Islamic Soldier from Japan

Was it based on frustration against Japan-U.S. alliance or social injustice in Japan? Tokyo Metropolitan Police questioned a student of Hokkaido University about his relationship with Islamic State, an extreme terrorist group active in Iraq and Syria. He was suspected to have planned to visit Syria and join the militants of IS. Most Japanese have been thinking that the terrorism in Middle East or Arab world would have nothing to do with the nation in the Far East. It should be a wake-up call for the pacifist nation.

Absenting his university in Sapporo for months, the student, 26, has been staying in a house of a free journalist in Tokyo. After reading a brochure on the wall of a bookshop in Akihabara, which was recruiting workers in Syria, he planned to depart Japan on Tuesday. Police blocked his plan the day before.

The suspect on the student was preparing private war, which meant attempting private war against foreign country, and conspiracy provisioned in the Criminal Law. Police searched the house of the journalist and other related places and seized passport of the student, books related to Islamic religion and personal computers. According to the journalist, the student looked like a military mania and not interested in traveling to Syria. True purpose of his departure is still unclear.

An important point is who recruited him. Although there are various activities of recruiting Islamic soldier in cyberspace, it is unusual for a brochure, which is close to classified information, to be raised on a wall of a bookstore. A person related to the bookstore revealed that the shop introduced a few people to a former professor on Islamic law. The professor has been in the area controlled by Islamic State to report what was going on there.

It is estimated that over fifteen thousand young people traveled to Middle East including Iraq and Syria and became soldiers. It is the first case that a Japanese actually tried to join that movement. United Nations passed a resolution urging every member to make preventive measures. Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, told that Japan would be active in implementing the U.N. resolution for preventing terrorism.

If the government of Japan talks about its responsibility to the world, it needs to look at internal situation. “In developed country, a part of young agers are frustrated with no obvious motivation of life in free society,” elaborated a scholar in Japan. The important point is not making safe haven for terrorism in Japan by creating disappointments. Lack of social justice, coming from neo-liberal economy or insisting on personal agenda of a political leader, causes export of eccentric young terrorists.