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The
Tokyo District Court on Friday dismissed all four
lawsuits filed by Kurdish asylum-seekers to revoke a
Justice Ministry decision to deny them refugee
status.
Presiding Judge Hiroyuki Kanno said that although
severe persecution toward Kurds did exist
historically, the plaintiffs do not conform to the
definition of refugees stated in the Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees.
In a written statement, Kanno said public security
in Turkey began to stabilize in the 1990s with the
rapid spread of democracy, "and the revision of the
Constitution in 2001 further clarified people's
rights to freedom of thought, belief and
expression."
Takeshi Ohashi, the plaintiffs' lawyer, told a news
conference after the ruling, "Unfortunately, the
only two (parties) I know of who think (that Kurdish
issues no longer exist in Turkey) are the Justice
Ministry and Turkey authorities."
He gave an example of a 2003 report by the U.S.
State Department that says that anyone who said they
were Kurdish asylum-seekers for personal or
political reasons faced possible persecution.
"I have no idea how (the judges) came to the
conclusion that there has been no fear of torture
and abuse since the 1990s," Ohashi said. "It seems
to me that (the judges) just bought the opinion of
the Justice Ministry."
Of the four asylum-seekers, two also had been suing
to revoke their deportation orders. Those efforts
were also dismissed.
"I believe that (the Immigration Bureau) will now
use this ruling as an excuse to detain the two,"
Ohashi said.
He said that if they appealed to the high court, he
hoped the Immigration Bureau would take into
consideration that the asylum-seekers were still in
the middle of a legal battle in Japan and not detain
them.
Erdal Dogan, 31, is one of the Kurdish
asylum-seekers who has been issued a deportation
order. The Dogans, a family of five, including two
small children, and another Kurdish family staged a
two-month protest sit-in outside United Nations
University in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, last summer.
At the news conference, Dogan expressed his
disappointment.
"More than 300 Kurds have applied for refugee status
in Japan, and to this day, not one has been
recognized," he said. "What the Japanese government
is doing is terrible.
"The only reason none of us has been given refugee
status is because of the commercial relation between
Turkey and Japan."
Dogan arrived in Japan in 1999 and his application
for refugee recognition was denied in 2000. He filed
this lawsuit in 2002. Later that year, a deportation
order was issued.
Dogan said, "We are humans and our lives are not
cheap."
He said he fears persecution for ethic and religious
reasons if he is deported.
Another one of the asylum-seekers, whose name was
withheld, had been detained and tortured by Turkish
military officials in the 1990s, Ohashi said. The
man had been denied refugee status twice, but after
the second refusal, he was given a special residence
permit.
The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved
http://www.japantimes.co.jp
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