Tokyo, 20 April, /AJMEDIA/
A Tokyo court on Thursday ordered the Japanese government to pay 220,000 yen ($1,600) in damages to a Kurdish man who alleged he was assaulted when staff at a detention center where he was being held in 2019 forcibly restrained him.
The Tokyo District Court ruled some actions of staff at the immigration center in Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, were illegal, such as when a thumb was used to push hard under his chin and when his arms were lifted while he was handcuffed behind his back.
“They were illegal, as such actions exceeded what was deemed reasonably necessary,” Presiding Judge Kenji Shinoda said. But the court ruled isolating the 44-year-old known only as Deniz was lawful due to his state of agitation.
According to the complaint, Deniz, who declined to give his surname for fear of retaliation against his family in Turkey, was sent to the Higashi-Nihon Immigration Center in February 2017 after his application for refugee status was rejected by the state.
In January 2019, he made a request for psychotropic medication that was denied by staff and he responded by shouting due to the stress he felt he was under, the complaint said.
In seeking damages of 11 million yen, Deniz said he was assaulted by several staffers who restrained him. He was put in solitary confinement for several days for kicking a member of staff in the stomach, but he said the measure was illegal as he did not assault anyone.
The state argued the step was legal, as he failed to follow an order.
In the lawsuit, the state submitted to the court footage of the moment Deniz was retrained by staff. It showed five or six staffers yelling as they held him down to handcuff him behind his back while he cried out in pain.
