Japanese police have arrested a 65-year-old American tourist, Steve Hayes, for allegedly defacing the torii gate of Tokyo’s historic Meiji Jingu Shrine. Authorities report that Hayes used his fingernails to scratch five letters into the shrine’s sacred gate on Tuesday morning. According to the police, Hayes stated he was attempting to write the name of a family member on the gate as a prank. The torii gate, a revered symbol in the Shinto religion, represents the threshold between the living world and the sacred realm, making its defacement particularly offensive to many in Japan.
The incident unfolded quickly, as staff at Meiji Jingu, a shrine built in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, discovered the damage shortly after it was done and notified law enforcement. Police detained Hayes on Wednesday but have not yet disclosed how they identified him. Hayes reportedly arrived in Japan with his family just a day before the incident, and it remains unclear what legal charges he may face for the alleged defacement.
This arrest follows a series of recent incidents of shrine vandalism in Tokyo, underscoring rising concerns over tourist behavior at Japan’s religious sites. Earlier this week, police reported that the kanji character for “death” was graffitied at two locations on a stone wall at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates Japan’s war dead. The Yasukuni Shrine, already a source of diplomatic tension with China and other Asian countries due to its enshrinement of World War II leaders, has been subject to multiple defacement cases in recent months. In June, the word “toilet” was found spray-painted in red on a stone pillar at the Yasukuni Shrine, with accompanying footage showing a man urinating on the monument. In July, Japanese authorities charged a Chinese resident in Japan with property damage and desecration of a place of worship, and two other Chinese men were subsequently placed on wanted lists. Further, in August, police reported that both Chinese characters and Latin letters were scrawled on the shrine in black felt-tip marker.
Japan’s tourism sector, bolstered by a weak yen, has seen a record influx of 17.78 million foreign visitors in the first half of the year, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. While this surge has significantly boosted the economy, it has also led to a rise in complaints from locals who express frustration over disrespectful behavior by tourists at culturally significant sites. Many Japanese citizens and shrine officials are concerned about preserving the sanctity of these revered places amidst the challenges posed by increased tourism.
