American tourist arrested in Japan for defacing a religious shrine
American tourist arrested in Japan for defacing a religious shrine
The 65-year-old reportedly admitted he ‘wrote his family members’ names’ on the wooden pillar
Summary
Steve Lee Hayes, a 65-year-old American tourist, was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly carving family members’ names into a wooden Torii gate at the Meiji Shrine.
Surveillance footage led police to his hotel, where he was detained.
Hayes admitted to the act, which could result in up to three years in prison or a fine of 300,000 yen ($1,900).
The Meiji Shrine, a significant Shinto site, was built in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. The incident occurs amid a surge in international tourism to Japan this year.
Prison would be most appropriate.
The fine sure seems low for defacing an important religious shrine.
Not sure that shrine in particular but I do think torii gates in some shrines are replaced somewhat often. At Inari they had business names behind them which I assume are the 'sponsors' of that torii, probably they pay to have the gate fixed and I imagine that brings luck to that business. In short, he might have been lucky to deface the least critical part of the shrine.
I completely agree
Put that fuckin Boomer in prison for 3 years.
I could have guessed he was over 60 because he wasn't live streaming the whole thing. Just an old school asshole, not an influencer.
All that really proves is that people don't need YouTube to do things for attention.
Like how dumb do you have to be?
... Checks timeline. Oh thats the norm...
Looks like the Temu version of Bannon.
Re-open Robot Restaurant and force him to sit there watching it 24/7 for 3 years.
Asshole should have his passport revoked on top of being jailed.
He likely was, it's very easy to lose your passport and be thrown to the wolves when you misbehave in another country, especially in Japan and South Korea. They do not fuck around.
Oh. I thought maybe he ate a banana on an offering plate or something culturally ambiguous
He fucking carved his name into wood? That's never OK anywhere
True.
He’s cooked.
For the unaware, Japan has like a 99.9% conviction rate after arrests, because they basically don’t arrest unless they’re absolutely 100% positive that they can secure a conviction. The suspect also has no right to an attorney, and police abuse is common; Even if you’re innocent, they’ll just keep you in an interrogation room without any food or water for 72 hours until you “confess”. They’ll literally just rotate cops into the interrogation room, without giving you a break for food or sleep.
And Japanese prisons are some of the strictest. You’re basically expected to remain silent, and every moment of your time is accounted for. You get like 20 minutes to eat each meal (in your cell) and then like 30 minutes of “recreational” time outside, where you’re expected to kneel in place in an empty courtyard. Moving to and from your cell is akin to old elementary schools where everyone would have to line up single file and silently walk from one place to the next while following the teacher. And that’s pretty much your daily routine for the entire time you’re in. You sit in your cell, slam down what little food you get, silently walk to the courtyard, silently kneel for 30 minutes, silently walk back to your cell, and slam down dinner before bedtime. Any deviation is dealt with swiftly and violently by the guards.
Japan has a very skewed idea of criminal justice, because the prevailing attitude is that if you’re in prison, you must have done something to deserve it. It’s sort of a cyclical problem, where their insanely high conviction rate means that the public already assumes suspects are guilty before they have even been convicted.
"Guilty unless proven innocent" is literally the law in Japan
the Phoenix Wright series was literally made as a scathing critique of the Japanese Legal System, luckily the absurdity appeals to the West even if the commentary doesn't.
Thanks for telling the truth, Alot of media like to show japan as a good country,like they wanna show certain countries as bad and good(I already knew some of the stuff but not everything mentione).
Well, it's kind of an open secret that you're not allowed to say anything bad about any non-white majority country that isn't China or North Korea on American Television.
Not saying that's a bad thing, in fact before that little "rule" was in place we got shit like "Tokyo Jokey-o" so I full understand the bias in favor of only focusing on the positives.
Hmm, I happened across this video last week of a womens prison, and it doesn't seem quite so grim...
I also saw another video in a mens prison a while ago that showed them cooking all the meals, and it looked strict, but not so bad as you describe.
Of course these videos are propaganda...
Still, I would take a Japanese prison before an American one.
I'm really hoping this does change in Japan once the boomers fall out of power because younger Japanese people are also learning about the world online
As he should be, what an absolute moron.
Why people want to carve names on stuff... It's the same people who write their names on bathroom doors
No idea but it’s been going on for millennia
Bathrooms are like the only place this is OK...but do it in sharpie so it can easily be removed
That’s a slap on the wrist if they only impose the fine. That should be a five year jail sentence at least.
You cannot act like a dick like this in other countries. Defacing a religious site no less.
So true.
America: making Japan worse since 1853 (with a brief pause in the mid-20th century while they did it to themselves).
We're doing it to ourselves again
what a stupid fuck
What an arsehole.
Yeah, that sounds like an American.
Good, americans act like this and they get the consequences they deserve
If anyone acts like this they get the consequences.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Sounds like a great idea, maybe he should twerk in front of those South Korean "Woman of Comfort" statues next. /s
Do we really need people to look down on that much that it warrants these comments? Don't get me wrong, he is a jerk and behaves like a teenager while 65, but people here act like he jumped a barrier to shit in a millenia old sarcophagus instead of pressing his thumb into 100 year old wood. I think I may have done worse at my old school.
This site's against a police state, but wants the government to crack down on this nuisance with all its might. We're against Religion, but Japan's emperor cult is sacred. Throw molotovs into governmental buildings, but don't you dare touch this wooden arch.
Just let him pay the fine, have the sites insurance cover restoration, big whoop.
To be fair, I personally put Shintoism in a very different box than that of typical Western religions. Shits just about respect and balance, not begging for forgiveness from some god and hating gay people.
Fuck this grown ass man.
I would never generalize a religion that much, especially when I don't know anyone who does practice it or has to live under it. When all you have is how it is represented, you tend to idolize it and miss the practical aspects of the faith, like how hating gays and abortions isn't explicitly in the bible yet those are more important aspects to Christianity in practice than Sola Fide.
I learned my lesson after reading about Buddhism in Myanmar, if you say it's just about respect and balance, I don't believe you.
Religions don't hate lgbtq they just don't support it,Most of them say dont bully them tbh.
Carving letters into the wood equals ‘pressing his thumb’ to you? Did you even read the article? Regardless, let me ‘press my thumb’ into your forehead and see if you think it’s fine, just let me be.
Oh sod off
The asshole defaced a monument and deserves what they get
You sound like the same kind of person that calls every Japanese person racist because some tourist misunderstood something for being racist because they don't speak Japanese and / or didn't realise Japanese culture is different or a small incident got blown out of proportion like one restaurant only allowing Japanese people in when it's just one restaurant and was blown out of proportion by media and people like you
I'm sick and kind of this kind of shitty toxic misinformative behaviour from online users like you
Stop the misinformed hate boner you have for Japan
What?
My main point was that I don't think this guy deserves 5 years in jail or a permanent travel ban, what other commenter here have stated they want for him. He deserves what he got until now, yes, and what the court will likely order: a fine, no jail time, because this offence is minor.
Why do you then go on a tirade? Is even mentioning the Emperor cult in the context of a Meji shrine racist, or what triggered that response?
I appreciate you at least phrasing that tirade with "you sound like", but then you drop that and say that I objectively am misinformed and have a hate boner. Why even quantify the first part with subjectivity if you won't keep it up? Also, I need a few more reasons why you would write this.
A strange response all around.
Realistically you're right, but also tourists disrespecting the cultural sites they're visiting is especially grating, particularly when it's a white guy and in a nonwhite country, and Americans specifically have a reputation for this sort of thing which some of us are embarrassed by and want to distance ourselves from.
Like, if this was a Japanese person who was doing it to spite the imperial family, I'd be totally fine with it, but this guy just seems disrespectful of the culture in general, like, if there was some kind of cultural site dedicated to spiting the emperor, he'd likely deface that just as readily. Practically speaking, whatever punishment is applied to shitty tourists will also be applied to political protestors, so legally it's better if it's a slap on the wrist, but we can still say the guy sucks.
So the cost to deface or damage whatever anybody wants is just $2k?
I very specifically said about this case only, a fine is appropriate.
Can you explain how my comment would read as "defacing anything ever should result only in fines"?
It's because he's American and Lemmy loves to shit all over Americans.