Mapping Minorities’ Vulnerability to Hate Speech stateless Koreans had the chance to apply for South Korean citizenship and relocate there, but many refused and, thus, continued to live in statelessness. 39 This changed in 1991 when they were granted special resident status in Japan as ‘Korean’ became an option for ‘nationality’ on alien registration documents. 40 As such, Koreans living in Japan were urged to choose an ideological position between South and North Korea, and in the absence of a positive affirmation of ‘South Korean’ nationality, these ethnically Korean persons either became stateless or were considered effectively ‘North’ Koreans, though their legal status remained ‘stateless’. 41 Ethnic Koreans residing in Japan (‘zainichi Koreans’) have been suffering from systematic discrimination ever since their settlement in Japan during colonial times, 42 which used to serve to reinforce the ethnic prejudice that Koreans were culturally and ‘racially’ inferior to Japanese. These long-term harmful implications continue to prevail in Japanese society. Despite tensions seemingly decreasing after the 1960s, and class becoming a more prevalent factor than ethnicity in the Japanese social hierarchy, 43 manifestations of hate speech resurfaced in the 2000s. Ten years ago, members of an ultra-nationalist group, the Association of Citizens against the Special Privileges of Zainichi Koreans (‘Zaitokukai’), hurled hateful messages in front of an elementary school attended by Korean children in Kyoto on 4 December 2009, which constituted the first step in a series of intimidating demonstrations conveying hateful propaganda messages targeting ethnic minorities — mainly zainichi Koreans. 44 Already then, perpetrators relied on the internet to spread their hateful messages. 45 What is more, the mentioned extremist association used the internet heavily to exchange information and organise themselves. 46 Since the perpetrators were not brought to justice, similar atrocities continued and magnified in size. 47 Racist groups have been spreading their messages both nationally and internationally through the dissemination of video recordings showing demonstrations on the internet. 48 Although some members of racist 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Sonia Ryang, Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (Routledge 2000) 4. See also Treaty on Basic Relations, Japan–Korea, 583 UNTS 45 (signed and entered into force 22 June 1965). Miki Y Ishikida, Living Together: Minority People and Disadvantaged Groups in Japan (iUniverse 2005) 48. There is no form of North Korean nationality recognised at any level of Japan’s legal and juridical system, since North Korea is not recognised by the Japanese state. As of June 2018, according to the Japanese Justice Ministry’s data 30,181 individuals continued to live in Japan without any official nationality. See Ryang (n 39) 4–11; Park Ji-won, ‘Hate Speech against Koreans Still Active in Japan’, The Korea Times (online, 24 March 2019) <https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/03/120_265876.html>. According to Bumsoo Kim, tensions gradually decreased after the 1960s and with the economic boom of the Japanese economy ethnic Koreans could succeed more and change and get to a ‘higher class’, which decreased their inequality gradually: Bumsoo Kim, ‘Bringing Class Back in: The Changing Basis of Inequality and the Korean Minority in Japan’ (2008) 31(5) Ethnic and Racial Studies 871, 876–84. ibid 880. See Kenichiro Ito, ‘Anti-Korean Sentiment and Hate Speech in the Current Japan: A Report from the Street’ [2014] (20) Procedia Environmental Sciences 434, 438. ibid 441. Report on the Issue of Racism and Hate Speech in Japan (Report, Committee on the Protection of Human Rights of the Central Head Office of the Korean Residents Union in Japan, 18 July 2014) 11. ibid 5–7. ibid 13. 13