[KnowItAll]

Bizzare behaviour on the part of Japan -- bizzare enough that you cant even justify it by blaming it on cultural issues.

For Japanese Hostages, Release Only Adds to Stress -- New York times article.

"You got what you deserve!" one Japanese held up a hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill them $6,000 for airfare.

Treated like criminals, the three have gone into hiding, effectively becoming prisoners inside their own homes. The kidnapped woman was last seen arriving at her parents' house, looking defeated and dazed from taking tranquilizers, flanked by relatives who helped her walk and bow deeply before the media, as a final apology to the nation.

[kombuchakid]

There is still time to do the 'honourable' thing, according to some Japanese I have spoken to they [the hostages] should have done it, as and when they learned they were being used as pawns, instead of bringing 'such shame' to the country

Interestingly there was a poll on suicide in March
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=vote&id=194

Also on the same page
Hounding of ex-hostages draws fire

[Shabby]

A horrible manifestation of a sick society or just a few nutters? I doubt the latter - face is big news in Asia.................

[kombuchakid]

Nobutaka Watanabe, 35, is seeking the equivalent of $46,000 for mental and physical hardship he suffered during his four days as a hostage, his lawyer Masatoshi Uchida told The Associated Press Wednesday.

"Mr. Watanabe believes his kidnapping was the result of Japan's military presence," said Uchida. "His captors told him that he had been taken because he was from a country that had sent troops to Iraq."

Watanabe, who filed the suit Tuesday, had earlier written dispatches for his activist group from the southern city of Samawah, protesting Japan's deployment of some 550 troops there on a humanitarian mission to rebuild infrastructure.

He was taken hostage along with freelance journalist Jumpei Yasuda while traveling near the besieged city of Fallujah on April 14.

The dispatch is Japan's first to a combat zone since World War II. Echoing many critics here, Watanabe claims that the decision to send troops was illegal because it violates Japan's pacifist constitution.

"Mr. Watanabe said he knows from firsthand experience that Samawah is far from being a non-combat zone," as the government claims, said Uchida.

The dispatch was fiercely debated at home, and similar lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of the troop dispatch have been filed at courts across the nation. Kyodo News agency said Watanabe's was the 56th at Tokyo District Court alone.

The government is eager to avoid any trouble that could increase opposition to the mission, but public skepticism has grown as violence has surged, in some cases involving Japanese.

On Wednesday, family members of two Japanese journalists killed in an ambush near Baghdad returned home with the victims' remains.

Shinsuke Hashida — one of Japan's top freelance combat photographers — and his nephew, Kotaro Ogawa, were killed May 27 after unidentified assailants opened fire on their car and it blew up.

Earlier, three other Japanese civilians were also taken hostage, and their kidnappers had threatened to burn them alive unless Japan withdrew its troops.

The government refused and all were released unharmed, but officials were angered by families of the hostages pressuring Tokyo to give in to the kidnappers' demands.

Officials publicly reproached the hostages for ignoring government warnings to stay out of Iraq. All were billed by the government for part of the costs of their travel home. Watanabe is asking the court to rule that he has no obligation to pay the $193 he has been charged, Uchida said.

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