Police in Sapporo, Hokkaido, have arrested a 33-year-old Swedish man on suspicion of assaulting his common-law wife.
According to police, the suspect's wife, who is in her 50s, called 110 at around 2:30 p.m. Sunday and said the man she lived with “was drunk, he tried to strangle me and hit me on the head,” broadcaster NTV reported.
Police went to the apartment in Toyohira Ward and detained the man.
Police said the man has partially denied the allegations and quoted him as saying, "I just shoved her chest with my right hand.”
© Japan Today
54 Comments
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Cephus
"Police in Sapporo, Hokkaido, have arrested a 33-year-old Swedish man on suspicion of assaulting his common-law wife."
Is it really necessary to indicate the man is Swedish? The progressive gotcha games are endless.
WasabiWit
Yes, I've asked before and even sent an email asking JT about this practice, but we have to remember this is Japan after all
Japan is a bit slow in keeping up with the ethical standards of journalistic practice.
Give them time, just like everything else, they'll get there in their own time. All we can do is jeep the pressure on
spidersenses
We don't know what happened here, as it's he-said-she-said but, it goes without saying that, being a woman and Japanese, she has way more leverage in the law in Japan, especially if there are children involved
Kumagaijin
The real story here is that a 33 year old Swedish man is in a LTR with a 50+ year old Japanese woman.
Makeyourlifeeasy2015
Guys! You are saying as if only in Japan they announce the nationality of a suspect? That's unfair as we hear these kinds of statements in other countries such as the USA and many more. So, when they don't mention any nationality, it's clear that the crime is committed by a Japanese. This should be easy to understand.
I don't get where is the problem here!
Makeyourlifeeasy2015
Moreover, showing his nationality gives a clearer information to the story, as this is a normal case in all countries I have been to
caroti
No, most Western nations (except conservative news sources such as Fox News, etc.) generally follow the international ethical standards of journalism, which state that nationality in crime suspects is unnecessary and potentially harmful to marginalised groups (e.g. International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Ethics Charter)
Sometimes, nationality or ethnicity is important and relevant, but when it is not, news organizations will not include it due to the potential for harm to marginalised groups in the community.
I doubt it; show me an example not from the US where the nationality of a suspect has been included even though it is not relevant.
You might be thinking of a suspect on the run and the news report includes what the suspect looks like. That is different.
Meiyouwenti
“Is it really necessary to indicate the man is Swedish?
If the 33-year-old guy was a native Japanese from Kanagawa prefecture, the press should not report the fact? Or are you suggesting that light-skinned people are entitled to more privacy than those who are not?
spidersenses
false equivalence:
Reporting the specific location within Japan is not equivalent to mentioning a suspect's nationality or ethnicity.
And the suspect's nationality or ethnicity is not equivalent to granting "more privacy" to certain groups. The issue is not about privacy, but about avoiding unnecessary emphasis on characteristics that might perpetuate stereotypes or bias.
Martimurano
I rarely see so much hot-air posted on a news article about a physical assault which is alleged to have taken place.
It doesn't matter in the slightest that the suspect is a Swedish man, nor does it matter that, at 33-years old, he is in a relationship with a woman in her 50's.
These are just small pieces of information which are not worth getting excited about in any way, which the journalist sees fit to include as a matter of completeness in their reporting.
Bow wife
Perhaps there is something that you are not fully informed about, my friend.
Worth a little reading about, I reckon.
JRO
There is probably at least 30 domestic dispute/abuse arrests every day in Japan, I wonder why just this one had to be highlighted hmm.
Legrande
Part of the narrative of homogeneous Japan transitioning to no longer homogeneous Japan is how well or not people from other countries are assimilating.
TokyoResiding
If you don't understand, go learn about it instead of having knee-jerk reactions to commenters who do.
OssanAmerica
Ask JT.
HIs nationality, age, relationship are just facts. Seems some people have a prblem with a news article containing facts,
Tell you what guys, if you;'re really concerned aboiut your nationality being mentioned in a news artcle, just don't commit any crime that might become news, Much easier than trying to censor news to suit your tastes.
garymalmgren
Don't like it = Don't read it it.
Easy to avoid being upset.
gary
JRO
Since they had an article about a similar arrest there has probably been hundreds of these cases, some of them probably ending up with the spouse dead or in the hospital. This one being very mild even if all of those things were true. I think it's safe to say that it's being highlighted because the husband was foreign, and especially from a country that is not as common.
Not even saying it was JTs decision, probably another Japanese newspaper that choose it because of that reason, JT just copied and translated.
caroti
Hey Ossan. I am trying to understand your perspective because our views seem quite different.
Typically, when I encounter a group of people who hold a certain opinion on something new to me, I research and learn more about that viewpoint before forming my own opinion or commenting on the matter.
What's your process?
It seems like you and a few others are puzzled by the concerns some people have about unnecessarily including the nationality or ethnicity of a crime suspect in the news. Are you familiar with the potential issues that can arise from this practice?
Nilkin Fannie
Lol, some of the Caucasian Gatekeepers of Japan are unhappy with the article letting it be known the suspect is cacasian. I've seen countless articles where the foreign suspect is non-white nationality that is pointed out and the comments bash that nationality/ethnicity. Now that it is a nationality that is obviously white, "oh no, you shouldn't point that out! This is harmful" had the suspect been from Pakistan or Congo, comment section would look a lot different.
SendaiGirl
If the 33-year-old guy was a native Japanese from Kanagawa prefecture, the press should not report the fact? Or are you suggesting that light-skinned people are entitled to more privacy than those who are not?
Exactly. The western media does it all the time. Double standard.
JRO
That's the thing, it wouldn't be reported, There was probably multiple such cases in Kanagawa yesterday alone, by Japanese men, it's just not special enough to write about as it happens multiples times a day. Meaning that it wouldn't be reported about if it wasn't because he was foreign born. Do you see anything else that stands out in the reporting that makes it different?
TokyoLiving
What is a woman in her 50's doing with a 33 years old kid???...
Jail and deport for that pathetic loser clown..
Some foreigners here don't like to report other foreigners who commit crimes.. LOL
Strangerland
Same reason many men in their 50s chase after women in their 30s.
Kenshin
The issue here is a woman has been assaulted. It remains to be seen if the allegations are correct or if the man’s are correct.
In either case, it’s a domestic violence incident that no woman should suffer from.
Gene Hennigh
Terrible. Terrible. Japan Today prints a story with information. They should just ignore this one altogether. There are other countries (often in the US -- well maybe not ever) that give as much information as they can but this is just wrong. The story should never have been reported at all unless both parties were Japanese. I hate being told that people are from certain countries. They should keep that under wraps. I mean, the whole story, information included, should just not have been printed. Poor Swedish guy.
ZENJI
Deport this villain.
Gaijinjland
They didn’t name the alleged perpetrator like they do with so many Japanese suspects. I guarantee if he was from the third world and didn’t have access to that world class Swedish embassy consular service they would have. But there can’t be that many Swedes in Japan so my question is why did they have to report the exact ward where he lives in Sapporo? Sapporo is small and it’s easy to put 2 and 2 together.
WeiWei
Nowhere does it state that the man is caucasian. You obviously have not been to Sweden during the last 20 years? If you find a caucasian in southern Sweden you should put in a lotto.
BeerDeliveryGuy
Very well. So you agree that if a crime is committed by US military or JSDF personnel, police officers or politicians, the details of their background should not be mentioned?
Pukey2
The victim's wife???? I pointed this out and my comment was deleted? Does the victim have both a wife and a husband????!!!!!!!!!!!1
Moderator: The mistake has been corrected.
Wasabi
33yrs is NOT a kid.
And what is your problem with the age difference?
Makeyourlifeeasy2015
Thanks guys! Totally agree with Those who made the following comments: if you don't like the fact of mentioning the nationality of a suspect, don't read the news here but read the local news of your country where they will still mention a suspect's nationality. Also, keep your emotions in check ✔️ and try to read news as locally as possible.
Agree to the fact that some of you guys are just upset because the offender is happened to be a white. In that case, please warn your fellow compatriot not to offend the law, because no one should be above the laws
Bow wife
It's not about liking or not it's an ethical standard in journalism that you, JT and some others are clearly oblivious to.
Ken
The main point she is making is if it was a person from a third world country you all would say "immigrant this immigrant that blah blah blah" And for that reason I think it is important to put their nationality. If the person that committed the crime didn't want to look bad to other foreigners and Japanese maybe he shouldn't have done anything bad
WasabiWit
As Bow Wife and others said, it's not about not liking something, it's about following global journalism standards that Japan does not adhere to protect marginalised groups in the community, whether they are Caucasian, Chinese or Vietnamese or whatever.
If this is something unfamiliar to you go learn because when you talk about something you don't know about, it just frustrates the hell out of those who do and makes you look uninformed.
Ken
This time they break the global journalism standards and people care about it, the previous stories where the person who committed the crime was Pakistani, Vietnamese or from India people didn't care as much but now those same people who didn't care actually care for some reason. That is what our point was
WeiWei
My point was that you cannot guess ethinicity from nationality.
But I agree, in Japan it is always listed for non-japanese passport holders
WasabiWit
No Ken, Vietnamese and Pakistanis, etc,. are even more vulnerable marginalised groups in Japan.
Ken
True and I have yet to see it but I believe if the person was half Japanese I think that would be mentioned in the article as well because they want it known the person wasn't just Japanese they could use the word "foreigner" instead but to some that is also offensive
Ken
You do understand what I am saying right? The people who drag those specific nationalities through the mud would only defend people of European descent
JRO
Absolutely no one is saying that, we are all foreigners here no matter our color or origin. When they make news about a crime that happens hundreds of times a day only because the villain is a foreigner it hurts us all, no matter how he looks or where he is from. The news do this very often and it has set it's marks. The Japanese around me thinks that foreigners on average do a lot more crime in Japan than Japanese do, while the reality is that a foreigner is less likely to commit a crime then a Japanese based on the stats, but that's not what they see, they see all these cherry picked cases that news likes to highlight.
dido
Yes, that's why there are global ethical standards in news reporting.
Reporting the geographical origin or ethnicity of a crime suspect is not important information in this case and only stokes these xenophobic falshoods that affect all of us in Japan.
Good to see some folks bother to educate themselves about the issues.
Ken
I don't feel like grinding through previous articles to try to find it but remember this 4 months from now that you said all foreigners get treated the same on here because I definitely don't see that very much with what happened in the UK. Maybe their comments ended up getting deleted but they didn't hold back in how they wanted to put blame on immigrants rather than the individual even though he was born in the UK
JRO
I don't really think much about disclosing country of origin if the crime was news worthy and would have become news no matter if he was Japanese or not, I understand why a news paper would like to mention that. The problem is when the crime only becomes news because it was done by a foreigner.
JRO
If you go through similar articles here on JT then yeah there is always the same kind of discussion no matter of the foreigners origin. This is not because everyone in here is a nice person and no one is racist, but because they know it makes them look bad as well, Japanese just see the word foreigner.
Of course though there is the usual suspects on here, which are also a couple of Japanese that tend to bash on foreigners in these articles, even more so when they are Asian foreigners.
Yohan
This is a very good argument - I don't see any reason why foreigners should be differently treated from Japanese offenders AND their victims whose name and area where they are living are frequently mentioned in the Japanese press. Why should every crime committed by an US military serviceman be kept as a secret, solely because he or she are holding US-citizenship?
About this Swedish man, maybe Japanese press could report him as 'from Scandinavia' or EU citizen? Or is this also against ethical standards which are close to censorship?
Yohan
Maybe it is also against 'ethical standards' to report the age difference of the offender and the victim?
33 yrs is NOT a kid, regardless if this person is a man or a woman.
mountainpear
I notice an increase of Swedish people in Japan. I wonder if they're leaving their homeland because of all the foreigners entering their country! And Japan Today you forgot to list the suspect's employment like you usually do! Wonder what his job is? I don't think there is a visa category that covers 'common-law husband'! LoL!
Bow wife
If you don't know why, why not find out maybe?!
Others have repeatedly pointed out that this is an issue. It's not a matter of opinion; it's a fact that unnecessarily including nationality, ethnicity, race, etc., in crime news is harmful to marginalized groups and social cohesion.
This is an indisputable and well-researched fact, and frankly, pretty obvious if you understand how bias and stereotyping occur and the harm they cause.
It's also why there are global standards in journalism on this.
This doesn't mean avoiding any reporting on nationality or ethnicity when it is relevant, but it does mean using care in choosing when to do so. In this news story, the nationality of the suspect is not contextually relevant to the crime.
Makeyourlifeeasy2015
Well, domestic violence is the major crime in Japan, and the factors behind these crimes could be related to financial issues, alcoholism, mental disorders and other
Peter Neil
the story served its purpose - comments!
the people posting here are the real content. articles are just the canvas.
Makeyourlifeeasy2015
Other crimes are committed randomly but still, Japan is one of the safest countries in the world. Maybe that's why they try to squeeze the numbers in reporting crimes committed by Japanese people and being noisy when a foreigner commit a crime
Boki24
YohanToday 02:59 pm JST
No, they should report it the same way they do any resident of Japan, their occupation and location in Japan.
Bow wife
Nope, I checked. The most common crimes in Japan are theft, fraud, property damage and sexual violence.