Arrested in Japan: your rights

Wherever you are arrested

• Your embassy has a right to be told. Under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which almost every country has signed, the authorities must tell you without delay that you may have your consulate told of your arrest, and must pass on your message if you ask. Ask for it by name: “I am a foreign national and I want my embassy to be told.”
• Ask for a lawyer and an interpreter first. Say that you want a lawyer and, if you need one, an interpreter, before you answer questions. In many countries you may stay silent; where you may, using that right is not an admission of guilt.
• Do not sign what you cannot read. Do not sign a statement or any other document in a language you do not understand, or one you have not been allowed to read.
• Ask that someone is told. Most countries let you have a relative or another person told that you have been arrested. Ask for it, and give the person's number.
• What your embassy can and cannot do. An embassy can visit you, give you a list of local lawyers, contact your family and make sure you are treated like local detainees. It cannot get you released, pay your legal fees, give you legal advice or ask for the law to be set aside.

More about Japan

• Legal ages in Japan: majority, consent, criminal responsibility and more →
• The Japan legal-system profile (Civil law) in the Legal Families Atlas →

Sources

• Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963 (Article 36: your right to have your consulate told)
• Government of Canada: if you are arrested or detained abroad (a model of what an embassy can and cannot do)
• New Zealand SafeTravel: if you are arrested overseas

For the exact rule and its text, use Japan’s own constitution and code of criminal procedure, which are the authority. Your own government’s travel advice for Japan tells you what your embassy there can do.