65-year-old man allegedly told police he defaced Shinto shrine as a ‘prank’.Japanese police have arrested a 65-year-old American tourist for allegedly defacing a Tokyo shrine.
The man, identified as Steve Hayes, is accused of using his fingernails to scratch five letters into a torii gate at the Meiji Jingu shrine on Tuesday morning.
Hayes said he was writing the name of a family member into the gate – which represents the border between the living and sacred worlds in the Shinto religion – as a prank, according to the police.
Staff at the Meiji Jingu shrine, constructed in 1920 to honour the spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife Empress Shoken, discovered the damage the same day and alerted police, who arrested Hayes on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear how they identified Hayes, who authorities say arrived in Japan with his family on Monday, nor what charges he could face.
The Meiji Jingu shrine was constructed in 1920 to honour the spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife Empress Shoken [Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images]
It is the second such incident at a shrine in the Japanese capital this week.
On Monday, police said they were investigating after the kanji character for “death” was graffitied on two spots of a stone wall at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine honouring Japan’s war dead.
The announcement followed two other defacement incidents at the same shrine – which has been a source of diplomatic friction with China and other Asian countries due to its commemoration of Japan’ …
