Japan's refugee approvals in Jan.-Sept. down over 2/3 from yr before+

TOKYO, Dec. 20 Kyodo - The number of foreigners granted refugee status by the Japanese government between January and September was less than a third of the figure for the same period last year, according to Justice Ministry documents obtained by Kyodo News.

Considering that applications for refugee status during the nine months
surpassed the record number set for the period in 2008, people who support
refugees in Japan expressed concern that the situation in the country, which is
already seen as ''closed-door'' for refugees, is deteriorating.
According to the documents, 1,123 people applied for refugee status between
January and September, up from 1,100 applications the year before, but only 15
people were approved during the period, compared with 46 in 2008.
But the number of people who were denied refugee status but granted special
permits to remain in Japan due to humanitarian considerations increased during
the period to 399 from 293 last year, the documents showed.
Since October, the number of applications submitted appears to have slowed
while there seems to have been an increase in the number of people granted
refugee status, according to sources close to the matter.
''We determine whether an applicant qualifies for refugee status on a case by
case basis, so there are years in which we have many (approvals) and years in
which we have few,'' said an official of the ministry's Immigration Bureau.
''It takes one year or more on average for us to conclude whether or not to
grant (refugee status), so even if the number of applicants increases, that is
not immediately reflected in the number of applications approved,'' the
official said.
Amnesty International Japan has criticized the government's refugee approval
system as ''not functioning,'' saying the number of people granted asylum is
''too small.''
In 2008, the number of people applying for refugee status in Japan increased to
1,599, about double the figure for the year before, likely due to deteriorating
public security in countries such as Myanmar.
The Foreign Ministry at one point exhausted its budget allocation to help
support the livelihoods of refugee applicants.
As of 2008, Japan had granted asylum to 508 people since becoming a party to
the International Convention on the Status of Refugees in 1981, far fewer than
the United States and European countries.
==Kyodo