June 12, 2026

“Even in the absence of reasonable suspicion, it was routine practice to stop foreigners simply for walking down the street and demand that they show their residence cards.” A former Aichi Prefectural Police officer testified to this effect.

This statement was made in a video submitted as evidence during the oral proceedings in a trial held at the Tokyo District Court on June 4. This is the so-called “racial profiling” lawsuit, in which three individuals of foreign origin are seeking damages from the Japanese government, alleging that they were repeatedly subjected to police questioning.

“Racial profiling” refers to the discriminatory practice by law enforcement or security officers, targeting individuals for suspicion of a crime based on their physical characteristics such as race.

The ex-police officer cited arrest quotas as the reason for targeting foreign nationals, explaining that meeting these quotas led to higher work performance evaluations. He testified that they selected individuals for stop-and-frisk searches based on appearance, stating, “For overstaying visas, we targeted people who look Southeast Asian, and for drug offenses, we even targeted men with dreadlocks.” He also stated, “When the situation in the Middle East was tense, the security division instructed us to stop and question foreigners with Middle Eastern features.”

However, under the Police Duties Execution Act, police officers are permitted to conduct stop-and-frisk searches only when “reasonable grounds for suspicion” are recognized. To circumvent this restriction, he revealed, “The organization instructs us to tell them, ‘This isn’t a stop-and-frisk, it’s just a friendly conversation.’”

He said, “A veteran police officer, for example, writes things in his reports like, ‘They looked away before I spoke to them,’ or ‘They tried to turn away when they saw the police.’” He also said that it was common for new officers to be made to rewrite their reports to focus on suspicious behavior, not outward appearance.

Lawyer Taniguchi Motoki, a member of the plaintiffs’ legal team, pointed out, “This constitutes a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution which guarantees equality under the law, as well as of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination which Japan ratifies.”

He noted that many countries, including the United States, France, Germany, and Canada, have adopted measures to prevent racial profiling, and that the state of California prohibits it by law.

The lawyer claimed that racial profiling perpetuates the prejudice that ‘foreigners may commit crimes’ and gives rise to so-called microaggressions. He demanded that racial profiling be prohibited.