Isis
Police have arrested a 33-year-old Yokohama man on suspicion of threatening to kill his former girlfriend in a series of messages on the LINE app.
This is no April Fool’s joke: on April 1, a group of anti-Japanese protestors gathered outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul, Korea to rally against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addressing the U.S. Congress later this month.
Things started to get out of control when an effigy with Abe’s face was beheaded ISIS-style, and a Japanese imperial flag was sliced to pieces with a knife. The protest is being called “too extreme” even by those sympathetic to their cause.
Earlier this month we saw what was beleived to be the first ISIS-inspired murder in Japan when a group of teenagers brutally killed a fellow classmate. However it has recently come to light that in the middle of February, a different group of Tokyo middle school students broke into an elementary school with the intent of murdering the school pet goat as “practice” for killing a fellow human being.
On the morning of Sunday, 8 March terror struck the Japanese futsal world as a banner appeared of Tokyo-based futsal club Fuchu Athletic FC for approximately three hours. Apparently bearing the flag of radical Islamic group ISIS it read: “Hacked by Islamic State (ISIS) We Are Everywhere :)”
More interesting than their suspicious use of a smiley (possibly “winky” as well) emoticon, was the surprising knowledge the organization seemingly had regarding Japanese five-on-five indoor soccer. Their attack came just as the top futsal teams in Japan were gearing up for the Puma Cup finals.
Toyota, being the largest, most internationalized of Japan’s automakers, tends to do a pretty decent job steering clear of picking car names that sound weird or shocking to non-Japanese consumers. Sure, its product lineup briefly included the Emina, but that only sounds gross if you’re too impatient to carefully read the letters in order.
Until now Toyota hasn’t had anything as unintentionally startling as the Mazda Bongo Friendee, Daihatsu Naked, or Nissan Fairlady. But if you’ve taken a look at Toyota’s Japanese website recently, you may have found yourself doing a double-take as you noticed one of its current offerings seems to share its name with a well-known jihadist rebel group.
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Toyota Isis.
More than a week has passed since terrorist organization ISIS released its first video of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Days later, in a second video, a voice believed to be Goto’s was heard stating that Yukawa had been killed by the terrorists.
Now, a third statement has been released, in which a man identifying himself as Goto says that he has only 24 hours left before he will be murdered as well.
Earlier this week, a video that is thought to have been produced by Islamic State militants surfaced, demanding that Japan pay a ransom of $200 million within 72 hours for the release of two Japanese hostages, Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had recently visited the Middle East and pledged $200 million in non-military aid, vowed to not give in to terrorism. The 72-hour time limit came and went, and on Saturday a new video was posted claiming that one hostage, Yukawa, was killed. While Abe and the Japanese people are angry, experts are taking a closer look to verify the authenticity of the somewhat questionable video.
A video purported to have been made by Islamic State militants showing a man dressed in black standing over two Japanese hostages has been released online. The video addresses both the Japanese government and Japanese public directly and demands a ransom of US$200 million, to be paid in less than 72 hours.
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