Since 1975
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • Home
  • Japan
  • UN body calls on Japan to set up human rights institution

UN body calls on Japan to set up human rights institution

The recommendations from the U.N. committee are not legally binding. (Shutterstock)
The recommendations from the U.N. committee are not legally binding. (Shutterstock)
Short Url:
04 Nov 2022 12:11:58 GMT9
04 Nov 2022 12:11:58 GMT9

TOKYO: The U.N. Human Rights Committee has called on Japan to establish an independent national human rights institution “as a matter of priority.”

The committee also showed concern over the recent deaths of three people at immigration detention facilities in Japan and asked the country’s government for improvements.

The U.N. body made the calls in a report of recommendations drawn up on the basis of the results of its regular screenings on the human rights situations in Japan and some other nations.

The proposed institution, which would be based on a set of principles adopted by the U.N. General Assembly and work on human rights redress independent of the government, should have “sufficient funding and staff,” it said.

“We seriously take the recommendation,” Japanese Justice Minister Yasuhiro Hanashi told a press conference Friday. But he sounded negative about establishing such an institution, saying, “We plan to carefully offer human rights redress based on individual laws.”

The recommendations from the U.N. committee are not legally binding.

The committee said that it is “concerned about the well-being of people deprived of their liberty, including in immigration detention facilities (in Japan), where three detainees died between 2017 and 2021.”

It called on the Japanese government to “ensure that anyone arrested or detained enjoys all fundamental legal safeguards, including access to counsel, family contact and adequate medical care,” and to “refrain from imposing prolonged solitary confinement and take all appropriate measures to ensure immigrants are not mistreated.”

JIJI Press

Most Popular
Recommended

return to top