{"id":17080,"date":"2022-06-20T10:17:30","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T17:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17080"},"modified":"2022-06-20T17:44:40","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T00:44:40","slug":"my-sna-vm35-visible-minorities-torture-and-murder-in-japan-detention-centers-june-20-2022-including-the-sandamali-suraj-fernando-okafor-ekei-etc-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=17080","title":{"rendered":"My SNA VM35: “Visible Minorities: Torture and Murder in Japan Detention Centers” (June 20, 2022) including the Sandamali, Suraj, Fernando, Okafor, Ekei etc. Cases."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Visible Minorities: Torture and Murder in Japan Detention Centers<\/strong>
\nShingetsu News Agency, June 20, 2022, by Debito Arudou<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2022\/06\/20\/visible-minorities-torture-and-murder-in-japan-detention-centers\/<\/a><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) \u2014 News Headline: \u201cProsecutors drop case over death of detained Sri Lankan woman<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In August 2020, a Sri Lanka national named Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali<\/a> was arrested for overstaying her visa, and detained in a Nagoya Immigration Detention Center. She had arrived in Japan in 2017, but her student visa was cancelled in 2019 because she couldn\u2019t afford tuition fees. While in detention, she opted not to return to Sri Lanka, reportedly due to reduced flights during Covid and an abusive boyfriend back home.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

During her seven months in custody, however, Sandamali\u2019s health steadily declined due to a stress-induced stomach condition. According to the Straits Times<\/a>, Sandamali \u201cwas vomiting blood in her final days, and was so weak that she had no control of her arms and legs. The immigration authorities allegedly turned a blind eye to medical expert advice to put her on an intravenous drip or to grant her provisional release to ease her stress. A report by public broadcaster NHK suggested that officials tend to suspect malingering for minor illnesses in their reluctance to grant provisional release.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a questionable decision, since she had lost 20 kilograms from her small frame over seven months\u2014hard to dismiss as mere \u201cmalingering\u201d or \u201cminor illness.\u201d And her decline was not sudden: According to the Asahi Shinbun<\/a>, she had notified her jailers from mid-January about nausea and lack of appetite. Nineteen days before her death, a urine test indicated she was in a state of starvation. The New York Times<\/a> noted that in her final days she could ingest little more than water, sugar, or morsels of bread, and could barely make a fist or speak. Yet she was again refused provisional release for hospital treatment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On March 6, 2021, Sandamali died in her cell, aged 33. An August 2021 postmortem probe by Japan\u2019s Immigration Services Agency ruled that Sandamali had been \u201cmistreated<\/a>\u201d by the Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau, formally reprimanding the bureau\u2019s director and three other supervisors for not reporting her requests for examination and treatment to an outside doctor.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But overlooked was cruelty of her captors. According to Nikkei Asia<\/a>, \u201cone immigration officer allegedly mocked Wishma when she was unable to swallow her drink,\u201d and the Mainichi Shinbun<\/a> reported that other Immigration officers misled a doctor about her condition two days before her death, dismissing her illness as merely \u201cpsychosomatic.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By the time Sandamali\u2019s family received her body, \u201cher skin was wrinkled like an old person, and it was stuck firmly to her bones<\/a>.\u201d In November 2021, Sandamali\u2019s family lodged a criminal complaint against officials at the Nagoya facility, accusing them of murder through willful negligence.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as noted above, last week the Nagoya District Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office dropped the Sandamali case, citing an inability to establish criminal liability or even a cause of death, blaming it on \u201cmultiple factors<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Multiple factors indeed. Sandamali\u2019s case is not unprecedented. According to CNN<\/a>, since 1997 at least 27 foreign detainees have died in Japan\u2019s Immigration detention centers (aka \u201cGaijin Tanks,\u201d because they detain foreigners only).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The main factor here is the cruel and unusual punishment by public officers, expressly forbidden under Article 36 of the Constitution.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet nobody has ever been held criminally liable for foreigner deaths in detention. That\u2019s what makes Japan\u2019s Gaijin Tanks so cruel and unusual.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s consider a few more cases, then talk about the system that killed them…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the rest at https:\/\/shingetsunewsagency.com\/2022\/06\/20\/visible-minorities-torture-and-murder-in-japan-detention-centers\/<\/a><\/p>\n

======================
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News Headline: \u201cProsecutors drop case over death of detained Sri Lankan woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

SNA: In August 2020, a Sri Lanka national named Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali was arrested for overstaying her visa, and detained in a Nagoya Immigration Detention Center. She had arrived in Japan in 2017, but her student visa was cancelled in 2019 because she couldn\u2019t afford tuition fees. While in detention, she opted not to return to Sri Lanka, reportedly due to reduced flights during Covid and an abusive boyfriend back home.<\/p>\n

During her seven months in custody, however, Sandamali\u2019s health steadily declined due to a stress-induced stomach condition. According to the Straits Times, Sandamali \u201cwas vomiting blood in her final days, and was so weak that she had no control of her arms and legs. The immigration authorities allegedly turned a blind eye to medical expert advice to put her on an intravenous drip or to grant her provisional release to ease her stress. A report by public broadcaster NHK suggested that officials tend to suspect malingering for minor illnesses in their reluctance to grant provisional release.\u201d […]<\/p>\n

On March 6, 2021, Sandamali died in her cell, aged 33. By the time Sandamali\u2019s family received her body, \u201cher skin was wrinkled like an old person, and it was stuck firmly to her bones.\u201d In November 2021, Sandamali\u2019s family lodged a criminal complaint against officials at the Nagoya facility, accusing them of murder through willful negligence.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as noted above, last week the Nagoya District Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office dropped the Sandamali case, citing an inability to establish criminal liability or even a cause of death, blaming it on \u201cmultiple factors.\u201d Multiple factors indeed. Sandamali\u2019s case is not unprecedented. According to CNN, since 1997 at least 27 foreign detainees have died in Japan\u2019s Immigration detention centers (aka \u201cGaijin Tanks,\u201d because they detain foreigners only).<\/p>\n

The main factor here is the cruel and unusual punishment by public officers, expressly forbidden under Article 36 of the Constitution. Yet nobody has ever been held criminally liable for foreigner deaths in detention. That\u2019s what makes Japan\u2019s Gaijin Tanks so cruel and unusual. Let\u2019s consider a few more cases, then talk about the system that killed them…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,54,18,22,34,33,50,52,20,5,12,37,26,73,4,10,14,16,15,13,56,60,11,66,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embedded-racism","category-pinprick-protests","category-academia","category-cultural-issue","category-exclusionism","category-fingerprinting-nj","category-gaiatsu","category-hate-speech","category-history","category-human-rights","category-immigration-assimilation","category-injustice","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japans-blame-game","category-japanese-government","category-japanese-policeforeign-crime","category-japanese-politics","category-labor-issues","category-lawsuits","category-media","category-nj-legacies","category-nj-voices-ignored","category-problematic-foreign-treatment","category-refugees","category-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17080"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17087,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions\/17087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}