Child's killing shakes Japan

2004-06-02 21:20

Tokyo - An insult on the internet may have led a 11-year-old Japanese schoolgirl to kill her classmate with a papercraft knife, police said on Wednesday, as the country struggled to come to terms with the killing.

With juvenile crime already on the rise in Japan, the murder of 12-year-old Satomi Mitarai by the playmate with whom she shared an internet homepage has sparked a national debate about child-rearing and the dangers of cyberspace.

"We presume the content of messages posted on the internet site was part of the motive behind the crime," said a spokesperson for Nagasaki police.

Mitarai, the daughter of a 45-year-old journalist, died from blood loss after being slashed and stabbed during Tuesday's lunch break at Okubo Elementary School in the southern Japan city of Sasebo.

The attacker, whose name was withheld because she is a minor, was turned over to the local public prosecutors' office on Wednesday for further questioning, said police.

Left head in front of school

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi led the chorus of disbelief about the murder, arguably the most shocking crime committed by a child in Japan since 1997.

In that year, a 14-year-old boy strangled and beheaded an 11-year-old boy in Kobe. He placed the head in front of his own school gate.

Editorials in major newspapers wondered what had gone wrong.

"Didn't the school have any way of preventing the incident by noticing some sign? This question gives rise to regrets," the influential daily Asahi Shimbun said.

"We should teach our children more about the importance of life," said the mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun.

As the internet element emerged as a probable factor in the killing, Japanese newspapers and television talk shows turned their attention to internet use.

"People escalate abuse of others through chatrooms and bulletin boards on the internet," said Takayo Okubo, a consultant of the non-profit organisation Internet Association.

In the evening tabloid Yukan Fuji, psychiatrist Haruhisa Higano conjectured that the assailant might have attacked her friend "as if she was switching off her personal computer".

The education ministry reported that the internet was used in almost 100% of publicly-funded schools in Japan. In elementary schools, one personal computer is allocated to every 13 pupils.

- AFP