WORLD : Japan to Limit Refugee Assistance
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TOKYO — Japan will not grant refugee status to Vietnamese and other Indochinese escaping to this country solely for better economic prospects, officials said today.
Beginning Wednesday, Japan will adopt a new screening process, said Toshio Tsunozaki, director of the Foreign Ministry’s Human Rights and Refugee Division.
“We are implementing the measures to exclude the pseudo-refugees and distinguish genuine refugees,” he said. “We would like to prevent abuse of very generous treatment by the Japanese side.”
Many of the Vietnamese boat people who arrived recently in Japan told officials that they wished to escape poverty, not religious, political or racial persecution.
Tsunozaki said Japan will not push arriving boats back out to sea but will detain illegal immigrants until they can be repatriated.
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