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