Why This Topic Landed in Japan
Copper wire stripped from solar plants and other infrastructure has been reported for several years now as a running cost to regional operators and municipalities, measured in damage and in what it takes to repair. When a case like that ends with arrests and then no charges, attention moves off the incident and onto who owes an explanation. Japanese prosecutors as a rule do not publish their reasons for declining to indict, so every article of this shape produces the same reaction, and it did again. The case runs to about ten tonnes of copper wire worth roughly 16 million yen, three Vietnamese nationals, and a decision not to prosecute with no reason stated. Posts arguing about foreign residents and posts arguing about procedural transparency ended up in the same threads.
Key Reaction Themes
- Most of the posts were about the silence itself — Demands went as far as specific mechanisms: refer it to a prosecution review commission, pass a law requiring the reason to be disclosed.
- The next largest block suspected that being foreign is what produced the outcome — Japan as a paradise for criminals became a set phrase for judging the whole system, and much of this block was phrased as a claim about a nationality as a whole rather than about the three men.
- About as thick was the question of what happens to the loss — If damages and a settlement had been paid, dropping the case would make sense; and how is any of this explained to the people who were robbed.
- A smaller group framed it as deterrence — Copper theft now carries no risk at all.
- A smaller group pushed back — People who work seriously and were recruited through proper interviews are a different matter from anyone brought in through a route nobody can account for.
What Japanese Netizens Are Saying
Three men arrested over copper theft are not charged and no reason is published
The decision between arrest and release was reported without the reasoning behind it.
【速報】銅線窃盗疑いのベトナム人3人を不起訴 kyoto-np.co.jp/articles/-/178…
報道によれば、逮捕時には銅線など約10トン、時価約1600万円相当の被害が伝えられ、うち2人については偽造免許証を使って銅線を金属買い取り業者に売却した疑いも報じられていた。 にもかかわらず不起訴。検察はその理由を明らかにしていない。 これは不信感しかない news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/c9cc4…
Sources: Yahoo! news, 2ch
Comments:
- "Why are they not being prosecuted? And why are they not being sent home immediately?"
- "Distrust comes from not publishing the reason for dropping the case. Publish it properly."
- "When the police drop a case they should publish a reason that everyone can accept. Ordinary citizens care about this too. I'd like the prosecution review commission to look into it — that's supposed to reflect the public's common sense, isn't it?"
- "It's about time they made a law requiring the reasons for dropping a case to be disclosed."
- "I think this every time — how is it explained to the victims before the case gets dropped? Are they being paid a load of money? Or are they being seriously threatened? Either way, from the outside it just looks far too suspicious."
- "The prosecutors have been made to lose face this badly and they're still doing nothing?"
- "Copper wire theft is zero risk."
- "This is way too much. This country is a paradise for criminals."
- "Fine, don't prosecute — but throw them out."
- "There are Vietnamese kids at my company who work seriously, even coming in on their days off, and they were brought over through proper interviews. So yeah, people brought in through some route nobody can account for shouldn't be let in."
