Court awards 2 asylum seekers damages over prolonged detention
A Japanese district court has ordered the state to pay a total of 1.2 million yen in compensation to two asylum seekers, ruling that in some cases their repeated detentions by the country's immigration agency did not take account of their physical and mental conditions.
Deniz, a Kurdish man in his 40s with Turkish nationality, and Heydar Safari Diman, an Iranian national in his 50s, sought about 30 million yen in damages, after they were detained and released several times over the space of more than a decade. They filed the lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court in 2022 focusing on their treatment from 2016.
The ruling handed down on Tuesday said that on some occasions, they were detained despite deteriorating health conditions, such as a diagnosis of depression.
"We cannot say the necessity of detention overrode their physical and mental disadvantages," the court said, ruling that some of their detentions violated the International Covenants on Human Rights and amounted to unjust physical restraint prohibited by Japan's immigration law.
The plaintiffs also questioned the immigration law itself, which allows detention without going through a review process such as trials, saying that it infringes the human rights covenants.
But the court dismissed their claim on the grounds that their rights to a trial are guaranteed through a lawsuit seeking release.
Masako Suzuki, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, underscored the significance of the ruling, telling a press conference that it "clearly acknowledges that there was a violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights in the detention."
The Immigration Services Agency has said it will respond "appropriately" after reviewing details of the ruling, since some of its claims were not upheld.
According to the complaint, Deniz, who declined to give his surname for fear of retaliation against his family in Turkey, and Safari Diman had both overstayed their visas and were subsequently repeatedly detained by the Immigration Services Agency.
From 2016 to 2020, they were detained several times for a total of more than three and a half years each, the complaint said. They have been on provisional releases since the spring of 2020, according to their supporters.
Seeking help from the international community, the two had notified a U.N. expert panel on arbitrary detention of their cases, leading the panel to release an opinion in 2020 that found their deprivation of liberty was "arbitrary" and contravened human rights covenants.
© KYODO
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yomiuri Shimbun
27 minutes ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Trump Says He'll Decide Whether US Will Directly Attack Iran within 2 Weeks
The Associated Press Smokes rises from a building of the Soroka hospital complex after it was hit by a missile fired from Iran in Beersheba, Israel, Thursday, June 19, 2025. BEERSHEBA, Israel (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he will decide within two weeks whether the U.S. military will get directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran given the 'substantial chance' for renewed negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, as the two sides attacked one another for a seventh day. Trump has been weighing whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain and widely considered to be out of reach of all but America's 'bunker-buster' bombs. His statement was read out by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Earlier in the day, Israel's defense minister threatened Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after Iranian missiles crashed into a major hospital in southern Israel and hit residential buildings near Tel Aviv, wounding at least 240 people. Israel's military 'has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist,' Defense Minister Israel Katz said. As rescuers wheeled patients out of the smoldering hospital, Israeli warplanes launched their latest attack on Iran's nuclear program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he trusted that Trump would 'do what's best for America.' Speaking from the rubble and shattered glass around the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, he added: 'I can tell you that they're already helping a lot.' A new diplomatic initiative seemed to be underway as Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi prepared to travel Friday to Geneva for meetings with the European Union's top diplomat and counterparts from the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The open conflict between Israel and Iran erupted last Friday with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group. Iran has retaliated by firing 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli army estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel's multitiered air defenses, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds wounded. Many hospitals have transferred patients underground Israel's Home Front Command asserted that one of the Iranian ballistic missiles fired Thursday morning had been rigged with fragmenting cluster munitions. Rather than a conventional warhead, a cluster munition warhead carries dozens of submunitions that can explode on impact, showering small bomblets around a large area and posing major safety risks on the ground. The Israeli military did not say where that missile had been fired. At least 80 patients and medical workers were wounded in the strike on Soroka Medical Center. The vast majority were lightly wounded, as much of the hospital building had been evacuated in recent days. Iranian officials insisted they had not sought to strike the hospital and claimed the attack hit a facility belonging to the Israeli military's elite technological unit, called C4i. The website for the Gav-Yam Negev advanced technologies park, some 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the hospital, said C4i had a branch campus in the area. The Israeli army did not respond to a request for comment. An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, acknowledged that there was no specific intelligence that Iran had planned to target the hospital. Many hospitals in Israel, including Soroka, had activated emergency plans in the past week. They converted parking garages to wards and transferred vulnerable patients underground. Israel also has a fortified, subterranean blood bank that kicked into action after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. Doctors at Soroka said the Iranian missile struck almost immediately after air raid sirens went off, causing an explosion that could be heard from a safe room. The strike inflicted the greatest damage on an old surgery building and affected key infrastructure, including gas, water and air-conditioning systems, the medical center said. The hospital, which provides services to around 1 million residents, had been caring for 700 patients at the time. After the strike, the hospital closed to all patients except for life-threatening cases. Iran rejects calls to surrender or end its nuclear program Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But it is the only non-nuclear-weapon state to enrich uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Israel is widely believed to be the only country with a nuclear weapons program in the Middle East but has never acknowledged the existence of its arsenal. The Israeli air campaign has targeted Iran's enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran, a nuclear site in Isfahan and what the army assesses to be most of Iran's ballistic missile launchers. The destruction of those launchers has contributed to the steady decline in Iranian attacks since the start of the conflict. Israeli airstrikes reached into the city of Rasht on the Caspian Sea early Friday, Iranian media reported. The Israeli military had warned the public to flee the area around Rasht's Industrial City, southwest of the city's downtown. But with Iran's internet shut off to the outside world, it's unclear just how many people could see the message. On Thursday, anti-aircraft artillery was audible across Tehran, and witnesses in the central city of Isfahan reported seeing anti-aircraft fire after nightfall. Trump's announcement of a decision in the next two weeks opened up diplomatic options, with the apparent hope Iran would make concessions after suffering major military losses. But at least publicly, Iran has struck a hard line. Iran's supreme leader on Wednesday rejected U.S. calls for surrender and warned that any U.S. military involvement would cause 'irreparable damage to them.' Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf on Thursday criticized Trump for using military pressure to gain an advantage in nuclear negotiations. The latest indirect talks between Iran and the U.S., set for last Sunday, were cancelled. 'The delusional American president knows that he cannot impose peace on us by imposing war and threatening us,' he said. Iran agreed to redesign Arak to address nuclear concerns Israel's military said its fighter jets targeted the Arak heavy water reactor, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran, to prevent it from being used to produce plutonium. Iranian state TV said there was 'no radiation danger whatsoever' around the Arak site, which it said had been evacuated ahead of the strike. Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that potentially can be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon. Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to alleviate proliferation concerns. That work was never completed. The reactor became a point of contention after Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018. Ali Akbar Salehi, a high-ranking nuclear official in Iran, said in 2019 that Tehran bought extra parts to replace a portion of the reactor that it had poured concrete into under the deal. Israel said strikes were carried out 'in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development.' The International Atomic Energy Agency has said that due to restrictions imposed by Iran on inspectors, the U.N. nuclear watchdog has lost 'continuity of knowledge' about Iran's heavy water production — meaning it could not absolutely verify Tehran's production and stockpile.
Kyodo News
34 minutes ago
- Kyodo News
Japan to send 2 defense force planes for possible Mideast airlift
KYODO NEWS - 16 hours ago - 18:18 | All, Japan, World Japan will send two Self-Defense Forces airplanes to eastern Africa for a possible operation to evacuate its nationals from the Middle East, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Thursday, amid the escalating Israel-Iran conflict. Nakatani told reporters that two C-2 transport aircraft with a total of about 120 crew members will fly to an SDF base in Djibouti and be on standby there, following a request from Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya earlier that day. The planes are likely to leave Japan on Saturday, sources familiar with the matter said. "The situation in the Middle East has become more strained as Israel and Iran continue tit-for-tat attacks," Nakatani said, while stressing that the government "is still at the preparatory stage for a possible transportation" of Japanese citizens. The government is working to ascertain how many of the about 280 Japanese nationals in Iran and 1,000 in Israel wish to flee the countries. Ahead of the departure of the C-2s, about 10 SDF personnel left Japan for the Middle East to gather information, Nakatani said. Later Thursday, Japan also began to evacuate nationals and their family members by bus from Tehran to neighboring Azerbaijan, and from Tel Aviv to Jordan, as major local airports have been closed, according to a Japanese government source. Israel said Friday it has begun striking nuclear facilities and military targets in Iran, claiming that the regional archrival is getting close to acquiring a nuclear weapon. The strike has triggered retaliatory attacks from Tehran. In the latest developments on Thursday, an Iranian missile hit a hospital in southern Israel, while Israeli forces bombed a heavy-water reactor in Arak in western Iran, according to local media reports. Tensions have been further fueled by speculation that U.S. President Donald Trump may decide to join Israel in striking Iran. Trump, who has demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender," told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that he gave Tehran an "ultimate ultimatum," while remaining ambiguous about potential U.S. military action, saying, "I may do it, I may not." Related coverage: Japan mulls pulling 90 nationals, family members out of Iran by land Japan urges all nationals in Iran to evacuate amid Israeli attacks
Yomiuri Shimbun
an hour ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
87 Japanese Leave Israel, Iran for Neighboring Countries
Toshiyuki Fukushima / The Yomiuri Shimbun Japanese nationals board a bus to evacuate to Jordan in front of the Japanese Embassy in Tel Aviv on Thursday A total of 87 Japanese nationals staying in Israel and Iran have left for neighboring countries by bus, following the intensification of fighting between the two countries, Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said on Friday. According to the minister, 66 people left Iran and arrived in Azerbaijan on Friday, and 21 left Israel and arrived in Jordan on Thursday.
