| For a few days in early October, it seemed like
Japan's immigration authorities had scored a minor coup of their own in
the "war of terrorism." The evening newspapers on October 3 carried the
front-page news that 11 Afghanis had been detained for violations of the
Immigration Control Law. Specifically, they were accused of entering the
country using false passports or in container ships. Anybody reading the
fine print would have noticed that Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda Yasuo
had said he did not believe there was any link to the September 11 attacks
in New York and Washington, D.C. But considering the timing, less than
a month afterward, it is understandable that people may have been confused
by the headlines. It would be quite rational to conclude that Japan had
caught itself a handful of "Al-Qaida terrorists."
However, on the 5th, when lawyers and human rights activists gained access to the men who were being detained in Tokyo, they realized just how twisted the real story was. Not only where the nine Afghani men whose identities they were able to identify not "terrorists" -- they were not even "illegal foreigners" in the usual sense of the term. All nine were members of minority ethnic groups that had been oppressed by the Taliban-- and more significantly, all nine had applied for refugee status. The police had been well aware of their existence before detaining them. In fact, all of the men had applied for refugee status before August, and were still awaiting the results of their applications. It was, according to one of the lawyers, an "exceptional measure for immigration officials to detain applicants before the process was complete." The police of course claimed that the men had been detained legitimately for violating the Immigration Control law, in most cases by entering Japan with false passports or by being smuggled in without going through proper procedures. However, this disregards a crucial fact: according to a report by Kyodo News Agency, the Japanese government once allowed refugees to apply for special travel passes in Pakistan (most refugees have fled their country and do not have passports), but sometime around the summer of last year, stopped giving such permissions. As a result, Afghani refugees could only apply for special travel permits at the Ministry of Justice in Tokyo. Therefore, they had no choice but to come with false passports. According to the news report, because of this change in policy, there has been a drastic decrease in the number of Afghani refugees coming to Japan, from 375 in the first half of 2000 to just 44 in the same period of 2001. And this may well have been deliberate. Despite the official denials of government officials regarding the latest detentions, it appears that there was indeed a political side to the affair. First, all of the men who were detained, as well as other Afghanis in Japan who had applied for refugee status in Japan, had been called in by officials in the days leading up to the detentions, and asked about their relationships to the Taliban and to Osama bin Laden. But more damningly, a source inside the Immigration Bureau informed a support group for the refugees that the order to detain Afghanis had come from "higher up." This source asserted that politicians had insisted that Immigration officials detain some Afghanis to show that Japan was doing its part to support the new US war. This is ironic, since Japan has made support for Afghan refugees one of the pillars of its participation in the U.S.-led war of retaliation against Afghanistan. It has pledged to provide 14.5 million yen through UN agencies, and has included assistance to refugees in the newly enacted Anti-Terrorism Law, which will also allow Japanese military forces to provide logistical support for the U.S. war effort. Fighting Back Understandably, Afghani refugees in Japan have not simply given in to this treatment. Soon after Immigration officials began their crackdown on October 3, a support group was formed by lawyers, and on the 9th the detainees filed a suit in Tokyo District Court calling for a reversal of their detention. Then, on the 15th, a group of refugees and supporters
held an unprecedented public forum in one of the National Diet office buildings,
calling both for an end to the detentions as well as a change in immigration
policy to allow more refugees to be recognized. Fourteen Afghani refugees
from different areas of Japan explained to Diet members and the press the
plight they had faced in their home country. Some spoke of how family members
had been murdered by Taliban members, and others of being beaten or detained.
First, the people who are currently in detention
should be released, at least temporarily, until their cases are decided.
Second, Japan's refugee policy should be loosened to allow more people
to be given permanent status. Today, too many are placed under a temporary
and unstable situation, never knowing when they will be sent back to a
country from which they have fled, to face torture or worse.
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