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From Our Own Correspondent

Japanese Justice and the Fugitive CEO

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Carlos Ghosn skipped bail in Tokyo last month the world was flabbergasted. Despite being under intense surveillance while out on bail, with undercover agents tailing him whenever he left his house, the ex-Nissan boss somehow hot-footed it onto a private jet and made it to Lebanon. Now that the dust has settled, the spotlight has been turned onto what some call, Japan’s "hostage justice" system. The country has an enviably low crime rate which is often attributed to a small income gap and full employment, but Rupert Wingfield Hayes says many people are just terrified of being arrested. Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn’s temporary bolt hole, is a country often caught up in all manner of international rows and intrigues. It is also one of the many countries in the Middle East where Iran determinedly exerts its influence. The Iranian general Qassem Soleimani helped to spread that influence through the Shia Islamist political party and militant group , Hezbollah. So in the wake of Soleimani’s killing in a US drone strike, Hezbollah has been determined to mourn him. Lizzie Porter attends one such memorial event in the south of the country. In India there have been violent demonstrations against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA. The new law gives amnesty to illegal immigrants from three neighbouring countries, but excludes followers of Islam. So Indian Muslims whose family might have lived in the same spot for generations, but don’t have the paperwork to prove it, could suddenly find themselves stateless. Protesters, including students and Bollywood stars, say the law serves the ruling BJP party’s goal of remaking India as a Hindu homeland and Yogita Limaye says many citizens are troubled – including non Muslims. China has also been under the spotlight for its treatment of a mostly-Muslim sector of its society; the Turkic-speaking ethnic minorities in its far west. The Chinese state has detained an estimated one million people in high-security prison camps across Xinjiang since 2017 – most of them ethnic Uighurs. Beijing says that these are vocational or re-education camps. But has China’s state control reached new levels of persecution and is it being extended beyond its borders? Claire Press met with several Kazakhs north of Almaty who’d been imprisoned in China. It may be a global leader in solar and wind power, and last year sold more electric cars than the rest of the world combined. But China is also the planet’s biggest consumer and producer of coal. It has to cut back drastically to bring carbon emissions to a peak by 2030 and fulfil a pledge made as part of the 2015 Paris agreement. However Beijing is still approving new coal-fired plants as the economy slows. On a trip to Inner Mongolia Robin Brant discover that people are not always keen to make the transition to cleaner alternatives.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:05.0

Good morning.

0:07.0

Today, fake doves and fiery rhetoric at Awaken Lebanon.

0:12.4

But why is an Iranian commander mourned so far from home?

0:16.5

Van derised shops in a climate of fear in Northern India after the passing of a controversial citizenship law.

0:24.0

We travel to Inner Mongolia to learn that a new gas

0:28.0

boiler is not always cause for celebration,

0:31.0

and why a Kazakh detained in China is responsible for his neighbors knives and forks.

0:40.0

But first, when Carlos Gones skipped bail in Tokyo last month, the world was flabbergasted.

0:47.3

The former Nissan boss had been under intense surveillance, with undercover agents tailing

0:52.4

him whenever he left his house.

0:54.4

But somehow he managed to give them the slip,

0:57.4

to board a private jet and to make it all the way to Lebanon.

1:01.0

Now that the drama of Mr Gone's escape is no longer breaking news, the

1:06.6

spotlight has turned to the justice system he evaded. Japan has an

1:11.2

enviably low crime rate.

1:13.5

That's often proudly attributed to a relatively small income gap and full employment.

1:19.0

But Rupert Wingfield Hayes says another key factor in keeping Japanese citizens honest is that many

1:25.4

are petrified of what might happen to them if they got arrested.

1:31.6

In an interview with French television after his dramatic escape from Japan,

1:36.0

Kollus Gone said something quite revealing.

1:39.0

No one knew about Japan's hostage justice system, he said, before my case. I too was completely unaware. Only after my case did people find out.

...

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