KYOTO – The Kyoto prefectural government has asked the local legal office and online forum providers to remove discriminatory posts against a private high school with Korean roots that won the national high school baseball tournament.

Kyoto Governor Takatoshi Nishiwaki announced on August 23 that there had been several posts on online forums and on X (formerly Twitter) discriminating against Kyoto International Senior High School, the winner of this year’s baseball tournament at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture.

The Kyoto-based high school was founded in 1947 as the “Kyoto Chosen Jr. High School” for Korean children in Japan, and when it achieved its first victory at the Koshien Championship on August 23, a Korean school song was played.

The prefectural government says it has asked the Kyoto District Legal Office and online forum providers to delete four discriminatory comments posted on or after August 17 by August 23. Three of these posts have apparently already been removed.

Similarly, when Kyoto International advanced to the semifinals of the Koshien Tournament in summer 2021, many discriminatory posts were published on online bulletin boards and elsewhere, prompting the prefectural government to demand their removal.

Governor Nishiwaki said: “There must be no discriminatory contributions and I urge people to stop doing so.”

In 1958, just over a decade after its founding, the school was renamed Kyoto Kankoku Academy and its school status was recognized by the South Korean government. In 2003, it was granted official “school” status under the Japanese Education Act.

(Japanese original by Satoshi Kubo, Kyoto Bureau)