TW : SA & torture Did 100 people really know & not report Junko Furuta?

[AliasGrace47]

On IG the other day a pic of Junko Furuta came up not sure why bc I follow history posts? I didn't click bc I know vile things were done to her & I don't want to know more about that. But it reminded me of something I still can't understand about her case, which disturbs me nearly as much as the murder & violence itself.
I've read a little about her case, mainly on here bc I worry most articles will give graphic detail. Apparently around 100 people knew she was being held in one of the boys' cellars, & none reported. Why? One poster on a thread here said they'd read 'bits & pieces' that suggested this was an urban myth. I suppose they meant the myth was that 100 people knew & did nothing, bc AFAIK it's well established that her cellar imprisonment & torture was all too real.
Is it possibly similar to Kitty Genovese, where the shockingly high number of people who heard her shout for help, & did nothing, was found to be much inflated by the papers & include people who didn't know what the shout meant?

I've never heard of this case so read the Wikipedia entry. It didn't say that others knew about her kidnapping except one of the boy's mother's. Although it wasn't clear how much she knew.

Its very common for people to know about crimes and do nothing. There was an infamous American gang rape that a crowd watched and recorded on their phones and none of them called the police.

Predators like Jimmy Savile got away with their crimes because no one did anything about it. Al Fayed preyed on women for years and others were complicit.

It's been posited that people might be concerned for their own safety if they say anything. In the case of Savile, hospital workers where he molested children, said he brought in a lot of funding.

We had the recent case of Sara Sharif and her neighbours heard her being abused and did nothing. Members of her family were told of her abuse and also did nothing. Her uncle stood by and watched her being beaten and tortured.

I also read on a thread here that the ringleader's mother defended him. Wtf? Complete denial? How could you defend your son after that? & did this defence somehow blame Junko, I wonder?
I'm studying history at uni, & recently become interested in Japan. From the little I've read so far, despite a v low sexual assault rate, other horrible forms of misogyny are all too common. Lots of SA in hentai, paedophilic lolicon mangas legal until v recently, chikan (subway groping, often filmed & sold) & teenagers working in maid cafes as supposedly platonic companions for older men. So there were seeds in 1989 Japan for misogyny, even violent misogyny, & for people to prioritise men's wants above female exploitation. But it's still a huge leap to defend something as horrible as this, surely?
I also know that the mafia-type yakuza that the boys belonged to was v prominent in the 80s, & even somewhat accepted, (eg. W their magazines sold in ordinary shops) as they had a kind of Robin Hood image due to strategic 'good deeds' & the police feeling they kept other criminals in check. As well, they were known for extreme violence. So the most likely explanation seems that Junko's whereabouts weren't reported bc of fear & poss also loyalty to the yakuza?
Possibly also people didn't realise how badly she was being treated? Maybe they thought she would be alright if they kept quiet? It was unbelievably awful...
Do we know how they were eventually caught? Did someone report in the end? I read on here that the ringleader offered his house to be searched & the police didn't bc they thought his willingness meant innocence! or were they bribed by the yakuza? I assume Junko was prevented from talking (please don't give details of how..) so something other than noise alerted the police?
For that matter, how did people know that Junko was being held there? Did they know she turned the ringleader down, that he was yakuza & put 2 & 2 together?

The Yakuza are the Japanese mafia and they're extremely dangerous. That could be why people kept quiet.

They were caught because of another incident where they kidnapped and gang raped a teenager. They mistakenly confessed Furuta's murder to the police and told them where to find her body.

Thank you- I would read up if it weren't such a graphic case. So they ended up betraying themselves 😡
I agree the Yakuza was probs the reason if people didn't report. On the thread I saw, one poster quoted Wikipedia page (the 2019 version) as saying, ' Over 100 people knew about Furuta's captivity, but either did not report or joined in.' & that most of these were yakuza members. If it was mostly yakuza members who knew, that would go some way to explaining the horribly high alleged number of people who knew & did nothing, or worse .
The page may have been changed now, perhaps it wasn't as many as that, either. I hope not..

Was the American gang rape Cheryl Araujo? No, that was before phones but it is similar in that people just stood by, though in the Araujo case the numbers of bystanders were again exaggerated.
Savile seems similar in that he was bringing benefits at a terrible cost, which some people were willing to overlook..
And Sara Sharif - how could people just stand by? Fear?
It's v scary how morality can be forsaken when people are powerful enough not to be challenged.. It seems like Furuta's case is similar to other ones where the bystanders are exaggerated, but still v high. Their being yakuza explains to some extent, but so evil at such a young age? And their parents too scared & unable to do anything about their yakuza membership? I suppose if someone is tucked into a gang like that young, it's v hard for their parents to do much, & they hopefully didn't know evil bad their sons had become until the Furuta case..

No I'm referring to the 2009 gang rape of a school girl in Richmond.

It’s unfortunately in our (humans en masse) nature to behave like this. Look at Nazi Germany and the Holocaust…!

I think it's human nature to do whatever you can get away with.

I suspect it’s very common- I believe that the sleeping woman who was set on fire on a NY subway wasn’t helped by anyone either. Lots of people filmed her but didn’t try and extinguish the flames.

Omg...that's so horrible. Maybe they were frozen in shock- but to film? For evidence? A police officer did get a fire hydrant, perhaps why no one else intervened, but by the time he had, it was too late.
The Richmond case is terrible. Just standing by, or joining in even? Some did intervene, but a tiny number..
Yes, softy and username, but surely we as humans should be able to control these awful impulses...

I read yesterday about this recent Japanese case: apparently, due to a mixture of porn videos sexualising 'no', & an indirect culture, men believe no means yes. The judge in the case ruled that, despite the woman saying 'No' , 'it hurts', 'please stop', these phrases were often used during sex (really?) so weren't proof of lack of consent. (Another issue was that the woman had denied an act took place which appeared & the judge thought maybe she was jusr angry about being filmed) The X link is the dialogue between her and the alleged rapists. Even if it was consensual, their attitudes are pretty grim. Even if some women use no to mean yes, many testify that men only think this bc of porn. Naturally many protest that they're in danger from supposed liars like the woman, ignoring that woman are in far more danger if no can mean yes.

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