Threat sent to Japan immigration center over Sri Lankan s death
A threatening letter has been sent to an immigration facility in central Japan over the death of a Sri Lankan woman while being held there, investigative sources said Monday.
Police received a complaint from the Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau in Aichi Prefecture on May 14 and have launched an investigation over the anonymous letter, which protested the 33-year-old woman s death and threatened to harm the facility s head, they said.
Ratnayake Liyanage Wishma Sandamali, who came to Japan in 2017 on a student visa, was taken to the facility in Nagoya in August 2020 after it was found her visa had expired. She died on March 6 this year after complaining of stomach pain and other symptoms from January.
Those arrested were treated with extreme brutality.
It is well known that Takiji Kobayashi (1903-1933), an author of proletarian literature, was tortured to death.
One of the functions fulfilled by Tokko was immigration control of foreign nationals and management of affairs involving Koreans and other colonial subjects.
After World War II, many Tokko officers escaped banishment from public office and ended up working in immigration control services in various capacities, according to international law scholar Yasuaki Onuma (1946-2018), who authored Tan-itsu Minzoku Shakai no Shinwa wo Koete (Beyond the myth of monoethnic society).
Could this old Tokko mentality still linger among Japan s immigration officials today?
Wishma Sandamali’s bereaved younger sisters, Wayomi, cernter right, and Poornima, center left, speak to reporters before meeting with Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa in Tokyo s Kasumigaseki district on May 18. (Yosuke Fukudome)
The government and the ruling coalition have abandoned plans to enact a bill to revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law during the current regular Diet session.
Since a Lower House election is set to be held by autumn, the bill is most likely to be scrapped.
As the Cabinet s approval ratings have fallen sharply due mainly to the government’s mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis, the ruling camp has apparently flinched at suffering an additional blow with the public by trying to ram the much-criticized legislation through the Diet.
Wayomi Sandamali, left, and Poornima Sandamali meet with opposition lawmakers in the Diet on May 19. (Koichi Ueda)
The stubborn refusal of immigration officials to release video of a Sri Lankan woman who died while in detention is raising suspicions among her bereaved sisters and opposition lawmakers about a cover-up.
Wayomi and Poornima Sandamali met with opposition lawmakers on May 19 to discuss the death of their elder sister, Wishma, 33. She died on March 6 while detained at a facility run by the Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau.
“The immigration agency may be hiding something if it is unable to release the video,” one of the sisters said.