The police and prosecutors’ crackdown on Kan-nama, a labor union in the ready-mix concrete industry made up of mixer truck drivers, is distinctive.

One is that they use “hostage justice,” which involves detaining suspects for long periods of time in order to extract confessions.

Another point is that the investigative authorities have become the source of fake news. By labeling Kan-nama as an anti-social force, newspapers and broadcasts report it as if it were true, and false rumors spread on social media.

Tansa will report on the testimonies of the members of Kan-nama, their families, thoughtful managers and lawyers every week. They are not people who should be labeled as anti-social forces. We hope this series will help people understand that.

The first testimony is from Kaoru Komi, a union member of Kan-nama. In 2011, she was arrested by the Osaka Prefectural Police Security Division and Oyodo Police Station and detained for about three months.

While negotiating with management to improve employee conditions, she was accused of “theft” by printing out six pages of documents containing information such as salaries and taking them home. The day after her arrest, the Sankei Shimbun reported, “Female union member of Kan-nama arrested on suspicion of stealing internal company information.”

Police officers often came to the company for tea

At the time, I was living with my second and third sons. My eldest son was attending university in Tokyo.

Early in the morning on February 3, 2011, I was making lunch for my second son. It was the day he was going to take the entrance exam for Kansai University. Then the doorbell rang. When I opened the door, a large group of police officers from the Osaka Prefectural Police came in. It was a house search.

I was like, “Why?” At first, I thought my child had done something wrong.

Then, to my surprise, I was arrested. I asked the police to let my second son go because he was taking an exam. I couldn’t make him lunch, so I gave him some money and told him to eat something with it. I also told my third son, who was a high school student, to go to school. They continued to search the house even after the children left.

The charge was “theft” of printing six pages of company data and taking them home.

I worked as an office worker at the company, and as a union member of Kan-nama, I was negotiating with the management. I wanted to find out if the wages of union members and non-union members were different, and one day I found a document showing the wages in the trash box of a company computer. I printed it out and took it home, and that’s when I was arrested.

I didn’t notice it at all, but I heard later that there was a surveillance camera above my desk. The president and the Osaka Prefectural Police were good friends, and I knew that police officers often came to the company for tea.

“It’s enough to know that you think that way”

I was detained for a total of three months, including when I was rearrested on April 12, 2011 on the same theft charge.

During the interrogation, I was willing to chat but remained silent. Both the detective and the prosecutor said something along the lines of, “If you are involved in labor union activities, your children will suffer.”

I was fine, but I was worried about my children. I was worried that my sons, who have bright futures, might be held back if they wanted to become police officers, judges, or politicians. When I thought about that, it crossed my mind for a moment that my membership in the labor union might hold them back. I didn’t comply with the detectives and prosecutors who tried to get me to quit the labor union, though.

In 2011, when I was detained, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred in March and my eldest son in Tokyo returned to Osaka. When they came to visit me, it was very complicated. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but it was common sense that someone who hadn’t done anything couldn’t be arrested, so my conversations with my children became a bit disjointed.

After that, I was released and returned home, but since I was divorced and a single mother, I said, “Why don’t you join your father’s family?” The reason was that it wasn’t because I didn’t want to raise them, but when I thought about my children’s future and their careers, I thought it would be bad if they were at a disadvantage because their mother had a criminal record. Then, my eldest son said, “It’s enough to know that you think that way,” and “We won’t say anything.”

Moved by the idea that “the president and the employees are equal”

Even if I didn’t think I was guilty, the fact remains that I was arrested, and I think many people looked at me that way. I was heartbroken. I was so scared when the doorbell rang. I developed a “doorbell phobia.” I was betrayed by a coworker who I was very close to. I was shocked when I read the bad thing that she said about me on the police report.

But if I quit the labor union at that point, I would hate to look like an actual criminal, and I’m not like that. That’s why I continue, thinking that I’m not doing anything wrong. It would have been easy to quit, but I stayed because I thought that if I did, everything I’d done would have become meaningless.

Before joining Kan-nama, I had no idea what a labor union was. The thing that impressed me, or rather surprised me, the most when I joined was that management and workers have an equal relationship. Until then, the president was the boss, and the company was absolute. I thought that if I went against them, I had to quit. But when I became a labor union member, I had the right to negotiate collectively and strike, and I was deeply impressed by the fact that I could talk on an “equal footing” between labor and management.

On the other hand, I didn’t know any other labor union that is actively working to have workers’ rights recognized as Kan-nama. That’s why I think it was targeted in this crackdown.

A judge who just stamps

Unlike the police and prosecutors, I thought that the judge would understand if I explained. But that was turned upside down. I realized that judges are the same in the end.

The reason is that I thought that the procedure for a judge to approve detention would involve looking at documents, listening to the suspect, and then deciding, but it turned out that all he did was look at the documents, stamp them, and that was it. For the first time, I thought, “Huh?”

Until then, I thought of judges as being neutral and balancing the issues, but I realized that wasn’t the case. If anything, they were leaning more to the side of the prosecution.

As is often said, hostage justice, even in cases of minor crimes, parents and children are separated and detained for three months, as was the case with me. “Hostages” who are not allowed to lead normal lives. I want to tell people all over the world that this is the reality of the judicial system in Japan.

My arrest was reported in the newspaper under my real name, but I have never been interviewed by a newspaper.

What we want is for the truth to be told to many people. We don’t accept being called or seen as a gangster. I like the members of Kan-nama, and I want to work hard together with them.

I want the truth to be told.

[Postscript from the interviewer] Police brutality targeted at her son’s college entrance exam day / Reporter Nanami Nakagawa

Kaoru Komi reminded me of my mother.

She is friendly and efficient at her work. She is close in age to my mother and speaks the same Kansai dialect. She has raised her children as a single mother.

The day that Komi was arrested in February 2011 was the day her second son took the entrance exam for Kansai University. I also took the exam for Kansai University that year. I woke up early and had breakfast while reading my textbook. It was a nervous morning. The scene came to my mind.

But what follows is impossible to imagine. Police officers stormed in and read out the arrest warrant. The house is searched from the living room to the children’s room. The mother pleads, “Please let my child at least go to the exam,” and is given money and told, “Use this for lunch!” There is no way anyone can calmly face the exam after something like this has happened in front of their eyes.

I think the police deliberately targeted this day. It is obvious If you look back at the police’s past methods of cracking down on Kan-nama in order to destroy it. They’re doing this to make her and her family understand that “this is what happens to you because you’re a member of Kan-nama.”

But that wasn’t the end of it. Komi, who refused to admit her guilt and leave the union, was detained by the investigating authorities for three months.

The media reported Komi by her real name. On social media, false information is being spread to support those in power by labeling Komi and other Kan-nama union members as “gangsters.”

Does Komi look like a gangster?

The violent ones are the police officers abusing their power to target the day her child is taking his college entrance exam.

Hostage Justice: All articles