Opinion Charity begins at home By by Tony Laszlo	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
まずは国内から始めよ クルド人を虐待したフセイン許すまじとイラクへ自衛隊を派遣した日本なのに…。

The grand pyramid-shaped building that houses the United Nations University (UNU) rises up proudly, competing with its neighbors for dominance of the landscape. Ordinarily, a person passing through the two huge pillars that form the building's great entranceway might look lazily up at the U.N. logo above, perhaps thinking about the ideals that it represents. As I write this essay, however, dignitaries, scholars and bureaucrats visiting the building should be directing their eyes straight at the ground in front of them. For if they do not do so, they risk falling over an arm or leg of one of the refugees camped out in the entrance to the building.

Two families of Turkish Kurds have been sitting in front of this Shibuya building around the clock since mid-July, despite record temperatures of up around 40 degrees Celsius. Among them is a two-year-old infant and his five-year-old sister. What do they want? Being refugees in Tokyo, you'd think they would be demanding official permission to settle in Japan. Not so. Ahmet Kazankiran, head of one of the two families, says he now seeks just one thing: relocation by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from Japan to a place where he and his family can live in safety and with dignity.

Kurds number approximately 25 million people according to some estimates, and they live primarily in a strip of land that runs through Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. The Kurds refer to this area as Kurdistan and have been struggling for many years to form a state by that name. Tensions run high in Turkey where Kurds continue to press for independence and the right to be educated in their own language.

Kazankiran fled Turkey and applied for asylum in Japan in 1996 - the rest of his family arrived afterwards. The Japanese government rejected the family's applications for asylum, and instead it incarcerated them separately over the years, for weeks and months at a time. Kazankiran successfully contested the Japanese decision in court. However, this verdict was overturned following a government appeal.

For the last two years, the UNHCR has issued a certificate of support for his claim, stating that Kazankiran has "very strong elements to qualify" under the Refugee Convention. The Japanese government remains unmoved, however. So, with U.N. support and Japanese rejection, overstayed visas, no money, no jobs, no shelter and no place to bathe, the Kazankirans sit in front of Tokyo's UNU in the sweltering heat to present their case in the flesh.

To justify its support of the U.S.-led coalition's invasion and occupation of Iraq, Japan points to the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses such as chemical weapons attacks against the Kurds in that country. How is it that this same Japan chooses to provide asylum to almost no Kurds, and has rejected all of the 200-plus applications from those with Turkish passports? Sending troops halfway around the world to provide human rights relief is one thing. But what about the 12 refugees getting sunstroke in Shibuya? Can they really be unworthy of recognition and assistance?

Shukan ST: Aug. 6, 2004

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