Quote:

---

Gov't bills 3 ex-hostages Y2.37 mil for costs related to release

Monday, April 26, 2004 at 17:00 JST
TOKYO — The Japanese government wants three Japanese who were held hostage in Iraq to pay it a total of 2.37 million yen to cover airfare expenses it incurred after their release, a Foreign Ministry affiliate official said Monday.

Of the sum, about 1.98 million yen was for one-way tickets for the three from the United Arab Emirates to Japan, and return tickets for two relatives and a lawyer, the official at the International Hospitality and Conference Service Association said.

On behalf of the ministry, the association asked a nongovernmental organization supporting their activities that they pay up.

The remaining 390,000 yen is chiefly for domestic airfare after they returned to Japan, the official said. The association, established by the ministry, coordinates trips for governmental officials.

In addition to these costs, the ministry is considering asking the three to pay part of the cost of chartering the plane they took from Baghdad to the UAE capital Dubai, ministry officials said.

Their relatives already paid medical and hotel costs for the three when they visited them in Dubai, they said.

Soichiro Koriyama, 32, a photojournalist, Nahoko Takato, 34, an aid worker, and Noriaki Imai, 18, a peace activist, were kidnapped by a militant group April 7 and released April 15.

After they were safely released in Baghdad, some Japanese governing party lawmakers began to argue that they or their families should pay some of the costs Tokyo incurred because they traveled to Iraq despite ministry warnings not to go there.

Koriyama and Imai, who returned to Japan on April 18 with Takato, are expected to hold a news conference probably on Friday in Tokyo for the first time since their return, a lawyer for Imai said.

The three have been diagnosed with acute stress disorder, but Koriyama and Imai are recovering, the lawyer said.

The stress was caused by the storm of public criticism unleashed on them in Japan once they returned as well as their ordeal in Iraq, according to a psychiatrist who evaluated them.

Takato is unlikely to take part in the news conference because she is still unwell, the lawyer said. (Kyodo News)

---

Quote:

---

Worse at home than in Iraq for hostages
By Norimitsu Onishi in Tokyo
April 26, 2004

The young Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq returned home, not to the warmth of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation's cold stare.

The first three hostages, including a woman who helped street children in Baghdad, first appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats.

A few days after their release, they landed in Tokyo, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm.

"You got what you deserve!" read one hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on a website. They had "caused trouble" for everybody.

The Government, not to be outdone, announced it would give the hostages a $US6000 ($8200) bill for air fares.

Beneath the surface of Japan's sophisticated cities lie hierarchical ties that have governed the island nation for centuries and that, in moments of crisis, reassert themselves.

The transgression of the former hostages was to ignore government advice against travelling to Iraq.

But their sin, in a vertical society that likes to think of itself as classless, was to defy what people call okami - literally "what is higher".

The three former hostages have gone into hiding, effectively becoming prisoners inside their own homes.

Dr Satoru Saito, a psychiatrist who has examined the three on two occasions since their return, said the stress they were enduring was "much heavier" than the torment they endured during their captivity.

Asked to name their three most stressful moments, the hostages named the moment when they were kidnapped on their way to Baghdad, the knife-wielding incident, and the moment they watched a television show the morning after their return to Japan and realised the extent of anger at them.

"Let's say the knife incident, which lasted about 10 minutes, ranks 10 on a stress level," Dr Saito said at his clinic. "After they came back to Japan and saw the morning news show, their stress level ranked 12."

The criticism began almost immediately after the three were kidnapped. The Environment Minister, Yuriko Koike, blamed them for being "reckless".

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by insight spinner:
This kind of stuff happens in the US, too, where people are billed after rescues.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Haken:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by insight spinner:
This kind of stuff happens in the US, too, where people are billed after rescues.

---

I don't doubt it. In fact, it happens quite often here in my state. Especially with lost and stranded hikers in the mountains. But exceptions are always being made for tourists as a gesture of goodwill because they don't know any better.

I would like to think that should any of the current American hostages be released and retured home, they would receive a lot more respect than their Japanese counterparts.

Does anyone know if any American hostages in the past were ever treated with ill will when they retured home?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
'Nam ?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Haken:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
'Nam ?

---

I meant civiliians.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jasonzzz:

You have to remember that the kind of stories that are generated by the Nipponese government *and* their media also serves their good as well - they are looking for societal conformance and these 3 essentially *did* in fact made trouble for the rest of the Japanese people and their country by not conforming to a governmental decree.

---

Quote:

---

Fireflew said:

Quote:

---

jasonzzz said:
You have to remember that the kind of stories that are generated by the Nipponese government *and* their media also serves their good as well - they are looking for societal conformance and these 3 essentially *did* in fact made trouble for the rest of the Japanese people and their country by not conforming to a governmental decree.

---

I don't think they're trying to create any type of social conformity... I simply think that people are angry at the three people because those three people (just three) have now made Japan in debt diplomatically speaking to the UAE.

Don't forget, this is the first engagement Japan has engaged in post WW2, so it is likely that many people don't approve of the war, and so consequently don't approve of those three people visiting that area, after specifically being told that it was a dangerous place.

Jayne: "Know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I beat you with till you understand who's in command."

---