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2024 August 21 - 27 TOP3 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Kurdish children talk with JCP lawmakers about their everyday reality

Kurdish children in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, where many Kurds live, talked about their situation living in Japan with Japanese Communist Party lawmakers on August 21.

JCP Shiokawa Tetsuya and Motomura Nobuko (House of Representatives), Ito Gaku and Nihi Sohei (House of Councilors), Umemura Saeko (ex-member of the House of Representatives), and a JCP Kawaguchi City assemblyperson listened to their requests for a normal high school life, for special permission to stay in Japan, and for an end to discrimination against the Kurds living in Japan.

A junior high-school student, who is preparing for high school entrance exams and aspires to become a professional football player, told the JCP legislators that he and his father have successfully received visas, but his mother has not. He said, “If my mother is deported, I will go with her.”

They said that hate speech against the Kurds has intensified over the past year, and that hate-speech activists often march in demonstration through areas where many Kurds live, adding that they are terrified by it. The Kurdish children complained that the mass media have been stirring up anti-Kurd sentiment and that false rumors have been spread on the Internet.

JCP Nihi said in response, “At the root of your sufferings is Japan’s xenophobia that turns its back on multicultural coexistence. Our party continues to raise our voices together with you to work to realize a multicultural society.”

Past related article:
> JCP Nihi talks with Kurdish children without residency status [July 28, 2023]