An indigenous group of Ainu in northern Japan on Monday took legal action against the central government and the Hokkaido authorities to be excluded from a ban on commercial salmon fishing, the Kyodo news agency reported
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th August, 2020) An indigenous group of Ainu in northern Japan on Monday took legal action against the central government and the Hokkaido authorities to be excluded from a ban on commercial salmon fishing, the Kyodo news agency reported.
According to the media outlet, the minority has filed the lawsuit with the Sapporo District Court in an attempt to confirm their ethnic rights. Although considered indigenous, the Ainu people are not regarded as tribes by the Japanese authorities, being therefore deprived of certain privileges and the right to self-determination.
River fishing for salmon is against the law on the protection of fishery resources and Hokkaido's regulations, the news agency said, adding that the ethnic group must obtain permission from the governor for inland fishing.
The Ainu people argue that they have retained the right for fishing from their ancestors to sustain their living, despite the right having been abolished by an assimilation policy during the Meiji period in the late 19th century.
According to the media outlet, the legal action will focus on such issues as the legitimacy of the land dispossession by the Meiji government, and whether the recovery of fishing rights applies to the group filing the suit.
