Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The conclusion of a trial for state compensation regarding Mr. Suraj’s case


After the opinion statements by Mr. Suraj’s wife, the plaintiff’s legal team claimed. First, the team argued the fact progress taken for the past 4 years and confirmation of illegality based on what really happened when incident occurred on March 22, 2010.

 

After the incident, there had been no explanations provided by the state to the survivors.

Despite of taking evidence preservation process, the state refused to disclose various evidences behind.

The video capturing the scene of the incident, which was finally disclosed, was stopped recording right after Mr. Suraj and officers entered an aircraft.

 

Many cruel facts were finally come out through questioning the immigration officers on these state attitudes of concealing the truths mentioned above at the trail for state compensation.

-Using unauthorized items such as towels or cable tie.

-Forcing him to bend as coercive pose which was unnecessary.

-The testimony by officers that Mr. Suraj resisted was a lie.

 

 After that, the team argued the casual relationship between the death of Mr. Suraj and illegal acts of immigration officers and also stated how irrational the defendant statement was; Mr. Suraj’s heart stopped, which is related to his heart tumor, at the very moment when he was forced to bend.

 Also, there had been no scientific evidence provided, rather the state argued only based on doctor’s testimonies.

 Taking these into consideration, the team stated that it is very clear that Mr. Suraj death was caused by the coercive acts by officers.

 

The trail was ended in about 40 minutes, and after that we moved to another place for report. The report included explanations about closing arguments and withdrawing of 9 immigration officers as defendant. After that, there were many questions given by the participants which we could feel their passions toward the next judgment.

 

Friday, February 7, 2014

A Volunteer Opinion (Ms. Taniguchi)

Hello. My name is Taniguchi. I joined APFS as a volunteer in July 2013. It was in June 2011 when I knew the existence of APFS. When I visited the office as a part of the class of the university, I was impressed to hear the story of a Bangladeshi man. He talked eagerly about Japan at that time, so I felt he thought of Japan more than us. I still remember the day.

We Japanese, how do we face the presence of "foreigners"? Through the activities in APFS and things that are treated as foreign "problem" in Japan, I feel Japanese may see them as "others", and the tendency is strong.

But "foreigners" cannot be viewed in a monolithic way. People who come to the office of APFS are also very diverse. I was stimulated to see the state of foreign people suffering from troubles actually in Japan---which is said to be "tough on foreigners". And I wonder what is “the multicultural society” everyday.

How do we “Japanese”, as a majority in Japan, face with them? And how can we make it possible to live with them in the real sense of "coexistence"?

I continue to think about these question through the activities in APFS.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The conclusion of a trial for state compensation regarding Mr. Suraj’s case


On Monday, February 3rd, the trail for state compensation of Mr. Suraj’s case came to conclusion.

On that day, the seats for the observers were fully occupied and around 20 people wishing to attend even had to stay in a waiting room.

Although it was the closing arguments, there were only arguments given by the plaintiff and no arguments by the defendant made.

The trail began with the final opinion statements by wife as a plaintiff.

Some observers could not stop crying while hearing the wife's statements filled with a lot of memories with Mr. Suraj: a moment of drawing some illustrations, an episode at his favorite noodle restaurant, conversations between the two as they often took a walk to a park during the spring season.

At the beginning of the trail, the wife stated “Ever since I lost where my heart belongs to, my time has stopped.” Through her statement, we all could not help expressing a wish that a better and fair judgment would be made to help the wife move forward.

(The information about opinion statements and report by the legal team will be shared shortly.)

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Dante-san, endeavoring to support for Tohoku reconstruction, was re-detained.


On January 20, 2014, Dante-san was re-detained by Tokyo immigration office.

 He turned himself in to immigration officials because he thought it was not good to stay as illegal.

 Although he filed a court after the application for special permission for residence was not accepted, the case went against him.

 The point that there is no reason to grant him a provisional release any more since he lost a case was what the immigration office claimed.

 

 Although he did not have any family in Japan, Dante-san strongly wanted to live in Japan by making use of his skills in construction experience and Japanese which he acquired through over 20 years of living in Japan.

 

 He took part in “Volunteer activities for Tohoku reconstruction support” organized by APFS in Rikuzentakata, Iwate (May, 2011) and Izu Islands (Nov, 2013) twice before.

 Dante-san had a big proportion and was such a gentle man with few words.

 He did great in Tohoku volunteer as he had a powerful strength more than anyone.

We asked him a reason of participation in Tohoku support, his answer “I would like to do my best for Japan as my second country” has still been standed out in our memory.

 

Although we visited him after his detention and gave him some information on cases of provisional release granted after the re-detention, Dante-san made his decision to go back his country. He said “I might be able to endure this situation if I had a child, but cannot endure this by myself.” But he also mumbled “I want to stay here if possible”, which we felt that we could not stand remaining there.

 

In preparation for Tokyo Olympic, the government is setting a policy to accept construction workers from overseas with a time limit.
 
However, will workers work as the government is expecting?
 We feel our deep resentment and think that why Japan cannot such workers with considerable experiences in construction and Japanese skills like Dante-san before accepting new workers from overseas.

 

We all cannot help but wishing that there will be good things for him.