Petition to Realize the indigenous rights of the Ainu people in Japan

[Jennifer Teeter]

To the members of the ILAT listerv,

Currently, the Ramat Ainu Organization, the Asahikawa Ainu
Organization, and several other individuals and organization in Ainu
Mosir and Japan have drafted a petition calling on the Japanese
government to realize the indigenous rights of the Ainu people.

As the petition outlines, the Japanese government continues to neglect
the rights of the Ainu people and has yet to acknowledge its
historical responsibility for wreaking havoc on Ainu society. In its
latest policy meeting report (July, 2009), the Japanese government
explicitly blamed the Ainu people for being robbed of their land,
language and culture stating that "the lack of the concept of
land-ownership or a written language made them ill-fit for
modernization."  The Japanese government's (il)logic is perpetuating
discrimination, breeding prejudice, and ensuring that the rights of
the Ainu people are not restored. Your support on this petition would
mean so much at this critical time!

I have attached the official English translation of the petition to
this email. If you are intereted in reading the Japanese petition, I
can forward that to you at your request. If you have any questions
about the petition, please feel free to write here at anytime and I
will do my best to assist you in communicating with the Ramat Ainu
Organization in Japanese if you do not already speak or write
Japanese.

In order to sign the petition electronically, all you would have to do
is send your name, (org name if relevant), and (org) address (at least
city name) to ramatglobal at gmail.com.

I've copied the official instructions from the PDF into the content of
this email below.

Feel free to pass this one along to others as you like and let me know
if you have any difficulties opening the pdf:)

Best wishes,
Jennifer Teeter
(Kyoto)
--------------
The following two items are the content of the petition. We would like
to make the first collection of signatures by the end of January.


   1. We urge you to recognize the historical responsibility of the
modern Japanese Imperial state in forcibly robbing the Ainu’s inherent
rights to land, resources and territory, and to implement the
restoration of indigenous rights and self-determination rights as
stipulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples (adopted in 2007).


   2.  Upon agreement of the statement above, we urge you to engage in
charanke (dialogue) on equal footing with representatives from all
Ainu organizations and conduct a review of Ainu policies.

Please send your petition (group or individual) to the following
address. It is also possible to send a fax or email. Please be sure to
write your group’s name with the name of a representative and an
address in the content of your email, indicating you are in agreement
with the demands as outlined above. If you would like to send your
petition by fax or through the post, please email us and we will send
you a form to send back to us.


[Address] Ainu Ramat Organization (Attn: Dehara)

3-16-11 Takenotsuka Adachi-ku, Tokyo 121-0813 Japan

Telephone & Fax +81-(0)3-3860-2156 Email ramatglobal at gmail.com
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