Remembering Kazuo Ishikawa and the Sayama Incident w/ Miho Kim

Miho Kim joins the show to discuss the life of Kazuo Ishikawa, the Japanese criminal (in)justice system, and the Buraku Liberation Movement. 

Kazuo was a man of the outcaste Buraku origin who was falsely accused of murdering a female high school student in 1963 when he was 24, a case known as the Sayama Incident. Following Kazuo’s arrest, the police lied to him and pressured him to confess to a crime he did not commit. As a result, the prosecutors sentenced him to death and then to a commuted life sentence until they conditionally released him in 1994.

After the release, Kazuo continued to maintain his innocence and fought for a re-trial of his case until his last breath, supported by his family and allies including the Buraku Liberation League. However, the prosecutors repeatedly denied Kazuo’s appeal and refused to disclose evidence to his defense lawyers, which is a flagrant violation of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights which Japan is part of. 

Miho is a friend of the show and a mutual friend of Kazuo’s and mine. You may recall her from one of the Instagram Live sessions we did last year to commemorate the Kanto Massacre. We discuss what Kazuo’s life and death teach us about the history of the Buraku liberation struggle, as well as the characteristics and historical origin of the contemporary Japanese state. We focus specifically on the judiciary and its notoriously punitive prosecution with a staggering conviction rate of 99.9% known as the Hostage Justice system. 

We also discuss the steadfastness of Kazuo’s and the broader Buraku community in resisting the Japanese state, and the importance of international solidarity. We discuss how Kazuo’s case has brought the Buraku people together with other oppressed communities in Japan, including non-Buraku Japanese people who were also wrongly prosecuted by the Japanese state, as well as Yuri Kochiyama and members of the Nikkei/Japanese diaspora.

Miho is also the facilitator of the Nikkei Decolonization Tour, an educational tour of Japan through a progressive and community-based perspective, and she is going to tell us about how we can participate in the project, learn from the people, and support the people’s struggles in Japan. 

Long time listeners of this podcast may know that this is not the first time we cover the topic of the Buraku Liberation Movement. We did an episode in April 2023 with Niki Lau of Buraku Stories to do a deep dive on the history of the struggle so please be sure to check that out also. 

As always, thank you all for listening to the podcast! We will return soon with more regular episodes, but we’re hoping to cover more news items like this in the future, so please stay tuned.

Intro: Cielo by Huma Huma

Outro: Liberation's Twilight by the Buraku Liberation League (English translation in the comments)