Japan drops plans to fast-track refugee deportations after Sri Lankan's death in detention

Japan has dropped controversial plans to make it easier to deport foreigners, including asylum seekers, following the death of a Sri Lankan woman in an immigration detention facility in March.

The proposed legislative amendment, which had been widely condemned by opposition politicians and human rights groups alike, was withdrawn by the government on Tuesday.

Around 300 foreign nationals are currently detained in Japan awaiting deportation, according to Makiko Ando of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan. Until her death on March 6, 33-year-old Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali was among them.

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An immigration detention centre in Japan. Since 2007, 17 people including Sandamali have died in immigration detention, authorities say. Photo: Kyodo

The Sri Lankan national had been detained in August for overstaying her student visa, which she used to enter Japan in 2017. She began complaining of ill-health in January, but her appeals to doctors at the detention centre in Nagoya were ignored even as she experienced dizziness, vomiting, and lost more than 20kg in weight.

Immigration officials listed her cause of death as "undetermined" and launched an investigation, with a full report set to be released in July.

A funeral for Sandamali was held in Nagoya over the weekend. Her sisters Wayomi and Poornima, who travelled to Japan for it, told a press conference of their anger at their sister's treatment - describing the room where she died as "tiny" and depressing - and the lack of answers they received from immigration officials.

Poornima said officials had extended their "deepest sympathies" and said they took her sister's death "very seriously", but refused to go into further details until the investigation was complete.

"I got the impression that they were telling a lot of lies and trying to evade responsibility," she said.

No surveillance footage of Sandamali's time in detention has been released to the public and it has been reported that authorities believed she was feigning illness to obtain provisional release.

Detainees are seen through a hatch at an immigration detention centre in Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

Ando, of the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, said the number of foreigners in detention had dropped significantly since the start of the pandemic as officials were concerned about coronavirus outbreaks in detention facilities. Released detainees are given no financial assistance and cannot legally work, which campaigners say is aimed at getting them to leave Japan voluntarily.

According to the Global Detention Project, Japan received 15,505 refugee or asylum applications in 2019 and had more than 22,000 detainees in its three main detention facilities in Osaka, Nagasaki and Ibaraki, as well as at 16 smaller units around the country.

That same year, around 4,700 foreign nationals had failed to leave the country after their student visas expired, up from 2,800 in 2015, according to government statistics. Before the pandemic, around 5,500 people were being deported by Japan every year.

Keiko Kato, a lawyer with the Masuda Law Office in Tokyo who specialises in immigration cases and attended Sandamali's funeral, attributed the government's recent legislative U-turn to media coverage of the Sri Lankan's death.

"I cannot express how happy I am to hear that the government has withdrawn this legislation, as well as surprised," she said. "Yes, there were politicians who were opposing the government, but I think that having Sandamali's family here at this time made the difference."

"The media have covered their visit to the immigration centre in Nagoya and we have been pushing for a meeting between the family and the minister of justice to hear what he has to say on the matter."

Criticism from foreign rights' groups had also motivated the move, Kato said, much of it aimed at the Japanese judiciary's lack of involvement with the appeals process - which the immigration bureau handles on its own - as well as the amount of time foreign nationals were being held in detention.

"There are people who have been in detention centres for seven or even eight years, there are numerous cases of people being seriously ill and there have been several deaths," she said.

The government's solution with its withdrawn proposals was to simply make it easier to deport people by cutting the requirement for prolonged hearings before a deportation order was carried out, Kato said, in violation of its international obligations on refugees.

Since 2007, 17 people including Sandamali have died in immigration detention in Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a press conference without going into specifics on their nationalities or the cause of their deaths.

Lila Abiko, another Tokyo-based lawyer involved in supporting foreigners living in Japan, said one of her clients, a Ghanaian national, died in custody seven years ago while awaiting a decision on his application for refugee status.

"The system and the situation are really bad," she said. "It's difficult to explain to someone who has never seen it for themselves, but conditions in the centres are very poor and there have been repeated cases of people dying in these facilities."

Asked why nothing appears to have improved, given the number of cases and media reports on the poor conditions, Abiko said: "I don't have an answer. Nothing has got better in the last 20 years, it's still horrible and Japan is far, far behind other countries in this area. I just can't explain it."

Additional reporting by Kyodo

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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