about, which “allow one to enter japan with a recently-expired-visa by simply waving around an APPLICATION-RECEIVED stamp.”
In CJ’s mind, that APPLICATION-RECEIVED stamp is “proof” of being “legal” and guarantees he “should have been let into Japan”, even if his previous visa has expired, even if he didn’t acquire a re-entry permit when he left japan, even if his application was coincidentally processed and denied while he was in Korea, and even if his alien registration card upon presentation to the narita immigration officials made it painfully clear that he was illegal*.
* = A) he was not a tourist yet he was trying to enter on a tourist visa
and B) he was not holding a valid work visa allowing him to enter japan, and
and C) his previous humanities visa allowed “English teaching work” but not “Journalism work”, and yet, the back of CJ’s alien registration card mentioned being employed by NHK once-upon-a-time.
(Let’s remember, according to CJ, the immigration officers especially wanted to know what he was doing in May of 2010, that’s a big clue right there about what they were mad about.)
CJ wrote: “But the Special Inquiry Officer pulled the oldest cop aside to another room. He probably told them all about my ‘crimes and misdemeanors’. The gruff old cop came back into the room and scolded me like a criminal. ‘You have to exit the country immediately. This is Japan. A rule is a rule. You must obey.’”
Hmmmm, I wonder exactly what the Special Inquiry Immigration Officer told the old Police Officer about CJ’s crimes and misdemeanors.
Obviously, when told the full truth, that old Police Officer quickly realized CJ was indeed a criminal and immediately treated him like one.
So folks, you’ve read all of the evidence presented: any educated guesses as to what the Immigration Officer said to the old Police Officer about CJ?
Everybody gets one point for all the (mostly deleted) instances on twitter and previous versions of his tale where he uses the words “at gunpoint” or variations of it.
Here’s point number 1:
This guy has changed his story so much to avoid having his lies exposed that he can’t remember all the places where he’s contradicted himself. Perhaps that’s why he’s added this disclaimer:
This comment is where Debito cuts him off, because it probably set off alarm bells — even at debito.org — when he finally contradicted his most scandalous claim.
I think it’s clear he chose the term “at gunpoint” deliberately to inject drama into the story.
Obviously most non-critical readers will interpret it as he intended, as if a gun were pointed at him. Exciting!
Yet the online dictionary can be interpreted to mean the gun does not actually have to be drawn and pointed at you.
gun·point (gnpoint)
n.
The point of a gun.
Idiom:
at gunpoint
Under or as if under the threat of being shot.
I’ve actually heard the “at gunpoint”, but with no gun pointing involved, argument in a different context in politics. Basically we ALL obey even the most trivial laws because we are “at gunpoint”. Under nearly all legal systems, even the “enlightened” ones without the death penalty, there is the threat of violent death by gun (oddly, those cultures that still use swords and such for the job are viewed as “barbaric”).
You jaywalk, hop on a train without paying, or get charged with “hate speech” as a crime, whatever. The cops come to arrest you. You try to just go home? You go to jail. You try to climb the wall and leave the jail? They shoot you (even in a country without the death penalty). Thus, in the end, all law is enforced with the ultimate threat of violent death, or “at gunpoint”. And in our current state of evolved monkey-hood, it is a necessary condition for an orderly society.
So the conclusion is, I can say I paid my train fare “at gunpoint” this morning.
@John
James says that he could travel while his extension was processing, but it was at his own peril. Its better explained on his site, so I’d go over to japanprobe for a more in depth reasoning.
Funny thing is, James and CJ both have similar info and start with equal credibility. But CJ loses all credibility (in my eyes) due to his approach. I’ve read his past work and he shouldn’t call himself a journalist. The heavy slant of his reporting is more activism than journalism. Maybe he can get a job with Seashepard.
BTW, I totally agree with your assessment of the situation. That is exactly what I was thinking since I read the first account.
@Vk
My thoughts exactly. Its a perfect example of a comments section devolving into red herrings and ad hominem attacks.
SMF, a little clarification.
I there aren’t any “old rules, new rules” being implemented here at all.
I think CJ has simply misled you.
You have been led to believe, as you posted “Under the old rules leaving would effectively cancel your application, but it seems you can now go in and out if you notify immigration first.”
I think you have been led to believe that “there were some ‘old rules’ which said that leaving Japan while one’s application was being processed would effectively cancel the application, but now there seems to be ‘new rules’ which allow you to go in and out as long as you ‘notify’ immigration first.”
Which makes one wonder, would these hypothetical “new rules” mean which of the following:
A) “Under the ‘old rules’, leaving Japan while your application was under consideration would cancel your application: under the ‘new rules’ leaving doesn’t cancel your application. But if you want to RETURN to Japan using that old visa you NEED to have some time left on that old valid visa, of course.”
or
B) “Under the ‘old rules’, leaving Japan while your application was under consideration would cancel your application: under the ‘new rules’ leaving doesn’t cancel your application. And if you want to RETURN to Japan using that old visa you do NOT need to have any time left on that old visa, simply having an application stamp will over-rule the fact that your old visa has expired, and you’ll allowed to return WITHOUT a valid visa: all you need is the application-received stamp.”
Big difference between those two possible sets of hypothetical “new rules”.
But most importantly SMF, I’m concerned about the fact that the source of this new-found belief in “the existence of new rules”, which possibly now could be spreading to others’ minds, has been born not from personal experience or a friend’s experience.
Your 2 replies to me imply that your belief in “the existence of new rules” has been born from something James at Japanprobe wrote, but I’ve read what he wrote and I’m not seeing him believing in any new rules. Let’s look at what he wrote:
“Paperwork stating that the government had received an application does not grant permission to enter the country.”
“I have been in similar situation. I applied for a visa renewal but during the month that it took to process the paperwork, my previous visa expired. I was told that I could remain in the country until I received the results of the renewal application. The validity of the re-entry permit in my passport was tied to the date of the previous visa. So if I left the country during that week of “limbo” between visas, there was a high risk that I might not be allowed back in. I was also not supposed to engage in work during the period between visas. If Johnson’s case was the same, it is baffling that he left the country before the new visa had been approved.”
So again, with the exception of CJ’s claim about “new regulations allowing me to keep my passport” (?) I’m not seeing any “new rules” here at all.
Please correct me if I’m wrong folks, has anyone here heard about any “new rules”, and if so, what are the “new rules”, and where did you hear about them from?
x I there
o I think there
x you’ll allowed
o you’ll be allowed
Long post, but CJ’s new claims lead to a new theory (which basically is the original theory)
Even if we take CJ’s claims about new regulations at face value.. we still can only speculate what happened because he refuses to answer the basic questions.
Maybe he really did have the stamp in his passport (after we let him know that’s how it works).
Maybe his visa was even still valid when he left. Maybe…
Maybe you CAN leave on an expired visa and reenter if you have applied for a renewal before the expiration and the application is still being processed..but under the condition that the application end up approved.
Basically, you might be able to leave and come back during the application if you have filed an application with a near-100% expectation of being approved. (i.e. you are sponsored by a company and have no history of visa violations or other crimes, which brings out the point John mentions below as to CJ’S claim of the officials discussing his “crimes and misdemeanors”.. does he have some sort of criminal record?)
But if this “leave and come back during application” policy is true, it surely leads to a huge issue. What do you do if someone comes back and the application is denied? Imagine 1 day after getting back to Japan. Do you deport them? What if the application is rejected while they are away? Do you stop them at the border and… send.. them.. home?
bingo?
It’s not a workable policy. But still, bureaucrats are famous for coming up with unworkable policies.
Well, as far as we can make out, he had no employer to sponsor a new visa, no “business plan” to self-sponsor aside from freelance journalism? and a history of working outside his visa status. I don’t see how his application would have been approved anyway.
I’m pretty sure the major route to visa self-sponsorship by starting a business requires you to employ at least 2 Japanese citizens at your company. Are there routes to self-sponsorship if you’re just rich or something?
Who knows, maybe the application was processed and denied before he got back?
Maybe that red flag in the system that got him special treatment, rather than a simple “Visa EXPIRED” was a big “Application for renewal DENIED”?
Heck, maybe his renewal was denied BEFORE he left and he’s just not telling us. Maybe, that’s why he is reluctant to tell us any more than he did the application “in 2011″..maybe he KNEW his application was rejected.. and this whole trip was an attempt by him to “renew” as a tourist on a 90-day waiver, leaving at the last possible day on his still valid visa, and his whole story about needing to go to Korea for the Kim Jong Il death is all a cover story for…
a plain-old Korean visa run?
“In 2007, a new law went into affect, which “requires the submission of personal identification information at immigration control,” according to an Immigration Bureau press release.”
is just Chris Johnson not reading beyond the headlines, so to speak. What happened in 2007? The fingerprinting and photographing (i.e. personal identification information) at entry. http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/keiziban/happyou/pdf/poster-english.pdf
But no, Chris Johnson has to suggest that there is now a secret dossier on him and on all of us, available to Taro at the Immigration gates.
I am still not sure if this is an oversight by Chris Johnson or a deliberate obfuscation to suggest to the casual reader nefarious designs behind the scenes. Similar to the whole “call the keibi ‘KB’ issue.”
@John
Let me clarify before this runaway train jumps the tracks. Or worse yet, whatever misinformation that is here gets picked up and quoted.
Old and new were a poor choice of words, and stem from my admittedly dated experiences with changing SOR in the past. I recall being told that I couldn’t leave the country until my passport was processed or the application would have to be resubmitted.
Accounts on the blogs led me to believe that you could go in and out while your application is being processed if your current visa is still in effect. I’m having trouble finding credible support for this anymore, so its pure speculation. Sorry for the confusion with that, if only I could delete that from the internet
@SMF No prob, thanks for that extra clarification!
CJ claimed “new regulations”, in another effort to give the wrong impression, and we almost took the bait.
Glad we nipped this in the bud, because yes, otherwise, if we hadn’t pulled this weed out roots-and-all months and years from now people could have started mistakenly writing about and propagating belief systems about “new, relaxed, application-receipt safety-zone rules” that in fact only ever existed in CJ’s mind.
I realise this is at the point of beating a dead horse (in the course of deporting it), but it’s interesting that in his 3/11 interview with CTV he said:
But today, in his Twitter stream, @cjinasia says:
What a total fraud. People making decisions based on his kind of reporting will have lost far more money than he *allegedly* paid to Asiana. Students of Japanese abandoned their studies abroad. People abandoned job offers. Most importantly, people were scared to volunteer up North because of the bullshit it out by Chris Johnson. And now it’s clear he was wilfully making it up to get his own precious little face on TV.
No sympathy for anything that’s happened to him. Sometimes the bad luck happens to the right people.
Thanks for that explanation.
Maybe it’s my American background and upbringing, which has seen firearms not just on law enforcement and military but on civilians too, causing me to get prickly with the distinction, but to me there’s a very big difference between a gun in its holster and a gun that’s in a position that’s literally a half to a centimeter pull of an nervous trigger finger away from possibly ending your life.
A gun in the holster? That merely makes me pay attention. A gun pointing at me? That makes my heart race, my brow sweat, and my adrenaline pump; it makes me fear for my life.
I suspect other professional journalists (based on a quick search of the word “gunpoint” in online news), who are used to reporting on wars and gun crimes, do not use the term “gunpoint” metaphorically. I’m sure the legal world also avoids the metaphor.
“At gunpoint,” used as a hyperbole, is more appropriately used in a work of fiction.
James, at Japan Probe, is giving him the benefit of the doubt by suggesting his interview comment related only to his foreign friends, though that too is an interesting distinction…
That is awful. At the time of the earthquake/tsunami, one of my responsibilities was helping a bunch of ALTs, and the pressure that they came under from relatives caused them an enormous amount of stress and discomfort. My wife had to help translate emails for a friend of hers who is married to a foreigner but who doesn’t have great English. Again, the pressure this girl came under caused actual, serious problems – and of course my wife and I spent a lot of time and effort trying to help all these people to deal with the additional problems that this sort of pressure caused,. And this guy actually put his own partner under that sort of stress? And contributed to the disproportionate, hysterical reporting that panicked all those friends and relatives overseas? What a swell guy.
So back then he was proud to have been “the courageous last person to leave the sinking ship.”
But now he is proud to have been “the intelligent first person to leave the sinking ship.”
Sure is ironic that this “sinking ship” still has FAR LOWER average background radiation level than the rest of the world!
http://microsievert.net/
Tokyo Average Background Radiation Level
mrem/y = 49
mSv/y = 0.491
µSv/h = 0.056
U.S.A. Average Background Radiation Level
mrem/y = 300
mSv/y = 3.0
µSv/h = 0.34
World Average Background Radiation Level
mrem/y = 237
mSv/y = 2.37
µSv/h = 0.27
Australia Average Background Radiation Level
mrem/y = 150
mSv/y = 1.5
µSv/h = 0.17
https://encrypted.google.com/webhp?hl=en#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=webhp&source=hp&q=site:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fhealth-12722435+%22Typical+background+radiation+experienced+by+everyone+%28average+1.5+mSv+in+Australia%2C+3+mSv+in+North+America%29%22&pbx=1&oq=site:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fhealth-12722435+%22Typical+background+radiation+experienced+by+everyone+%28average+1.5+mSv+in+Australia%2C+3+mSv+in+North+America%29%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=205381l217649l1l218339l2l0l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=93e99e4fe72c1ebf&biw=1280&bih=818
The real question that needs to be asked is: why are NON-Japanese countries so damn radioactive?
Meanwhile, until that mystery is solved, if you want to avoid cancer: check the readings and come to Tokyo where it’s safer!
The thing is, he’s not talking about “friends”, he’s talking about “people I know”. He doesn’t say anything about foreigners, and indeed, mentions people with children and Japanese mothers as if the latter count as part of the former.
Look at it this way. Either he doesn’t, when push comes to shove, consider Japanese to be people (or that he thinks Canadians don’t consider them people) or he was consciously lying. The thing is, he’s supposed to be so integrated and in love with Japan and the people. He said very clearly on the Economist blog that he’s not racist.
That tweet has really pissed me off.
However, CJ did claim that having a gun pointed to his head has “happened to [him] in Yugoslavia and other places”, so I expected him to be a little more literal when it comes to his usage of that phrase, seeing that he’s experienced The Real Trauma.
Taurus, I had the same experience. I spent a long time persuading someone that her friend’s son was going to be safe volunteering (he was travelling from the UK). I spend ages putting together package after package of all the genuine expert opinion that the attention seeking panic-mongerers like Johnson were pushing to the corners of newspapers and websites, helping people persuade their teachers to come back from spring vacation. Overseas students at my university were forced by their home universities to repatriate; students the year below them lost their chance to study Japanese abroad, probably forcing a few life/career changes.
I had felt sorry for him as a private individual for being excluded, but not now. Good riddance. I hope he’s not let back in.