Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- FamilyMart Co., Japan's third-largest convenience store chain, yesterday pulled a magazine on crimes committed by foreigners from store shelves, citing the publication's ``inappropriate racial expressions.''

FamilyMart withdrew copies of ``Gaijin Hanzai Ura Fairu,'' or ``Secret Foreigner Crime Files,'' after receiving at least 10 complaints from customers since Feb. 3, Takehiko Kigure, a spokesman for Tokyo-based FamilyMart Co., said in a telephone interview yesterday. About 1000 copies of the magazine, which costs 690 yen ($5.74), were sold.

``We decided to remove it from our shelves because inappropriate racial expressions were found in the magazine,'' Kigure said. The company removed the book from 7,500 stores in Japan yesterday.

Crimes committed by foreigners in Japan are often cited by right-wing groups and politicians to justify demands for tighter immigration policies. Others like Hidenori Sakanaka, the former head of the Tokyo immigration bureau, say Japan needs to encourage more immigrants to compensate for a decline in the population if it wants to maintain its economic power.

Secret Foreigner Crime Files, published on Jan. 31 by Tokyo-based Eichi Publishing, contains images and descriptions of what the magazine says are crimes committed in Japan by non- Japanese, including graphs breaking down crimes by nationality.

Chasing Foreigners

The magazine's cover, in red and black, shows caricatured images of foreigners grinning maniacally with glowing red eyes under its banner headline.

The magazine, which has no advertising, includes a caption describing a black man with a racially directed epithet, an article entitled ``Chase the Iranian!'' and calls Tokyo a ``city torn apart by evil foreigners.''

One cartoon re-enacts a murder on a pig farm in Chiba, east of Tokyo, allegedly by a Chinese man who overstayed his visa.

The publisher, listed as Shigeki Saka in the magazine, didn't return calls for comment, after five attempts to contact him at Eichi.

The magazine is advertised for sale at Amazon.co.jp, Rakuten Books, Kinokuniya, Boople and Kuro Neko Book Service, among others, according to the publisher's Web site.

It's also listed as being out of stock on the Web site of Seven & Y Corp., an online book shop 50.8 percent owned by Seven-Eleven Japan Co., the convenience store operator, and 31.3 percent owned by Yahoo! Japan Corp.

Low Crime Rate

``Seven-Eleven convenience stores don't sell the book,'' Minoru Matsumoto, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Seven & I Holdings, Japan's largest retailer by sales, said by phone.

Seven & Y Corp. spokesman Hirotaka Kanou said the company will investigate and respond later, declining to comment further.

Japan's crime rate is one of the world's lowest at 1,776 reported crimes per 100,000 people in 2005, according to the latest government statistics. The number of crimes among Japan's 2 million foreign residents in 2005 was 2,380 per 100,000.

Offenses by foreigners rose to a record high of 47,865 in 2005, from 47,128 a year earlier and 40,615 in 2003, according to police statistics. The number of non-Japanese arrested is also rising, to 21,178 in 2005 from 20,007 two years earlier.

The statistics don't break out visa-related offenses, which in 2003 accounted for 46 percent of crimes committed by foreigners. By their nature such breaches can't be committed by Japanese citizens.

Japan's overall crime rate in 2003 was 2,185 per 100,000 and 2,120 among foreigners. Excluding visa offences, the rate was 1,570 per 100,000 foreigners.

Blaming Outsiders

Foreigners are to blame for the perception the capital is becoming more dangerous, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

Roppongi, a district famous for its bars and nightclubs, is ``now virtually a foreign neighborhood. Africans -- I don't mean African Americans -- who don't speak English are there doing who knows what. The situation needs to be improved,'' Ishihara said yesterday in the interview in his office.

Ishihara, who co-wrote the 1989 book ``A Japan That Can Say No,'' caused a public outcry in 2000 when he told Japanese Self- Defense Forces that foreigners and ``sangokujin,'' a derogatory term for Chinese and Koreans, would spark riots following a natural disaster such as an earthquake.

Ishihara said yesterday Japan needs a more comprehensive immigration policy to prevent low-skilled workers or criminals from entering the country.

``This is not a question of procuring a labor supply,'' he said. ``We should be letting in more people who are intelligent.''

Attracting Immigrants

Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute and former head of the Tokyo Region Immigration Bureau, said Japan should do more to attract immigration to boost the country's economy and public perception of a rising crime rate among foreigners is having an adverse impact.

``Overcoming Japan's declining population and birthrate is not going to be enough,'' Sakanaka said on his blog. ``Many of the 2 million foreigners living in Japan are having problems adjusting, while the number of Japanese hating foreigners is increasing.''

The latest survey on public safety by Japan's Cabinet Office, published in 2005, found that 87 percent of people thought safety in Japan had declined in the previous decade, with over 50 percent of them blaming the problem on illegal immigrants.

Secret Foreigner Crime Files featured widely in Japanese blogs and other Internet forums after it appeared on FamilyMart's shelves.

Debito Arudou, a naturalized Japanese citizen and author of ``Japanese Only,'' posted a bilingual letter for readers to take to FamilyMart stores protesting against ``discriminatory statements and images about non-Japanese residents of Japan.''

Another blog, Japan Probe, asked readers to check that FamilyMart is complying with its pledge to remove the publication.

To contact the reporters on this story: Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net; Kanoko Matsuyama in Tokyo at kmatsuyama2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 7, 2007 01:45 EST