A plan to establish an international school on the site of a closed elementary school in Sapporo has led to over 90 petitions being submitted to the city council in opposition to the plan. It has now been discovered that a lot of them were complete impersonations.

Plans are underway to open an international school using a closed public school building in Sapporo’s Minami Ward. More than 90 petitions opposing the project have been submitted to the city assembly, but it has now come to light that some of those petitions were filed under stolen identities.

A citizen reading out one of the petitions at the assembly said:“We ask that the city pause the sale and reconsider the project, including the option of a lease arrangement.”

At the Sapporo City Assembly on the 26th, citizens who submitted petitions stood before council members and read out their contents. What they are demanding is the withdrawal of the plan to establish an international school.

The site in question is the former Tokiwa Elementary School in Minami Ward, which was closed in 2021. A Singapore-based company, Global Indian Education, obtained priority negotiation rights with the city to purchase the property for 25 million yen and repurpose the former school. The company already operates international schools in cities such as Tokyo and Osaka.

Under the plan, the former school would be renovated into an international school where lessons are conducted in English. In the first year, around 50 children—from preschool age through elementary school—would be accepted regardless of nationality. The school ultimately envisions accommodating up to about 650 students, through the equivalent of the third year of high school.

However, a residents’ briefing held in September descended into chaos. Shouts such as “No to immigration” erupted from participants, and the situation escalated to the point that police were called. Local residents say many people at the meeting did not appear to be from the neighborhood.

A local resident recalls: “There were lots of faces we didn’t recognize. Everyone was saying the same thing—that there were many people we’d never seen before. They marched straight up to the front and declared, ‘We’re against this,’ in a very aggressive manner.”

Representatives of the company say they too were shocked by what happened.

A Global Indian Education representative said: “Two of my colleagues attended the meeting. When they came back, they told me it was frightening. A large group of people loudly chanted ‘No to immigrants!’ in unison, and they were overwhelmed by the atmosphere.”

On social media, baseless claims spread that the school would be “for Indians only.” Against this backdrop, more than 90 petitions calling for the plan to be scrapped were filed with the city assembly. But a new and troubling development has now emerged: two of those petitions have been found to be cases of impersonation.

According to the City of Sapporo, the names listed on the petitions included a resident of another prefecture and a resident of Sapporo. When the city mailed official notices acknowledging receipt of the petitions, both individuals contacted the city to say they had no knowledge of having submitted them.

Faced with this unprecedented case of forged petitions, Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto commented: “The process of petition review in the assembly is an important mechanism for bringing residents’ voices into city government. In that sense, it is fundamental that those submitting petitions do so sincerely and in good faith.”

The city assembly will continue to examine the 90 petitions that are not suspected of impersonation. In addition, the city plans to distribute reply postcards to households in the area surrounding the former Tokiwa Elementary School, in order to gather the views of local residents and reflect community sentiment in its decision-making.