A United Nations investigator will next week investigate alleged racism and discrimination against minority groups in Japan including ethnic Koreans and Chinese, according to a UN statement issued on Friday. Doudou Diene, UN special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia, will also look into discrimination against migrant workers, refugees and asylum seekers, said the statement by Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
During his July 3-12 visit at government invitation, he will go to Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo and the island of Hokkaido.
The statement said he would "investigate the situation of racism, racial discrimination xenophobia and related intolerance in the country, in particular in relation to a number of minority groups such as the Buraku, the Korean and Chinese communities and the Ainu indigenous people from Hokkaido".
Ethnic Koreans and Chinese, descendants of people forcibly brought over during Japan's colonisation of the Korean peninsula and Taiwan, are essentially Japanese but still face problems.
Burakumin are an invisible minority, racially and culturally indistinguishable from fellow Japanese, but for centuries have been targets of discrimination in jobs and marriage.
Ainu, indigenous to northern Japan, have different features from other Japanese and also face discrimination.
Diene, a Senegalese lawyer, will report back to the next annual session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in March.
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