The case of the #Free Agnes movement in Japan offers interesting insights into how support for a Hong Kong pro-democracy icon is expressed in a reticent society. It may not be enough, though, to loosen Japan’s tight rules for refugees.
“Japan is the world’s fifth-largest donor to the U.N. Refugee Agency, yet it accepts less than 1% percent of asylum-seekers,” reports The Japan Times. “This staggeringly low acceptance rate has earned it a reputation for turning away refugees.”
On August 10, 2020, Hong Kong police arrested several pro-democracy activists including Agnes Chow, 24, on charges of violating China’s controversial new national security law. Chow’s arrest was protested by many Japanese citizens.
Agnes Chow has a huge social media following in Japan, where she has been hailed “the goddess of democracy.”
The Japan Parliamentary Alliance on China, composed of both ruling and opposition Diet Lawmakers, issued a press release to oppose the arrest. The hashtag “#FreeAgnes” became the top Twitter trend for Japan. People held handmade placards with the hashtag and took to the streets of major cities Tokyo, Sapporo, and Osaka for two days.
Student strikes
For the Japanese, such an open expression of political views has not happened in half a century. In 1968, a wave of student protests known as Zenkyoto (All Campus Joint Struggle League) spread rapidly to campuses across Japan, “paralyzing universities with student strikes at an unprecedented scale,” noted The Japan Times.
This led the Japanese public security police to establish a system to control such protests. For example, under Article 205, 208, Code of Criminal Procedure, the police can detain people arrested during a protest for 23 days if they remained silent during the investigation.
During the detention, the police interrogate suspects even without the presence of their lawyers. According to Article 39 of the same Code, the lawyers can only meet clients before or after—not during—the interrogation. (In the cases related to protests, as this writer wrote in a doctoral dissertation for which he interviewed Japanese activists, the public security police usually interrogate the activists about their national identity, political beliefs, and social relationships.)
Furthermore, the police raid the places that the protesters frequent—including their offices, apartments, and universities—for more “public security intelligence.” These raids may result in the protesters being dismissed from the school, company, and local community.
In 2015, Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs), a student movement, organized nationwide protests against the Right of Collective Self-defense Acts. The students criticized the new acts as violating Article 9 of the constitution of Japan which outlawed war or maintain armed force. However, the students failed to stop the legislation.
The actions of Japan’s public security police had a chilling effect on SEALDs members. In 2018, during a forum in Hong Kong, Aki Okuda, a former core member of SEALDs, said, “I told Agnes Chow, ‘It would be game over for the SEALDs if I got arrested.” The HK activist replied, “I have been arrested twice. The movement is still alive.”
An “otaku” activist
At first, the Japanese viewed Agnes Chow as the counterpart of SEALDs in Hong Kong. As time passed, she has become more popular than the Japanese student group. Chow speaks fluent Japanese in interviews and speeches and is very active on Twitter and YouTube. For every post or film, she writes in or speaks Japanese or attaches Japanese subtitles. She calls herself “otaku”—a term which refers to a fan of Japanese manga, anime, and J-pop—and combines political messages with Japanese pop culture.
These efforts have won Chow support from different sectors. The liberals back her for her pro-democracy and human rights values. The conservatives support her for her views against China and the identity of the Western Bloc. The apolitical masses like her for being “an otaku who loves Japan just like us.”
The Japanese have found a way to stage #FreeAgnes protests without incurring the ire of the authorities. The public security police strictly regulate the time, place, and manner of protests. They are allowed to take place only in a small area of the sidewalk. This led organizers to seek permission for the protest and so that they could gather only in small groups of tens or hundreds of people.
One of the protesters said, “All the public security police want is intelligence, which means that we need to tell them who, when, and how the protest will take place.” They also need to stay in the designated area.
Compared to the limited street protests, Twitter provides a wider arena for protest. It is one of the most popular social media in Japan, with 45 million Japanese users in 2017. The Japanese love Twitter for its anonymity. For them, posting a hashtag expressing a political view is a radical action.
The Japanese support Chow because they think that the Hong Kong police should not arrest the young activist. But will they keep supporting her if she advocates for the Japanese government to give visas to the pro-democracy activists, as many Hong Kongers seem to expect?
The visa issue is quite difficult in Japan. The country’s poor record for refugees’ human rights also does not bode well for the Hong Kong activists. Japan’s government only recognized 44 refugee visas out of 10,375 applications in 2019. The refugee recognition rate is only 0.4%.
Last September, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted opinions on refugees’ detention. The working group stated that the Japanese government should stop detaining refugees and asylum seekers without reason, assessment, judicial approval, judicial review, and maximum detention period. In response, the government stated in October that the Working Group’s opinion is not legally binding and said, “We have confirmed that detention is being carried out properly under national law and believe that it is not arbitrary detention.”
In October, the Japan Association of Humanitarian Assistance for Hong Kongers was established. It is composed of Japanese scholars—such as Taisuke Miyauchi of Hokkaido University and Tomoko Ako of Tokyo University—and NGOs such as “Female Support Asyl,” which provides shelters for homeless women, and Sapporo Free School Yu, which holds courses on human rights for citizens. According to the group’s announcement, it seeks to build a supportive network for Hong Kong asylum seekers, including housing, job, and visa assistance in Japan. The group also mentioned in a press release that the support they will provide, “including the way of arriving Japan and the application of visa,” will obey” the constitution and law of Japan.” This means that despite the recognition of these restrictions faced by refugees in Japan, seeking asylum and equal rights is still based on the universal human rights protection of Japan’s constitution.
The establishment of the Japan Parliamentary Alliance on China and the Japan Association of Humanitarian Assistance for Hong Kongers mark a crucial achievement in the wellspring of support for Agnes Chow. But these groups cannot represent the Hong Kongers in Japan. For continued long-term advocacy, it’s necessary to have a Hong Kong lobby in Japan, especially since Chow won’t be able to leave Hong Kong any time soon.
Building a base in Japan
Even though Chow became popular in Japan, the pro-democracy activist did not establish any organization in the country. While some politicians have shown their sympathy for the activist and the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, providing asylum for the Hong Kongers still infringes on the refugee policy of the Japanese government. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the public security police will always be tolerant of the pro-Hong Kong movement in Japan. Without organizational advocacy, the chances are slim that Japanese citizens’ support for Chow will lead to specific changes in legislation and policy.
Chow’s fluency in Japanese has endeared her to many Japanese liberals, conservatives, and even apolitical citizens.
To realize pro-Hong Kong laws and policies in Japan, the Hong Kongers need to base their claim on Japan’s political and human rights agenda. The pro-democracy activists need continued communication and advocacy to the Japanese government and society. After all, the future of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists depends on how people, not only those in Hong Kong but also the people in Japan and the rest of the world, take human rights and democracy seriously. ●
Jen-Shuo Hsu is an assistant professor in the graduate school of law at the Hokkaido University in Japan.
In dire straits
By Asia Democracy Chronicles
Japan is a country that is known for turning away refugees. Consider its minuscule refugee acceptance rate, as shown in the table below.
Rejected applicants are immediately deported or indefinitely detained. The United Nations calls indefinite detention arbitrary detention, a notorious violation of international human rights law.
In 2019, the number of long-term detainees was at “a record high,” writes Kazue Takamura, a faculty lecturer at McGill’s Institute for the Study of International Development. As a share of the total number of detained migrants in Japan, long-term detainees comprised 50%: 679 out of 1,253 detainees were held more than six months in June 2019. Furthermore, the number of detainees who were held more than 18 months increased from 238 in July 2018 to 393 in June 2019.
