E/CN.4/2006/16/Add.2 page 14 discrimination they face. However, the Government has not acceded to this request. In this context, they mentioned that in 1997, in the case of the Nibutani dam built in an expropriated sacred Ainu land, the Sapporo District Court recognized the indigenous nature of the Ainu. They are among the few indigenous peoples in the world who have no land recognized as their indigenous land. 50. Finally, the Ainu are absent in the national political sphere: there was only one Ainu parliamentarian in the past, whom the Special Rapporteur has met, and none at present. The Ainu have requested a quota of parliamentarians reserved for the Ainu community. C. The people of Okinawa 51. The people of Okinawa explained that they have suffered from a discriminatory governmental policy since the annexation of the island in 1879. The people of Okinawa are rarely consulted on the decisions affecting their island and its future. The most serious discrimination they presently endure is linked to the presence of the American military bases in their island. The Government justifies the presence of the bases in the name of “public interest”. However, the people of Okinawa explained that they suffered daily from the consequences of the military bases: permanent noise linked to the military airport, plane and helicopter crashes, accidents due to bullets or “whiz-bangs”, oil pollution, fires due to air manoeuvres, and criminal acts by American military officers. The noise due to airplanes and helicopters is higher than the level prescribed by law and causes severe health consequences, including in schools where children cannot concentrate and lessons are regularly interrupted. A number of court trials have taken place, but the Okinawan people have almost always lost. During one of these trials, the Government was reported to have made discriminatory statements about the people of Okinawa, saying that they had special feelings, that they were not normal, which provoked a scandal. 52. Between 1972 and 2005, there were 338 plane crashes on the island. In particular, in a case of a helicopter crash on a university campus, the aid workers and police were driven out, the prefecture could not participate in the investigations and the victims received no compensation. Many people on the island fear crashes. Also, several cases of women being raped and killed by American military officers have occurred, as well as of young schoolgirls being sexually harassed. On those occasions, the Government said it would take appropriate measures, but thereafter nothing was done. 53. As a consequence, some of the people of Okinawa want it to become an independent territory, in order to stop being subject to permanent human rights violations. D. The Koreans 54. During his visit to the Utoro district, the Special Rapporteur had the opportunity to witness concretely the conditions in which a Korean community lives today, one which was placed by the Government of Japan on this piece of land during the Second World War, in order to build a military airport. When the war ended, the project of building the airport was abandoned, and the Koreans who were working there, far from receiving war reparations, were forgotten and left in that land without work, resources, protection or legal status. The sanitary conditions of Utoro are deplorable: a considerable number of the families have no running water, and the district has no channels to evacuate water, which often provokes floods. There are