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GENEVA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The United Nations
accused Japan on Tuesday of violating international
law by deporting two Turkish Kurd asylum-seekers it
considered to be entitled to refugee status.
In a strongly worded statement criticising its
second-largest donor, the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) said the man and his 20-year-old
son had been flown back to Turkey on Tuesday despite
its last-minute appeals.
It also voiced concern that the man's wife and three
other children faced the same fate.
"UNHCR considers the deportation contrary to Japan's
obligations under international law," the agency
said.
Spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis declined to identify
the man, who arrived in Japan with his family in the
1990s but exhausted all legal remedies to remain in
the country.
The UNHCR considered them refugees who met the
criteria laid down in international law of having
fled persecution or violence, she added. The agency
had been seeking to find a third country willing to
take them.
"We are concerned about 25 other people in the same
situation (in Japan)," Pagonis told Reuters.
The deportation was "unprecedented" and contrasted
with Japan's humanitarian assistance towards
refugees and disaster victims abroad, the statement
said.
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