A Letter of Gratitude to the Japanese Justice Minister for Granting Residency Status to Five Falun Gong Practitioners in Japan

Five Chinese Falun Gong practitioners living in Japan who had applied for refugee status earlier were granted residency status a short while ago. They wrote a joint letter to the Honourable Mr. Mayumi Moriyama, Minister of Justice, to thank him for his action. Under normal circumstances, such status is extremely difficult to obtain.

Since July 20, 1999, numerous reports of illegal arrests, detention and killing of Falun Gong practitioners in China have been circulating. Additionally there are also many reports of cruel tortures on Falun Gong practitioners in labour camps and prisons and of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, in the form of subjecting them to forced drug abuse in psychiatric hospitals. At the same time, some Chinese Falun Gong practitioners living in Japan were denied entry into their own country when they returned to China and their passports were stamped "Cancelled." Furthermore, the Chinese Embassy in Japan refused to issue new passports for them, for the simple reason that they practise Falun Gong. The first five Falun Gong practitioners who applied for refugee status have many times all were denied re-entry into Mainland China. Three of the five are Ph.D. students and visiting scholars at Tokyo University.

Being the first group of Falun Gong practitioners applying for refugee status, they filed their application on April 4, 2001 to the Ministry of Justice, asking the Japanese government to grant them refugee status on humanitarian grounds so that they could reside in Japan. On January 24, 2003, Tokyo Immigration Bureau personnel informed them that their application for refugee status was not successful, but they were advised to apply for "residency status." It is said that this is the first case ever in which the Japanese government allowed applicants to change their visa status after their application for refugee status was refused. Presently, the five Falun Gong practitioners have been granted a residence visa with special approval.

These five wrote a letter to Mr. Mayumi Moriyama, Minister of Justice, to express their sincere gratitude. The letter states, "We admire you for the action of justice you have taken under such great pressure," and also "During the past two years, the Japanese government has always supported the U.S. resolution to condemn the Jiang regime's persecution of Falun Gong at the UN Human Rights Commission, and from this we learnt that the Japanese government, like other progressive countries in the world, has taken a stand on the Falun Gong issue, to condemn the Chinese government (Jiang's regime) for their persecution of Falun Gong."

The letter of gratitude says further, "It is very rare for us to have an opportunity to express our wishes to you. We would like to take this hard-won opportunity to convey to you our heartfelt wishes. We wish very much that Your Excellency would, through the good friendship Japan has with China, urge the Chinese government, either privately or on public occasions, to stop the persecution of Falun Gong as soon as possible, so that all the detained Falun Gong practitioners in China would be released and overseas Chinese Falun Gong practitioners could return to their motherland sooner. In situations when they temporarily cannot go back home, we hope that Your Excellency will extend the same kind of humanitarian protection to current and future Falun Gong practitioners applying for refugee status, and to grant them the status when the time is ripe and appropriate."

The five practitioners also stated in their letter that they believe that the Japanese nation will have a wonderful future.