Literally the central trigger point of the story.
> For the record, I have not watched any video or read anything else about this individual. Nor do I intend to.
Then I can see why you're not interested in the details
The fact that you and other insist on this really gets at the crux of this whole problem. There are two notable positions on criminality and punishment: yours, which is broadly that the justice system exists, at least in part, to deliver righteous punishment on the deserving, and the position of those appalled by the treatment here, which is that the purpose of the justice system is primarily to protect people, and then to deliver predictable, proportionate punishment of those found guilty to disincentivize criminal behavior. If you think that torture of someone detained but not found guilty might be justifiable if they're accused of a sufficiently heinous crime then you have an illiberal position that can and will be used to enable abuse of the criminal justice system to inflict extralegal punishment on anyone for any reason.
I said this is an important detail to the story because it’s literally the central trigger point. For as many details as she’s willing to share, include admissions that could theoretically impact legal proceedings, excluding the core charge from the story raises suspicions about the trustworthiness of the narrator.
To be clear I do not support the treatment as reported. However the omission of this one key detail is a calculated omission by the author, where we’re supposed to both believe it’s entirely normal and benign but at the same time it’s also something that must be withheld from this story?
So rationalizations of why it’s appropriate because the person was suspected of XYZ isn’t going to land with them and is largely irrelevant.
But I don’t mind playing devils advocate.
Should the justice system force confessions out of murderers? No, because they are only potential murderers and we have historically been able to get innocent parties to confess. People with vulnerability such as mental health problems are even more likely to give false confessions. The goal of requesting testimony should be honesty not compliance.
This logic applies as well the drug dealer, drug users, and jay walkers. It’s a moral principle disconnected from any specific geography so even if we are not Japanese and have no intention to interact with Japan, we can say they have not lived up to that principle.
the administive pretrial detention is also pretty common, especially nowadays with the ICE craze.
nobody should be treated like this, agreed, but that doesn't mean that the process has no correlation to the level of guilt established and the certainty of it.
(the real problem is that it's way too many bullshit laws.)
Japan has a very harsh system, this serves as both a deterrent and also incentivizes people to make their equivalent of plea deals.
There's nothing magical about a criminal trial, especially in Japan, since there's not even a jury. And in general there's no magical threshold for proving guilt.
Nobody should be treated like this. We agree.
I'm trying to point out that unfortunately is a trade off, it works, and unfortunately a lot of people are getting treated like this all over the world for things that are administratively easy to prove and are illegal by the letter of the law, so technically easy to "prove guilt".
I watched a little bit. She went overseas and the police asked for some information and she didn't respond. When she returned they deemed her a flight risk because she hadn't responded to the things they were asking.
All this story does it makes me want to avoid traveling to Japan. I don't fancy getting picked up for jay walking and tortured.
What an awful system..
Sure if you naively believe the hyperbole then don't go. Been 3 times, you'll know when you're in trouble, and you will have a chance to correct it before it goes further.
Infact according to her video she did have a chance, and she didn't bother.