‘Sagamihara Massacre’ municipal government to introduce human rights ordinance with penalties including fines

Extract from The Mainichi

February 1 2023

SAGAMIHARA, Kanagawa — A municipal government deliberation council on Jan. 31 largely agreed on a draft report on a human rights ordinance, including proposals on penalties over hate speech.

The draft report compiled by the city’s human rights policy council will include two proposals on penalties on hate speech: one that imposes an administrative fine for malicious acts, and the other in which a criminal penalty or an administrative fine will be imposed for such acts. The council will later meet again to go over the details and propose the final report to the Sagamihara Municipal Government.

The Kawasaki Municipal Government in the same prefecture enacted the nation’s first anti-hate speech ordinance with criminal penalties in 2019, but according to the Sagamihara Municipal Government, there is no precedent in the country for a similar ordinance that includes administrative fines.

Regarding the ordinance, Sagamihara Mayor Kentaro Motomura consulted the council in November 2019. Since then, university professors and members of human rights groups continued discussions, but they struggled to reach a consensus. In October 2022, Motomura announced that he would abandon the idea of enacting the ordinance during fiscal 2022.

The draft report stipulates that unfair, discriminatory treatment on the basis of race, sexual orientation, disability, and other factors shall not be tolerated, and that the city will ban unfair, discriminatory words and deeds by means such as using loudspeakers or posting placards in public places.

The preamble to the draft report mentions the 2016 massacre at care home Tsukui Yamayuri En, where 45 people were killed or injured in the city, and states that it was a “hate crime based on unreasonable discriminatory thinking toward people with disabilities.” It also mentions the establishment of a “human rights commission,” a relief organization for victims.