Japanese rightwinger to be jailed for Korea hate campaign

As with any country, we probably shouldn't look at the judicial system as a single entity, but it looks as if the Japanese courts are trying to redeem themselves for the in humane decision that a number of wartime workers had indeed been ripped off of their wages only to turn around and award them 99¢ (99 yen, to be specific).

What he's really pissed off about
is that the likes of Kim Taehee
would probably never give him
the time of day.

Here we see an anti-Korean activist get a year in prison for his disruptive campaign against Kim Taehee, whom he derided as undermining Japan's claim to Tokto (Takeshima in Japan, also spelled Dokdo in Korea).

From The Japan Times:

The Osaka District Court sentenced a nationalist to a year in prison Tuesday over a hate campaign against a pharmaceutical firm which had a South Korean actress as its public face.

Hitoshi Nishimura, 44, and three other men barged into the headquarters of Rohto Pharmaceutical in the city of Osaka in March and angrily demanded to know why the company was using Kim Tae Hee in its commercials, the court found.

Nishimura claimed Kim was an anti-Japanese activist who has been involved in a campaign asserting South Korea's sovereignty over Takeshima, the disputed islets in the Sea of Japan controlled by South Korea.

In footage of the confrontation posted on the Internet, Nishimura rails against company officials and claims to represent "angry Japanese throughout the country."

Nishimura will be imprisoned for one year for using threatening behavior, according to the ruling. The website of a rightwing group to which he is affiliated said he plans to appeal.

The article goes further about the general mood in Japan since the latest flare-up of the Tokto-Takeshima brouhaha:

Incidents of anti-Korean harassment by rightwingers reportedly rose after South Korean President Lee Myung Bak visited Takeshima in August.

Small but vocal campaigns have been organized against broadcasters that show South Korean dramas.

NHK's decision not to feature any South Korean singers during its "Kohaku" yearend music program is generally linked with the deteriorating bilateral ties, although the popularity of the K-Pop music, led by such groups as Girls' Generation and KARA, is still huge in Japan.

This is not the Tokto bee man but
some other bee man. Apparently
there are a lot of people who like
to cover themselves in bees. 

This case and the other information in the article underscore a point I've long made: While Korea bashers would have us believe that only Koreans care about the Tokto issue, the fact is there are plenty of Japanese who get their panties in a wad over the islets, and some if them are only a tad less crazed than Tokto Bee Man.

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