Talk:Debito Arudou/draft
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| Debito Arudou | |
 Debito Arudou
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| Born | David Christopher Aldwinckle January 13, 1965  California U.S. |
|---|---|
| Residence |  Sapporo, Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Home town | Geneva, New York[1] |
| Known for | Activism |
| Website http://www.debito.org |
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Debito Arudou (有道 出人 Arudō Debito?), a naturalized Japanese citizen, is a teacher, author and activist.
Arudou was born David Christopher Aldwinckle in California in 1965.[2] Aldwinckle became a permanent resident of Japan in 1996 and obtained Japanese citizenship in 2000, whereupon he changed his name to Debito Arudou.
[edit] Otaru onsen lawsuit
Arudou was one of three plaintiffs in a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Yunohana Onsen in Otaru, Hokkaidō. Yunohana maintained a policy to exclude non-Japanese patrons; the business stated that it implemented the policy after Russian sailors scared away patrons from one of its other facilities. Arudou visited the hot spring (onsen), along with a small group of Japanese, White, and East Asian friends, in order to confirm that only visibly non-Japanese people were excluded.[3]
The manager accepted that Arudou was a Japanese national but refused entry on the grounds that his foreign appearance could cause existing Japanese customers to assume the onsen was admitting foreigners and take their business elsewhere.[4]
Arudou and two co-plaintiffs, Kenneth Lee Sutherland and Olaf Karthaus, in February 2001 then sued Yunohana on the grounds of racial discrimination, and the City of Otaru for violation of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty which Japan ratified in 1996. On November 11, 2002, the Sapporo District Court ordered Yunohana to pay the plaintiffs 1 million JPY (about $25,000 United States dollars) each in damages.[5] The court stated that "refusing all foreigners without exception is 'unrational discrimination' [that] can be said to go beyond permissible societal limits." [6] The Sapporo High Court dismissed Arudou's claim against the city of Otaru for failing to create an anti-discrimination ordinance; the court ruled that the claim did not have merit.[7]
