JAPAN: UN panel on racial discrimination to question Japan gov’t over Okinawa policy

A view of Air Station Futenma. (Mainichi)

GENEVA — The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has asked the Japanese government about what it’s doing to protect the human rights of Okinawans in light of the contentious plan to relocate a U.S. Marine airfield inside the prefecture.

The Japanese government must respond to the inquiries by July 31. The U.N. panel will then take Japan’s answers into account at an August meeting to examine whether the plan to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the Henoko district of Nago infringes on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It is highly likely that the U.N. committee will urge the Japanese government to review the relocation plan in such a way as to protect the rights of the Okinawan people.

TAIWAN: Aboriginal activists urge ROC government to right wrongs of the past

• Publication Date：02/29/2012
• Source： Taiwan Today
• By  June Tsai

Aboriginal activists sent up smoke signals Feb. 28 in a symbolic action demanding that the government make amends for wrongful policies against indigenous peoples and create a new constitution that includes all who live in Taiwan.

“Ceremonies memorializing the February 28 Incident are used by Han Chinese members of society to monitor ROC government efforts toward transitional justice, but nothing has been done to redress the 300-year-long persecution of aborigines,” said a spokesman for the Smoke Signals League, organizer of the event.