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Getting arrested in Japan

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Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#91

Post by OneDeuxTriSeiGo »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #27

[flagged]

> The arrogance of American tourists is truly boundless. How dare Japanese people not speak English! Who do they think they are?

That's not the issue. At least in the US it is unconstitutional to bar inmates from speaking or communicating in non-English languages.

Likewise the US legal system is required to provide you an interpreter who can speak in a language you are proficient in.

Whether these rights are properly upheld in the US is another question but they are rights you are entitled to.

That's the main issue. These are rights that Americans are accustomed to and it's not always obvious to them when they leave the country that these rights aren't universal among developed countries.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#92

Post by sidewndr46 »

metacritic12 wrote: post #21
eowln wrote: post #3

[flagged]

"Accidentally taking someone's bike thinking it was your" How often does this actually happen in reality versus it being trotted out as a backstory after being caught?

If you've owned an older Ford truck, there was a time period when the keys on the doors were a separate key. The door key never had that much variety, it was pretty common in a large parking lot to be able to get in the wrong truck. You just couldn't start it. The only reason why it isn't so common anymore is most people aren't driving 1980s era Ford trucks in North America.

I personally spent about 10 minutes trying to enter a car one time thinking my key was broken. At that point I realized I don't own fuzzy dice and was indeed just at a different car with the exact same exterior

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#93

Post by ninjin »

aloisklink wrote: post #77
metacritic12 wrote: post #14

Seems like it's not pleasant, and the author says in theory it could be as low of a bar as getting into a heated argument; but the author never discloses his actual charge, which I think is critical context. If he stabbed someone and got this treatment, it would be very different than if he had a loud but normal argument you might see in any big box store in the US. That he doesn't go on to protest why he got locked…

The author mentions it in a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2epTf2IW1g (at the 2:20 mark). But essentially, somebody else sent her a package with something illegal in it that she didn't ask for. The police took her passport for a few months and searched her house. After a few months, she got her passport returned to her, she left Japan temporarily, but when she came back, they arrested her "to ensure…

Likely some sort of stimulant as you point out. It is hardly the first time either as there have been public cases like this numerous times over the last two decades. Some cases even ending with deportation. The one I remember most vividly was someone carrying an unlabeled bottle of ADHD medication that had been sent to them while they were in South Korea by their pharmacist mum in the US; that they then ran afoul of when entering Japan. Similarly, there was a case at the University of Tokyo in the 00s, where an overseas student got sent an (allegedly) unprompted package with cannabis (not a stimulant though) from friends abroad. Allegedly, they were expelled and we got university-wide, anti-drug campaigns with memorable slogans like: "Illicit drugs are illegal".

Due to their history, laws regarding stimulants are harsher in Japan than in many other places in the world [1] and this frequently takes people by surprise. Not that Japanese laws related to illegal drugs are lenient to begin with.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade_in_Japan

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#94

Post by perching_aix »

infotainment wrote: post #58
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #27

[flagged]

> The arrogance of American tourists is truly boundless. How dare Japanese people not speak English! Who do they think they are? This attitude is so unbelievably prevalent among native English speakers. "Obviously everyone should speak *my* language -- why should I ever have to learn another one?"

One would think "not being able to speak anything but Japanese" would be a problem for anyone not speaking Japanese, not just English speakers specifically, so this framing is more than a bit ironic, don't you think?

Seriously, what is so baffling about expecting an interpreter to be provided? Even if you do "speak" the language, this is not some everyday environment, and evidently not a good-faith one either. If I got into a similar situation in the US or similar, you can be sure as shit I'd ask for one too, even though I do believe I have a reasonable command over the English language in general.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#95

Post by baggy_trough »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #74
disillusioned wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They _do_ specifically protest, and it's crazy that they're able to detain you like this from an accusation while they build a case, even if you're innocent. In the US, barring flight risks and past history or cases of real malice or violence or an ongoing threat, you can at least typically make bail, AND the conditions in a jail are generally far better and less strict than this: >Both cases were ultimately dropped…

> In the US, barring flight risks and past history or cases of real malice or violence or an ongoing threat, you can at least typically make bail The literal majority of people in US jails are there not because they have been convicted of anything but because they were given a bail amount they couldn’t afford to pay, which is a deliberate strategy by the courts when there is no justification to refuse bail. This can…

> We assume that many of them are innocent because when someone pays their bail, more than 50% of cases are simply dismissed as soon as they leave jail.

This sounds like a very dubious assumption.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#96

Post by aloisklink »

gravypod wrote: post #90
aloisklink wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author mentions it in a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2epTf2IW1g (at the 2:20 mark). But essentially, somebody else sent her a package with something illegal in it that she didn't ask for. The police took her passport for a few months and searched her house. After a few months, she got her passport returned to her, she left Japan temporarily, but when she came back, they arrested her "to ensure…

What do you do when you have a bad flu or cold if you don't have pseudoephedrine?

You can still easily buy it here, but the over-the-counter pills are always mixed with other ingredients to make it more difficult to convert them into amphetamines.

E.g. Contac 600 Plus can be found in basically all drug stores and it has 120mg of Pseudoephedrine, 100mg Caffeine, 8mg Chlorpheniramine, and 0.4mg of Belladonna Extract. It sounds like it'll actually be illegal to import into Japan, since 120/(120 + 100 + 8 + 0.4) is over 10%, but I've previously just walked into a drug store and bought a packet.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#97

Post by g-b-r »

zulux wrote: post #76

Pro Tip: When visiting Japan, dress and comport yourself so you don't look like you should be thrown in jail, and it will happen a lot less often. As a Mexican friend puts it for Mexico: Dress as the police should believe you.

I wonder if that's possible in Japan for a black person

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#98

Post by OneDeuxTriSeiGo »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #86
nephihaha wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the 19th century. De Tocqueville talks about American justice favouring the rich since they could post bail and the poor could not. I have seen documentaries about US bail hostels and some of them seem like horrific places as bad as prisons in some other countries and this is before you've been found guilty of anything.

> I have seen documentaries about US bail hostels I’m not familiar with this term. Is that an old thing?

It's a British term for halfway houses specifically for people out on bail.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#99

Post by g-b-r »

Avicebron wrote: post #50
dakolli wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Wanting to feel safe walking around the city because you know the homeless aren't going to attack you or otherwise be psychotic at you is evil?

To be clear, you support authoritarianism, because of that?

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#100

Post by dang »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #82
dang wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar hell. It doesn't help. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[flagged]

You* are responsible for following the rules regardless of what others are doing.

A bad article (if that's what it is—I haven't looked yet) doesn't make it ok to break them, and a bad thread doesn't either.

(* I don't mean you personally of course, but all of us)

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