We Seek Your Financial Support for A Refugee Family Whose Father Has Been Unjustly Arrested by the Immigration Bureau of Japan IN JAPANESE We are a group of SYI (Shuyosha Yujin-yushi Ichido: Immigration Detainee's Friends) activists and other individuals. SYI protests against human rights violations at the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, Shinagawa, and provides emotional support for the detainees there. On January 7, we visited the bureau as one of our regular actions, and met a Pakistani refugee family (parents and their children). The family are victims of severe human rights violations by the Japanese Immigration and the police, and they need immediate help. We call on you to take interest in this issue and provide financial support for the family.
The father was unjustly arrested at the scene by the officers of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau, and taken to the Tokyo Wangan Police Station; as of today, January 14, 2011, he is still in police custody. The allegation is “obstruction” of immigration officers. The police came to the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau upon their report, and took the father to the Wangan Station. It appears that the Bureau is claiming to the police that they exercised their arrest power because the father attacked the immigration officers. We are certain, however, that the Immigration’s story is a total lie, and that their reason for his arrest was simply fabricated. His family were present at the scene to witness everything that had taken place until he got arrested, and they have given us detailed explanations; they have also provided us with video records of the scene, whose clips we have seen. Also, we ourselves talked with the immigration officers and the police officers of the Wangan Station while protesting on the day of his arrest, and we have heard from the lawyer who visited him and is now working for him. Based on the information from such various sources, we are now sure the “fact” that the father attacked the immigration officers is rather their total fabrication. To start with, according to the video records and other information, the father was first talking to the immigration officers in a peaceful and careful way. We also learned partly through his family’s testimony more than ten immigration officers, on the other hand, surrounded the family and treated them in a very rude and violent manner.
Let us give you the timeline: The family visited the Immigration to seek negotiation for improving their own situation as refugees; after judging there is no further point talking to them, they tried to go home. However, some male immigration officers stopped the family exiting from the main entrance, pushing and hitting them. That was violence enough; it was extremely insulting violence for the mother and daughters, who are Muslims, to be touched by men. To the astonishment, furthermore, the officers committed an outrageous act of uncovering the mother’s burqa. Reasonably, the family firmly protested in word. Since the officers did not stop their violence, however, the father made it clear he had no intention to resort to physical violence by lying down on the floor. Despite that, they arrested him in flagrante (at the scene). Therefore, there is no such fact that the father “attacked” the officers. On the contrary, it was the Immigration who not only attacked the family but unjustly arrested the father, fabricating a “fact.”
The family had applied for refugee status and are awaiting the result. Facing extremely severe dangers of life, they arrived in Japan. But since then, they have not received proper legal advice or living support, and they have a child who is seriously ill. They are forced under dire circumstances in terms of finance and safety. The situation is even more dangerous after this fabricated arrest charge. Accordingly, we need to prevent the father’s prosecution and work for his immediate release. The living support for the mother and the children until the father’s return is also an urgent necessity. For these reasons, we call for your funding assistance within your means for various costs including a lawyer’s fees.