Japan to Accept Burmese Refugees

By ISABEL REYNOLDS / REUTERS WRITER / TOKYO
Monday, February 18, 2008


Japan will accept a small number of the refugees from Burma now sheltering in Thailand, a rare move for a country known for keeping its gates tightly closed to asylum seekers, a newspaper reported on Monday.

Dozens of refugees will be allowed into Japan next year from among the Burmese that have fled across the border to Thailand, fearing persecution in their homeland, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

An official at the Immigration Bureau said the matter was under consideration and nothing had been decided.

Accepting refugees from a third country may deflect criticism of Japan for what activists say is overly strict assessment of asylum cases.

Last year Japan approved 41 of 816 applications from asylum seekers and allowed a further 88 applicants to stay for humanitarian reasons, although they were not officially recognized as refugees.

In the same period, France accepted about 10,900 refugees, the United Kingdom 6,300 and the United States 23,296, according to the United Nations.

Though extremely low in comparison with other industrialized countries, Japan's figures have risen sharply since the 1990s, when the number of refugees accepted annually remained in single figures for almost a decade.

Last week Burma rebel leader Mahn Sha was shot dead at his home in Mae Sot, a Thai border town that has become home to many Burma refugees. The UN estimates that about 140,000 refugees have fled to Thailand.