Important notice about Mr.Suraj's lawsuit

Thank you for your interests in Mr. Suraj's lawsuit. On Monday, January 18, the appeal court decision will be held. Pleaes Come to Court as an Observer to Support the Lawsuit.


This time, admission ticket is required to come into the court. Please make sure to come to the 2 nd distributing point at the main entrance of Tokyo high court to join the lottery by 2:40pm.

After the court, we will have a meeting to have a repoort by the plaintiff's lawyers. Please attend it as well as court.


Please invite your family and friends to be observers and lend us a hand!!!



High Court Judgment day 　＊only in Japanese

Day and time：Monday, January 18, 2016 3pm~

Place：Tokyo High Court, Court Room#825

ASIAN PEOPLE'S FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY (APFS)

Tel:03-3964-8739

E-mail:apfs-1987@nifty.com

We held APFS HOME PARTY!! (Voice from a volunteer)

On May 25th 2014, we held APFS HOME PARTY for our related people who are consulted and supporters for them.

We gathered 30 people who have various nationalities such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Philippines. About 5 members of staff also joined the events. One of the participants from Philippines cooked the meals for us and we enjoyed it. This party will be held at least once within two month for the communicating space between members, staffs and volunteers. During the party, we gave our self-introductions and we talked about “hope” individually.

What did this party give the participants? I thought this was a networking opportunity for participants. They are really busy because some manage their own restaurants and others engage in the building construction industry. One of the participants said that he does not take a leave even a day in a week. Our related people cannot meet usually. This party gives the happiness to share the present situation for each. They talked their lives. I could talk with them and learned about their countries and how they live in Japan.

I participated in APFS’s event for the first time today. It was nice that I could see the face of participants whom I will engage with. They are just one of them who are supported by APFS. I don’t know about them and their situation in Japan so I would like to know about them more through volunteering in APFS.

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.

 

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.

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

On Monday, February 3^rd, 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.)

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.

12th court hearing Held in Mr. Suraj’s Trial

 The 12^th court hearing of the state compensation trial was opened on October 23^rd (Wed) from 10 am. In the morning, a specialist MD was invited to testify about the heart disease (cystic tumor of the atrioventricular node; referred to as CTAVN below) claimed to be Mr. Suraj’s cause of death. From the afternoon, the examination of the doctor who identified Mr. Suraj’s cause of death, and later on that of the plaintiff, namely of Mr. Suraj’s wife were held.

 The focus this time was on the testimony by Dr. Ikeda who identified Mr. Suraj’s previously unknown cause of death as CTAVN in a second autopsy report two years later; that is, as a disease Mr. Suraj was supposed to have already been suffering from.

Dr. Ikeda claimed right from the beginning that CTAVN is 100% sure to be the cause of death. He said that to come to a conclusion of death by suffocation, one necessary premise would be to clearly exclude other possible causes of death; so since now another cause of death (CTAVN) can be found, it cannot be death by suffocation. However, when he was asked how he could conclude that merely having CTAVN = (equals) CTAVN as the cause of death while there are reported cases where people lived for some 90 years with CTAVN, he only said “that is because he is dead”; an answer that completely lacked convincing content even for us medical laymen.

Also, he even made rude statements such as “he had CTAVN so there is no need to consider other causes of death” or “the fact that he died then and there was a matter of his life expectancy”, thus inviting harsh criticism from the observer seats.

Based on such statements of Dr. Ikeda, further suspicion concerning Mr. Suraj’s cause of death was strengthened and shared by the observers.

Later, in her testimony, Mr. Suraj’s wife managed to deliver the most important messages she wanted to communicate to the chief judge, such as “(based on the content of the previous testimonies by the immigration officers) I feel that my husband was not handled as a human being” and “I hope that I am the last one who has to withstand such hardship”.

After the trial in a meeting, the legal team reported that they managed to get the statements they were expecting from these testimonies. Also, those who were present confirmed their determination to each other to carry on fighting with the closing argument in sight.

The next hearing will be the closing arguments on February 3^rd (Mon) 2014 from 3 pm in Court Room No. 705 (venue may be open to change).

Please invite people around you and come as observers to support us at the final hearing.

 (Photo: the legal team at the meeting)