Conference on Mr. Suraj’s Case Held by the Minister of Justice

Today in the morning, Minister of Justice Taki held a report conference about investigation results on Mr. Suraj’s case.
Since former Minister of Justice Chiba previously decided to conduct an investigation about this case, the Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice engaged in further investigation, and this time the results were reported, including the content of the decision for non-prosecution made in this year’s July.
The content of this report was identical to the Chiba Prosecutor Office’s reasons for the non-prosecution decision, that is throughout the incident restraining actions, usage of restrain equipment and first aid measures by immigration employees were all legal, and there is no causal relationship between actions taken by immigration and Mr. Suraj’s death.
What is irritating is that Minister Taki is reported to have said that Mr. Suraj’s family had been informed about these investigation results, while in fact they did not know at all about the investigation, its results and today’s conference. We have first heard about the conference when our organization was contacted by the press today after it had taken place. Later, several press companies contacted Mr. Suraj’s wife asking for comments, but she was confused by the situation first hearing about the content of the conference from the press.
These measures to investigate and report only on the government’s terms and to later say that they have fulfilled they responsibility to be accountable are nothing but insincere. I think that this situation in which the family is left behind clearly shows this country’s current level of human right awareness.

7th Hearing Held in Mr. Suraj’s Trial for State Compensation

November 19th (Mon) was the 7th court date in Mr. Suraj’s case.
This time, the plaintiff side made a proceeding report describing that a request was made for enclosure to crime victims which actually took place on October 12th, and that another request has been submitted to the prosecutor office for viewing of the video taken during the deportation process.
It was agreed upon that the plaintiff side lets the defendant side to have a look at the acquired information, and the defendant side will make an official statement by next time.
This time, the observer seats were not full. It is feared that as the trial is prolonged, this way the case may gather less interest. The next court hearing is on next year’s February 25th (Mon) from 4PM in Court Room No. 705. We hope that you will support us as an observer and may even invite other people around you who are interested.

We are still collecting signatures for Mr. Suraj !

  The final day for collecting signatures was today but after discussing with the lawyers we decided to extend it a little bit (to the middle of November probably).

 We have 955 signs right now but we are looking for more than 1000. Thanks for your cooperation !

 You can download the petition sheet on APFS website: http://apfs.jp/ Please send it by Fax or by post mail.

Mini Concert for the support of Mr. Suraj

 
 On the 27th of October, a concert was organized to raise money for Mr. Suraj in Kiss Café, in Nishi-Ogikubo. Theo, a French man who is volunteering at APFS, played the guitar along with a Japanese woman singing standards from Europe and America, along with popular Japanese songs. Half of the music charge for the support of Mr. Suraj.


Below is the report by Theo.

Support Concert for Mr. Suraj at Kiss Cafe, Nishi-ogikubo  on the 27th of October.

 On the 27th of October, APFS, Mr. Suraj's wife, friends and supporters gathered for a support concert event at the Kiss Cafe, in Nishi-Ogikubo, Tokyo.
Half of the entrance fee of 1,000 Yens was to be given to Mr. Suraj's wife to help her with the various expenses going along with her fight for the unveiling of the truth in the accident that led to her husband's death and for the prosecution of the Immigration Officers that were part of the deportation.

Reimi and I played music for about two hours, and the cafe, decorated by the numerous paintings of Abubakar Suraj, was completely full, showing once again the solid support behind this fight.

Several dozens of signatures were gathered for the forced prosecution of the officers, which is always a great help.

Thanks to all of you who participated, we hope to do it again in the near future.

 

Explanation of the contents of the 6th hearing of the trial for Mr. Suraj by the Attorneys

 
 Last time, other than the evidence that the judges obtained from the Chiba district public prosecutors office, we too were asking the prosecutors office for disclosure of documents concerning the case.
When we tried to obtain a copy of the documents, the prosecutors stated that "the documents are the same as those we submitted to the court". In response, we pointed out that a directive from the Ministry of Justice states that family of victims of crime should be shown a wider range of documents. The prosecutors realized their mistake and stated they will reconsider whether they will disclose the documents or not. The prosecutors then covered parts of the document that have to do with one's privacy and finally the documents did not make it on time for the hearing. We should be able to acquire the documents during next week. We will then consider what evidence we will turn in to the court and what we will claim. Yesterday's trial was not very productive but maybe because there were many observers in the court, the presiding judge was very polite and comprehensive towards us, to a point that we were surprised. At the last trial, a written expert opinion that stated that Mr. Suraj's death was caused by illness was submitted to the court, but we were relieved by the Judge's comment: "the court read it too, but it doesn't seem to take into account what the Immigration bureau officers did". The judges did not seem to see the written expert opinion as that important.

I expect that the next trial will be more meaningful than yesterday's trial.

********
The next hearing will be held on Monday, 19th of November, at 4:00PM in the court room 705. Please come and join us as an observer to the court, it is very important.

Today’s petition action for M. Suraj

 Today, we gathered signatures for the petition that we plan to hand out to the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution, aiming at a forced prosecution. We first planned to do it in Ikebukuro, but because an event was already happening, we had to move to Takadanobaba, where we had the last petition action. 8 persons, including Suraj’s wife, friends and supporters stood up in front of the station for 2 hours, and we could gather 58 signatures.

Including today’s signatures, we are now at a total of 600 persons. We want to have at least 1000 signatures by the end of October. Please talk to people around you, ask them to sign the petition. You can send us the signatures by fax or post mail.

(Please sign the petition too. You can download the petition sheet from Apfs website : http://apfs.jp/event20120927_1885.php)

6th Hearing in the trial aiming at State compensation for the Mr. Suraj's incident

Today was held the 6^th Hearing in the trial aiming at State compensation in the incident of Mr. Suraj's death. Following the decision of non-prosecution of early July of this year, we asked for the disclosure of the documents that were the reason of the non-prosecution, but since the documents are not to be disclosed until next week, no significant progress has been made today.

According to the content of the documents, the trial aiming at State Compensation could be considerably modified. The next hearing will be held on Monday, 19^th of November, at 4:00PM. Please come and join us as an observer to the court, it is very important.

（Picture） Before the hearing, we asked for signature for the petition claiming for the forced prosecution to the committee for the inquest of prosecution.

Please sign the petition too. You can download the petition sheet from Apfs website : http://apfs.jp/event20120927_1885.php

Suraj’s incident: Petition action for a forced prosecution

As everybody knows, we work hard at APFS to pressure for the forced prosecution of the 10 Immigration Officers who participated to the deportation attempt of M. Suraj (a decision of non-prosecution was released on the 3^rd of July this year). This is why we are planning to present the signatures to the petition to the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution.

Yesterday, we hold a petition action in front of Takadanobaba station. Suraj’s wife, friends, and supporters, around 10 people in total gathered to ask for signatures. Despite the extreme heat, many people kindly stopped to hear about M. Suraj, and we were able to gather about 100 signatures in an hour and a half.

To the persons wanting to support the action, you can directly download the petition from the internet (Japanese and English versions available): http://apfs.jp/cms/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/120820-suraj-petition-English.pdf Thank you for your support.

Photographs illustrating Mr. Suraj’s deportation

Among the documents that were made open by the Ministry of Justice after the team of attorneys engaged in Mr. Suraj’s case made an appeal for the preservation of evidence, there was a set of photographs taken by the Immigration Bureau to reconstruct the circumstances of the case.

The person in the white shirt acts as Mr. Suraj. The reenactment took place in the office space of the Deportation Department at the Tokyo Immigration Bureau.

 

↑ Illustrating how they boarded the plane while he was carried by immigration employees in a position facing down

 

↑ Illustrating how his mouth was covered with a towel when he was seated and how his body was held down by several officers

 

It is clear that he was forced into a stressful position. It is the first time that we look at the deportation scene this way, but we can see that he was treated in a very violent manner. Imagining Mr. Suraj’s death under such treatment, one cannot help but feel enraged.

 

 

The Trial of Mr. Suraj continues !

After the release of the non-prosecution decision by the Chiba’s Public Prosecutor Office, many people seem to think that the trial for Mr. Suraj is over.

Even if in the criminal case a decision of non-prosecution has been released (there is still the possibility of forcing the prosecution through the Inquest for Prosecution Committee), the civil case (the trial claiming for compensation from the State) still continues. The next hearing will take place on the 1^st of October from 3:30PM in the court room 705. Even only to protest against this unfair decision of non-prosecution, we would like you to gather at the audience. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Protest Action against the decision of Non-prosecution in the case of M. Suraj

On the 3^rd of this month, we put on this blog that the 10 immigration officers who participated in the forced deportation of Mr. Suraj were not going to be prosecuted.

We made a one day action to protest against this unfair decision of non-prosecution.

From 11:30AM, the fifth hearing in the trial claiming for compensation from the State occurred in the court room 705, and the room was again full with people supporting the case. Since the decision of non-prosecution of the criminal case has been issued in between the last hearing and today’s one, the recordings that were up until now in the hand of the Chiba’ district Public Prosecutor Office’s hands were released and are going to be inspected from now on.

From 12:00, we moved to the Lawyers Association building, where the Attorneys explained the decision of non-prosecution (that the death of Mr. Suraj was caused by a heart tumor). Then, as the perspective from now on, they plan to review in details the expert’s report, and eventually to get a point of view from the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution.

From 3:00PM, we moved to the Chiba’s Prosecutor Office to make a protest action. We handed out the Protest Letter we put on this blog before, but the person in charge of the case was said to be absent, so Mr. Suraj’s widow transmitted the sheet directly. We cannot help but to feel that the decision of non-prosecution with “no suspicion”, which is a fairly rare decision, reflects that the Chiba’s district Prosecutor Office is just protecting its peers. We believe it is necessary to firmly oppose resistance to this unfair judgment.

To everybody who participated in the action despite the extreme heat, thank you very much. Thank you also to everybody who went to assist to the hearing! The next hearing will take place on Monday, the 1^st of October, from 3PM in the court room 705. Everyone’s continued presence has a great influence on the judge, thank you very much for your cooperation.

Urgent protest statement concerning the non-prosecution decision

For the 10 Immigration officers who were under the threat of being prosecuted for the death of M. Suraj, a non-prosecution decision has been released. We, APFS and Suraj’s wife protest against this decision in the text below.

We also distributed this text in a press conference of the justice related matters journalists club. You can see the press conference in the picture below.

 

Urgent protest statement concerning the non-prosecution decision

2 years have passed since the incident, and we felt a deep indignation when we learned about the decision of non-prosecution.

About the cause of Suraj’s death, a re-examination of his heart revealed he had a tumor, so an irregular pulse was decided to be the main cause. Without asking the family at all about the conservation of the heart, to believe all of a sudden that, after 2 years that the heart has been stored, a tumor is the cause of the death is really difficult. We do have doubts about whether the heart is really Suraj’s one and whether the examination is really sure.

It was said that the oppressive acts of the Immigration Officers on M. Suraj are within justified acts, but they stopped the video, and without any kind of recording, what kind of justified acts were they doing, we have to judge only through the one-sided claim from the Immigration Bureau. During the deportations to come from now on, can they use any kind of coercive means and be judged as correct acts? We are appalled by this possibility.

Concerning the current trial claiming for State Compensation, the State being the defendant has released on the 20^th of June its preparatory papers. The content resembles a lot the claim for non-prosecution released by the prosecutor, and the fact that the timing matches too let us think that the State and the prosecutor are colluded.

Therefore, about the decision of non-prosecution, we protest strongly against what we think is collusion between the State and the Prosecutor, stomping over People’s rights.

4^th of July 2012

Suraj’s wife

Supporting organization APFS

Report on the venue of students from Ocha No Mizu Women’s University

16 students from Ocha No Mizu Women’s university and their professor, M. Keichi Kumagai visited APFS office on the morning of the 9^th of June.

The time was short but after Ms. G speech, there was a few questions. The students showed a good critical sense, and raised very pertinent problems.

Their venue was very fertile and we hope everybody enjoyed this rare occasion of discussing the problems related to the situation of the foreign residents in Japan.

After a brief presentation of APFS itself, the representative M. Kato explained through the help of statistics and distributions by nationality and type of visas of entry the global situation of the persons residing in Japan without a proper visa. Where does the immigration phenomenon from developing countries to Japan come from? What is the position of the State itself? What are, in a few words, the immigration policies in Japan? Those were some of the matters that M. Kato presented. Finally, he talked about the way that APFS had a leading role in the creation of the Special Permit of Residence.

Then, Ms. Garcia from the Philippines, coming as a guest speaker, took the time to explain concretely her present situation. She is currently left without a visa, and has lots of troubles. Her speech was very emotional, and probably everybody was moved by her story. If you lose your visa, there is the possibility of facing a forced deportation, which would mean that her 17 years old son would have to live by himself.

Everybody felt sympathy and compassion towards Ms. Garcia, and got a concrete glance at the kind of trouble that the foreign residents in Japan can face.

It is very important that many people feel concerned by the activities of our association.

We hope to be able to set up such occasions again.

About the informational meeting on the trial for state compensation for M. Suraj of the 21st of May

  During the Informational meeting that took place after the fourth hearing of the trial for compensation for Mr. Suraj, about information about the evolution of the case so far and the perspectives from now on, we looked at pictures of the reproduction of the situation of Mr. Suraj’s deportation (presented by the Ministry of Justice).
　
　M. Suraj was made to lay face down and was carried into the airplane, with metal handcuffs on the legs, and through the use of personal items that belonged to the Immigration officers, this is the kind of scene displayed in the pictures of the reproduction of the incident. After they made M. Suraj seat in the airplane seat, several Immigration officers were retaining M. Suraj (this is why the back of the chair fell), while his mouth was getting stuffed with a towel. Moreover, he was made to bend down forward when he was seated, which even in amateur’s eyes seems like an exaggerated pressure.

  Thinking that M. Suraj died in the middle of such an inhumane treatment, I felt a cruel indignation. The pictures shocked all the persons that participated to the informational meeting, and I think we all shared the same feeling. It was the occasion to dig into the real matter and to strengthen the determination towards making the truth become clear.

Report on the Earth Festival Kanagawa 2012

    On the weekend of the 19 and 20th of May, the Earth Festival was organized in Yokohama-shi, in Kanagawa Prefecture. Putting under the spotlight the various ethnic groups and cultures of the people living in Japan, this very popular yearly event features food stalls, dances, music performances, a world bazaar and lots of fun.
   
    Starting from Saturday morning, and until Sunday evening, colorful and smiling artists followed one another on different stages offered by the organizers. Arriving from Hongo-dai station, a mere 10 minutes train ride from Kamakura, the festival starts with the world bazaar, a very calm and peaceful outdoor market with lots of handicraft, clothing, jewelry, and various hand-made items. Inside of the nearby Earth Plaza building was the main stage and many workshops and happenings in the different stairs.
   
    But the core of the festival was of course the busy, steamy and noisy food stalls village. Situated right under the bazaar, all around a little pool containing an island where musical performances and various talks were held, there was food from all over the world, from the Spanish Empanadas, Thai noodles, Bangladeshi curry and Nan, to Indonesian Lawar, Indian beer or Brazilian style churros. All the different smells, colors, faces made it a very enjoyable event.
APFS held a Bangladeshi food stall, featuring curry, tandoory chicken, kebab and lassi. The delicious coconuts chicken curry prepared by the team of Bangladeshi professional cook was a huge success! Thank you very much to all the people who came to the stand.

    Don’t hesitate to participate next year !

Fourth hearing of the trial for compensation for Mr. Suraj

Today from 4PM in the court room 705 was held the fourth hearing of the trial aiming at State compensation for the incident that led to M. Suraj’s death.

The seats for the public were full again, which has a great importance for the following of the trial.

The state didn’t hand out the documents explaining their objection by the designated deadline of the 14th of May, and will have to do it by the 20th of June.

Regarding the dishonesty of the State, the Judge also referred to the fact that the criminal case does have to progress in any way.

He strongly stated that the state has to present objections by the next hearing. The points at stake becoming clear, we will be able to make progress.

After today’s trial we moved to the LAwyers building where the Attorneys at law spoke about the progress of the trial up until now, perspectives from now on and such topics (as shown on the picture).

Many questions were asked by the participants, and we were able to share with each other the cruelty and the irrationality of the incident.

The next hearing will take place in the court room 705 of Tokyo District court from 11 :30AM on the 30th of July.

Please everyone, come as an observer to the hearing, every single person lends a great power to the case.

A message from volunteer

Hello,

My name is Theo. I am coming to APFS as a volunteer since April 2012.

I want to study about the migrations to Japan, so I came here as an exchange student. Spending time, talking, working together with the people of APFS, who try to find solutions for the foreigners living here, it is a very rich experience. Whether they have the right visa or not, foreigners are treated not as such but as human beings, and I feel it is a very good thing.

There are many legal regulations. But if you try to hold together with the foreigners that can be lost in the maze of the laws, regulations, and a sometimes very unfriendly society, we can make a better society !

If you don’t have the right paper, I realized daily life can become extremely difficult. I never had trouble with getting a cell phone, getting registered or daily life matters, thanks to my foreign student visa. But, listening to the stories of people in different situations, I realized that it was not so easy for other people. Finding an apartment, a job, divorce, cellphone, a lot a things of very difficult.

While I’m in Japan, I don’t want to do research in an office. I want to be on the field, to grasp the situation.

So, as much as I can, I want to participate in finding solutions with this association, and with the people living here.

The second trial on Mr. Suraj's case

 The second trial on Mr. Suraj's case (claim for damages against the Japanese government) was held on January 16 at 2 o'clock at courtroom 705 at Tokyo District Court.

 The response of the government was exactly the same as the last trial: the judgment should be suspended until the criminal punishment is decided. We were disappointed at the government's insincere attitude toward the case. To this statement, the chief justice stated that the government must consider the case along with criminal punishment. From the next trial, we expect that the government make clear the problems of the case, and that we see some progress.

 The next trial (the third trial) will be held on March 12 (Mon.) from 2 o'clock at courtroom 705.

 Please continue to support us by observing the trial at court!