Court rules teachers in Tokyo don't have to stand up for national flag

[The Sushi Bandit]

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060921p2a00m0na018000c.html

Teachers are not obliged to stand up before the Hinomaru flag or sing the national anthem during entrance and graduation ceremonies, the Tokyo District Court ruled on Thursday.

About 400 teachers and workers at Tokyo metropolitan high schools had filed a lawsuit in a bid to confirm they were not obliged to sing the anthem or rise to their feet for the national flag during ceremonies.

The Tokyo District Court ruled in their favor, saying that forcing teachers and staff members of schools to do so was unconstitutional. The court ordered the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education to pay 30,000 yen in damages to each plaintiff.

[goddess40]

1. Good for them!!

I wish we could do that here - our district told my mother that any teacher that didn't stand would be fired.

[LostinVA]

2. Good -- I know personally many do NOT like being forced to do that

A friend has been teaching/living in Japan since 1987, and he's mentioned this quite a few times.

[The Sushi Bandit]

3. Nor do I!!

[Bonobo]

4. 30,000 yen = $300 n/t. Still, it's a good thing.

[Irreverend IX]

5. The whole flag-and-anthem controversy...

Is horseshit brought on by Japan's right wing. They're a tiny minority of the population, but they're one of the loudest-shouting political groups in the country, thanks in no small part to support from the yakuza (Japan's gangsters). The ultra-conservatives have these protest sqadrons who roll around the cities in black vans and shout through loudspeakers about how all foreigners need to be expelled from the country. It was fun to heckle those guys when I lived in Tokyo.