crime

Family of dead Sri Lankan files criminal complaint against officials

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One thing to be cleared at the expected courts is to disclose what kind of suggestion are these HRG are making illegal stayers

No problem.

I was trying to say that the topic here has nothing to do with the HRG.

The courts won't bring the subject of the HRG on the trial.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

@bokuda

I don't think I understand anything you are saying.

Perhaps my English was too poor

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@kennyG

I don't think that the Human Rights Groups have anything to do with the abuse of power, inhumane treatment and denial of minimal human rights to the girl.

The ones to blame are individuals, every agent that abused her to death.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

I congratulate and thank the Wishma family for following up with this action.

I doubt it is really a Wishma family following up or so called human-rights group and lawyers.

One thing to be cleared at the expected courts is to disclose what kind of suggestion are these HRG are

making illegal stayers

1 ( +2 / -1 )

@Osaka_DougToday 05:40 am JST

I congratulate and thank the Wishma family for following up with this action.

I don't. For one thing, it's futile. A civil case, I can still see it. The Wishma family, on the other hand, has gone for criminal charges. And not even for negligence, but for homicide with conditional intent.

Do you really think given this basic fact set, Wishma's family will have much luck in ANY country? If they sued for compensation, I can still see some countries (particularly in Europe) deciding there is some fault on the part of Immigration and awarding some kind of cash handout. But criminal charges for homicide?

I cannot see this as anything but a complaint made in bad faith. They know the case has no chance, but they press it simply to create some bad press for Japan.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

There are several very relevant issues here to be addressed.

Fact 1: You overstayed your visa, a criminal offense, especially if you are deliberately evading authorities and working illegally…just like in ANY Country.

So, SHE got herself locked up, it doesn’t matter what country you’re from, the result will be the same.

Fact 2: Despite being a Criminal and getting yourself locked up, you are, in fact, a Human.

Someone in authority obviously needs to be brought up on Criminal Charges themselves.

The International Community is watching; What will you do THIS Time, Japan ?

-4 ( +3 / -7 )

It doesn't compare.

Immigration Agents: Killed a 33 years old girl.

Wishma: visa violation.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

A death sentence for a visa violation! Hardly an appropriate sentence for such a minor offence! am glad Wishma's family are not giving up on this!

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

Whatever liability incurred by immigration, the entirety could have been avoided - simply blaming immigration with a blanket accusation of mistreatment of detainees, ignores the events that preceded her detainment. She remained illegally in the country for almost 18 months - before 'turning' herself in to immigration due to alleged abuse by her boyfriend. The case and its consequent outcome are complex and complicated and raise numerous questions about Immigration and Sandamali. After she turned herself in to immigration, she was placed on a waiting list for a return flight to Sri Lanka by Japanese Immigration officials and the Sri Lankan Embassy, along with providing financial assistance. She then changed her mind indicating she wished to remain in Japan. She had already been denied refugee status almost a year prior. What is of interest is that she was seeking refugee status, but her family members, who travel freely do not seem to reflect any need for such.

The Immigration Services Agency of Japan on Aug. 10 released its final investigative report into the death of Wishma Sandamali, who died at an immigration facility in Nagoya in March.

Sandamali came to Japan in June 2017 on a 15-month student visa. She attended a Japanese language school in Chiba Prefecture.

She stopped attending classes in May 2018, and the school expelled her the following month.

The report said she started working at a factory in Shizuoka Prefecture after April and filed an application for refugee status in September that same year.

But her application was denied in January 2019. Her stay in the country became illegal.

In August 2020, she turned herself in to a police station in the prefecture, saying that her lover drove her out and she had no place to go. She was arrested for overstaying her visa and was detained at a facility run by the Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau.

She wanted to return to Sri Lanka, but she could not obtain a commercial flight, due to disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Immigration officials along with the Sri Lankan Embassy put her on a waiting list for a return flight and sought to financially help her to fly back to her home country.

But suddenly in mid-December, she changed her mind and said she wanted to remain in Japan.

Sandamali filed applications for provisional release twice. The first was rejected on Feb. 16 and the second was filed six days later.

A psychiatrist who saw Sandamali on March 4 wrote in a medical report that she would get well if she received provisional release status.

But it was not relayed to top officials of the Nagoya bureau.

Authorities considered granting it based on her deteriorating health and the increasing burden on detention officers to take care of her. They decided on March 5 to release her provisionally after her condition improved.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Luckily the immigration agents are not required to follow the rules.

They can negate medical attention and force feed an agonizing sick girl while she vomits all the food from her nose.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

There are no shortcuts in life. Follow the rules and we are not reading about this and the family is not trying to get rich off the body!!!

Wishma, who came to Japan in 2017 on a student visa, was taken to the facility in Nagoya in August 2020 after overstaying her visa. She died on March 6 while in custody after complaining of stomach pain and other symptoms from mid-January.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

I rally with them - this case should be brought to an international level of attention. It might actually increase the chances of the family getting the compensation and closure they rightfully deserve if all eyes are watching Japan because we all know how just how much Japan cares about its foreign residents - none.

-7 ( +2 / -9 )

Sadly, the claims would fell to deaf ears. She's not only a gaijin, she's an Asian gaijin. Racism never left Japan.

-1 ( +7 / -8 )

 their conduct amounted to willful negligence.

It does. Jail time for ignorant idiots hiding behind their precious rule book.

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

Kazuaki...

Well said.

0 ( +6 / -6 )

Rapidly developing antipathy against the Wishma family. Given how much noise these people made after Wishma died, it's hard to believe they could not mobilize the 200,000 yen needed to just cart her back when she's alive. They did not, then Ms. Wishma, incited by a "human rights group" that essentially wants Japan to reward Wishma for her illegal actions, decided to play chicken with her body in an effort to gain an unjustified right of residence in Japan.

The report makes it clear that Wishma even received massages. Given this kind of reality, this attempted prosecution should be dead on arrival. But you know, they will always have allies because Westerners would not even read the report and they'll still scream.

2 ( +9 / -7 )

These immigration officers are above the law.

No matter what criminal acts they commit, the country will protect them.

-5 ( +4 / -9 )

Meiyouwenti...

Ms Wishma overstayed her student visa because she couldn’t pay tuitions

Not exactly... She came here to work illegally using a student visa to gain entry. Sadly, things didn't work out quite as planned. Had she followed the rules none of this would have happened.

1 ( +10 / -9 )

I’m touched by the deep love the two Sri Lankan sisters showed for their dead sister. Ms Wishma overstayed her student visa because she couldn’t pay tuitions but her family back in Sri Lanka refused to help her financially. Now the hapless young woman’s family are demanding financial compensation and criminal justice.

-4 ( +7 / -11 )

In the age of the internet this case of ‘criminal negligence’ will become known to the whole world-quite an embarrassment for the Japanese authorities.

-7 ( +5 / -12 )

Kyodo provide news reports on just about everything, the fact that JT chose to publish it is to their (JT) credit, not Kyodo.

and Who first published the story? It was Kyodo not the JT. The JT picked the story from the wires. The JT does not have news staff.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Back on topic please.

DropofahatToday  09:24 am JST

And by the way, I want to thank everyone at JT for shedding light on this story and keeping it's community aware, Good Job, and thank you.

Please read the bottom of the article. I believe it says the following:

© KYODO

You should thank Kyodo.

Kyodo provide news reports on just about everything, the fact that JT chose to publish it is to their (JT) credit, not Kyodo.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

@Dropofahat,

Yes, You and Kyodo too ( - - ). LOL

3 ( +5 / -2 )

And by the way, I want to thank everyone at JT for shedding light on this story and keeping it's community aware, Good Job, and thank you.

Please read the bottom of the article. I believe it says the following:

© KYODO

You should thank Kyodo.

-11 ( +1 / -12 )

The sad this is the this women is actually not with us anymore due to the incompetence of Japanese Immigration policies and lack of respect for international people in Japan. Less we forget, this is a crime that she is no longer with us.

6 ( +15 / -9 )

And by the way, I want to thank everyone at JT for shedding light on this story and keeping it's community aware, Good Job, and thank you.

9 ( +14 / -5 )

7 months in LIMBO locked up in a cell without medical care is a CRIME, simple as that. the Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau knows it, but yet they continue to play the cat and mouse game hopping it will just fade away.

 Willful negligence is a crime and Who ever turns out to be responsible should face justice and accept responsibility, what ever the outcome of this trial will be I am hoping that justice will be served the she can rest in peace and so does her family. in the end JUSTICE always prevails, RIP

6 ( +14 / -8 )

Not traveling in the middle of a pandemic may not count as abusing the visa system

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Michael Machida....

If a Japanese national went to another country to work but abused the student visa system to do so ... Yes, that probably would be news.

-6 ( +9 / -15 )

Yes, and hold a press conference at the FCCJ.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Sad to say this, but I doubt it is going to go very far, and even if it does, the "penalty" if anything, will be no more than a slap on the wrist.

It's going to take the Diet, to rewrite the detention laws, and retraining, or hiring totally new staff, an implementing stricter guidance regulations before anything actually changes.

This is a, relatively speaking, "non-issue" to the average Japanese person, and articles like this, should be in the mainstream media, and more importantly on the TV news, like NHK, and more than once!

15 ( +19 / -4 )

Hope for the best but, even if found guilty they usually give out Suspended sentences with a low fine probably less than million yen! Sad but true the judicial system is a joke.

16 ( +20 / -4 )

the Japanese non-justice will never condemn them but maaaaybe immigration will remember detained people are human with rights.

15 ( +21 / -6 )

When it comes to cases involving foreigners, unless the target for prosecution is foreign, Japanese prosecutors don’t care.

15 ( +28 / -13 )

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