Presentations with Discussion
Date: July 24, 6:30- 8:00
Place: Sophia University, Yotsuya Campus, Sophia Tower (bldg. 6), room 305


The current hunger strike at the Higashi-Nihon Immigration Center
recently surpassed day 60 in one of the largest and longest of such
protests in the history of Japanese detention. Although hunger strikes
have been a constant in the history of detainees' struggle for their
rights in Japan, seldom if ever have they been as life-threatening as
now. There are currently more than 1500 foreigners in six main detention
centers in Japan, including many asylum seekers sent straight into
detention from Narita airport and many picked up for minor violations of
their provisional release. Neither these hunger strikes nor other news
around detainee problems have gained much media attention. Why are these
detainees risking their lives in protest?


This event will provide context to these strikes through a review of the
conditions at the detention centers, and some of the legal quandaries
and human rights abuses of detainees in Japan. We will include some of
the detainees' voices through art and video interview, and then discuss
some of the advocacy efforts underway, including some by student groups.


**PROGRAM**


FEATURED SPEAKER: Activist Tanaka Kimiko, the founder of the NGO Ushiku
no Kai--a group that advocates for foreign detainee rights--will discuss
the current state of affairs at the detention centers in Japan, with
particular attention to the situation at Higashi-Nihon Immigration
Center (in Ushiku, Ibaraki) as well as the branch detention facility in
Shinagawa (Tokyo), which presently holds the most detainees in the country.



In Japanese with English interpretation


DETAINEES' VOICES
David Slater and Rosa Barbaran (Sophia U.,) will show video clips from the "Refugee Voices
Japan Project" of ex-detainees talking about the hardship of detention
at Shinagawa.



Miriam Wattles (UCSB) will highlight artistic communication coming out
of Ushiku: political cartoons of protest by two Iranians, and evocative
pencil drawings by a Chilean.


SUPPORT EFFORTS: Fibha Mahmoud and Rei Ando (from Sophia Refugee Support
Group--SRSG--who works in Shinagawa) will describe their support
efforts, and outline what else can be done.


LANGUAGE: English with translation of Japanese. English and Japanese
questions and discussion welcome.


Free and open to all; no registration necessary


Presentations will be brief in order to allow ample discussion
afterwards. Both those well-versed and those wanting to learn more about
detention center issues are welcome to join us in this workshop-style
gathering.



SPEAKERS' BIOS
Tanaka Kimiko 田中喜美子, has led the grassroots NGO Ushiku no Kai
(牛久の会, or 牛久入管収容所問題を考える会) for 25 years. She supports the
Ushiku detainees through weekly visits and serves as their spokesperson
to the Immigration Bureau. She also lectures and publishes articles
calling for the human rights of foreign detainees regularly and is
commonly cited as an expert on the issues by the press. On the six days
a week she is not at Ushiku Detention Center, she runs a restaurant in
Tsukuba city.


Miriam Wattles, member of Ushiku no Kai since September 2018, is
Associate Professor in the department of the History of Art and
Architecture at U.C. Santa Barbara. Drawn to intersections between
social history and artistic expression, her recent research foci include
early twentieth century manga, emotional history, and textiles. Her
collaboratively written article with Tanaka Kimiko giving background on
the issues to be discussed at this event came out in the March 1, 2019
of the Asia Pacific Journal: https://apjjf.org/2019/05/Tanaka.html


David H. Slater is a Professor of cultural anthropology at Sophia
University, Faculty of Liberal Arts. He works on issues of youth and
labor, social class and inequality, and disaster and recovery of the 311
disasters. 2 years ago, he started "Refugee Voices Japan Project," doing
ethnography and collecting oral narrative accounts from refugee asylum
seekers.


Rosa Barbaran is a Peruvian-Japanese student at Sophia University,
working on immigrants and refugees, and one of the founders of Sophia
Refugee Support Group (SRSG)



Fibha Mahmood and Rei Ando are both members of SRSG and organizers of the 4 times weekly detention Center visits


David H. Slater, Ph.D.
Professor of Cultural Anthropology
Faculty of Liberal Arts, Graduate Program in Japanese Studies
Sophia University, Tokyo