Talent Tsuruno Takeshi tweeted on Monday that he had caught a thief stealing from his coriander farm, and that he had "good reason" to believe that it was a "foreigner who worked at the local factory" https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/141ac812048ffec53999d4ae2b42de55e086eda3

The problem is that apparently he hadn't even caught the thief, and it was his brother in law who saw what had happened.

Coupled with the fact that there seemed to be very little evidence that the culprit was "a foreigner" and people started calling the tweet discriminatory.

Japanese conservatives, when it comes to issues of crime, will ALWAYS, ALWAYS point to the person's racial identity or nationality, even with the weakest evidence. In this case, it was the fact that the alleged culprit said "they can't speak Japanese" https://twitter.com/wouldhaus/status/1303174584284319744?s=20

Original thread below. Aside from the blatant fixture on the person's race, he also calls them a criminal even though he 1) didn't call the police to report it, and 2) didn't even see the crime himself. https://twitter.com/takeshi_tsuruno/status/1301735519114547200?s=20

It could have been that the person came from a culture that had less focus on personal property and more on communal farming.

It could have been someone who was struggling for food, especially given how immigrant workers are treated in Japan.

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/blog/japans-new-visa-system-for-migrant-workers-only-extends-the-scope-for-exploitation/