A Japanese court has punished a Japanese citizen who posted racist messages against Korean-Japanese people online.
It is the first time in Japan that someone has been punished for anomymous racist comments.
Hong Yoo with the details.
"Korean-Japanese are like bacteria...Korean-Japanese are like malignant parasites"
These words of hatred were posted online anonymously in January 2017.
And some of those words were targeted at a Korean-Japanese boy living in Kawasaki who was only 15 years old at that time.
The young boy received the abuse for singing a song about stopping hate speech at a local music event.
When the boy encountered the post, he was shocked.
"He is suffering from worry and concern that he will never be able to forget what others might think of him."
As a person who has always fought against hate speech, he reported the case to the police.
Through their investigation, the police found out that the writer was a Japanese man in his sixties living in Kyushu.
During his trial, the writer admitted that he had written those words but denied having targeted the young boy.
Japanese court fined him 80 U.S. dollars.
This is the first time that anonymous written online hate speech has been punished in Japan.
The victim's lawyer said the punishment was too light and that laws and investigative procedures for hate crimes should be revised.
Hong Yoo, Arirang News.
