Tatsuji Fuse (布施 辰治, Fuse Tatsuji; November 13, 1880 – September 13, 1953) was a Japanese lawyer and social activist. Months after the beginning of his career, Fuse became disillusioned with the Japanese government and legal system. He began devoting himself to social causes and the defense of underprivileged groups in Japan. This included farmers, women, sex workers, and ethnic minorities, especially Korean people. Fuse eventually began taking hundreds of cases per year, sometimes free of charge, in defense of these groups. Fuse is remembered fondly in Korea as a Korean independence activist and the foremost defender of the rights of Koreans during and shortly after the Japanese colonial period. He was involved in a significant proportion of historic cases involving Koreans in Japan. This includes trials surrounding the February 8 Declaration of Independence, the trials of Pak Yol and Kaneko Fumiko, and trials in the aftermath of the Kantō Massacre. His activities drew the ire of Japanese authorities; he was arrested on a number of occasions and disbarred in 1939. Soon after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, Fuse resumed his practice of the law and defended numerous clients until his death in 1953. In 2004, he became the first Japanese person to be awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation by the South Korean government.
Source: “Tatsuji Fuse”, English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), excerpt