Hazara Nation

asahi

Afghans seeking refugee status in Japan are finding themselves backed into a corner, faced with a government that appears unsympathetic to their plight and the resurgence of the Taliban, from whom they fled, at home.

Denied refugee status and unable to return to Afghanistan, where the Taliban-led insurgency has destabilized conditions, many live in limbo.

Some have been driven to the edge, developing mental illnesses or attempting suicide.

The number of Afghans seeking refuge here started to swell in the late 1990s, as the fundamentalist Taliban took power. Formed mainly of ethnic Pashtun, the Taliban set about persecuting other ethnic groups in the landlocked country and imposing its extreme form of Islam.

According to Justice Ministry figures, 256 applications for refugee status had been filed by Afghans here at the end of 2005. Just 23 applicants were recognized as refugees, and 87 were granted special residency permits due to "humanitarian considerations."

The tally is a far cry from the number accepted in other industrialized countries. According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, as of the end of 2007, Germany had accepted 24,236 Afghan refugees, Britain 23,565 and the Netherlands 17,296.

Despair over his uncertain future drove asylum seeker Manocheher, 34, to start a hunger strike in mid-September.

"The Japanese government does not recognize me as a human being," he said. "I'm exhausted."

For now, Manocheher has found shelter at a Catholic church in Osaka.

He belongs to the Hazara ethnic group, which was persecuted under Taliban rule, and said his older brother was taken by Taliban in the early 1990s, and he has not seen or heard from him since.

After fleeing across the porous border to Pakistan, Manocheher helped to import used Japanese cars. He arrived in Japan on a short-term visa in late 2000 and managed to extend his stay.

He applied for refugee status the following year but was rejected. He was ordered to be deported back to his country.

While he filed suit seeking a nullification of the deportation order, the Osaka District Court upheld the order in September 2007. The presiding judge ruled that Manocheher was not likely to face persecution as the Taliban regime had been toppled in the U.S.-led war.

Manocheher took his battle to the highest levels of the court system, but the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in October.

He has been granted a provisional release from detention pending deportation by the Osaka Regional Immigration Bureau, but is banned from working and is ineligible to apply for national health insurance. He is also prohibited from leaving Osaka Prefecture without permission.

Manocheher, in his severely weakened state, ended his hunger strike after 20 days following a dream in which he "saw" his mother. He had lost contact with her since last seeing her about 15 years ago.

With tears in her eyes, his mother chided him and told him to "eat properly" in the dream. The next day, he agreed to let an Afghan friend feed him.

The despair felt by Manocheher is not uncommon among Afghans. In 2002, a 28-year-old man seeking refugee status committed suicide in Aichi Prefecture after apparently agonizing over the prolonged process and his inability to pay medical fees without national health insurance coverage.

In 2004, an Afghan man received hospital treatment in Tokyo after cutting his arms with a box cutter and swallowing the blade in an attempted suicide. His application for refugee status had just been rejected.

Supporters say at least one other man is receiving psychiatric care.

"We need to create a system under which they can live without fear," said Atsuko Matsuura, a member of the Social Action Center of Catholic Archdiocese of Osaka based in the city's Chuo Ward.

Meanwhile, an official with the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau said the government "objectively takes into consideration the current situation of the country in question" before deciding whether to deport an asylum seeker.

"As a result, there are cases where it takes time to reach a conclusion," the official said.(IHT/Asahi: November 4,2008)