Japan Fails to Protect Political Asylum-Seekers, Rights Group Says

The Japanese government is failing to protect scores of possible political refugees fleeing threats to their lives or freedom, in flagrant disregard of a United Nations pact that it signed, Amnesty International concluded in a report released Wednesday.

In the scathing document, the London-based human rights organization said Japan has at times obstructed the fundamental right to apply for political asylum, failed to act on asylum requests and refused applicants access to attorneys.

Japanese officials have also treated applicants “as liars or criminals” and refused to identify asylum decision-makers, raising a shroud of secrecy that is “virtually unparalleled” in the world, said David Petrasek of Amnesty International’s refugee office.

The Japanese Ministry of Justice hotly disputed the report as “totally groundless and not based on facts.” Kyoji Kojima, director of the ministry’s refugee determination division, said Japan is in “full accord” with the U.N. convention on refugee rights, which the nation signed in 1981.

The report is likely to fuel international criticism that ethnically homogenous Japan is not playing a global role commensurate with its economic strength and is giving short shrift to human rights problems, especially in China. It is particularly awkward for Japan because the current U.N. high commissioner for refugees, Sadako Ogata, is Japanese.

In 1990, Japan approved two of 32 asylum requests, or 6.2%. That compares to 99,697 approvals, or 73.7%, for the United States; 13,073, or 15.2%, for France; 6,528, or 4.4%, for Germany, and 2,167, or 7.4%, for Sweden, according to Japanese government figures.

Overall, Japan has granted 200 of 983 requests, three-fourths of those in the early 1980s. Of the 263 cases where rejection of asylum was appealed, all were denied.

Amnesty International is urging a drastic reform of Japan’s entire asylum procedure, including formation of a public and independent body to decide asylum claims.

The report cited several cases of Chinese activists whose requests for asylum were rejected, despite evidence that they might face persecution if sent back to China.

For instance, Hong Jianbing was involved in the pro-democracy movement in China and, after the Tian An Men Square crackdown, clandestinely printed anti-government material in 1990. He fled to Japan, where the U.N. refugee agency’s Tokyo office recognized him as a bona fide refugee; Amnesty International also found that Hong would be at risk of “torture, arbitrary detention or other serious human rights violations if he is returned to China.”

But the Japanese government rejected Hong’s asylum request and appeal, citing “lack of evidence” to substantiate his claims.

Another rejected applicant, pro-democracy journalist Zhao Nan, was not even asked why he feared persecution during his interview, but only about the time limits of his appeal. And Lin Guizhen, deported while her appeal was pending, was arrested and sentenced to two years of “re-education through labor” upon arrival in China.

The report also cites cases of Burmese, Iranians and Pakistanis with similar problems.

Justice Ministry officials declined to comment on specific cases.

But Kojima denied nearly every conclusion in the report, saying that Japan does not deny applicants access to attorneys, restrict the right of asylum or treat anyone in a degrading fashion.