A Japanese real estate company has been ordered to pay about $10,000 in damages for harassing an ethnic Korean employee.

The Osaka District Court ruled Thursday the plaintiff, identified as a woman in her 50s, is to receive compensatory damages from Fuji Corp. Ltd., after she suffered from emotional distress and sued the Japanese firm for about $300,000, Kyodo News reported.

According to the court ruling, in 2013 Fuji Corp. began to distribute racist books and magazines targeting ethnic Korean and Chinese people in Japan.

Two years later, the employee sued the company, citing human and civil rights violations.

The company is accused of retaliating with the distribution of a document that slandered the employee, an ethnic Korean. The document referred to the employee as a "fool who repays kindness with inimicality," according to Kyodo.

The Osaka Court said the company's actions were a violation of law because they did not treat the employee respectfully and raised concerns of discrimination by nationality.

Anti-Korean demonstrations, targeting immigrants, occur across Japan, but some cities are taking action to penalize protests that endorse discrimination against minority groups.

On Wednesday, the city of Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture began to enforce a law against "hate speech" protests.

The new law against protests that target ethnic minorities comes after the city began to fine individuals and groups about $4,600 for holding anti-Korean and other racist rallies, South Korean newspaper Hankook Ilbo reported.

Groups that engage in hate speech are banned in the city from using loudspeakers, carrying banners, distributing flyers or setting up tents, according to the report.

Anti-Chinese sentiment may also be growing in Japan in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this year, a Japanese man in Kyoto was arrested after targeting Chinese nationals in the city and posted anti-Chinese flyers on a telephone pole in a residential neighborhood.

The flyers read, "Don't let in infected Chinese," according to Kyodo.

Copyright 2020 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent., source International Top News