REFILE-Bangladesh asylum seeker deported after working for years in Japan

(Fixes RIC for Fuji Heavy.)
By Serajul Quadir and Thomas Wilson
DHAKA/TOKYO Dec 10 (Reuters) - Abu Said Shekh was awakened
in his cell at a Japanese immigration detention centre one
recent morning and told he was leaving for the airport. After
nine years of seeking political asylum in Japan, he was being
deported to Bangladesh.
He was among 22 illegal immigrants, including an undisclosed
number of failed asylum seekers, that were put on a
state-chartered plane and flown back to Bangladesh on Nov. 25,
Japan's Justice Ministry said.
Now back in Dhaka, Shekh is in hiding, saying he fears for
his safety on what he calls a trumped-up court indictment on
charges stemming from his membership in Awami League, then the
main opposition party.
"I can't stay with my family," said Shekh by telephone. "I'm
very worried about the court case and whether I'll be arrested
again."
Shekh's case before a special tribunal court in Dhaka was
thrown out in 2009, which said the charges were "political
harassment". But because he did not personally appear in court
to hear that judgment he still faces an arrest warrant, court
documents in Dhaka say. The Awami League in Dhaka confirmed that
Shekh was a member of the party.
Shekh featured in a Reuters investigation in July into the
use of asylum seekers and other migrant workers in the Subaru
automaker Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd's 7270.T supply chain. At
the time, he painted interior car parts, working illegally but
protected from deportation while his asylum claim was being
assessed.
Reuters found that firms in Subaru's supply chain, facing
severe labour shortages and straining to meet soaring demand
from the United States, had turned to a grey market of foreign
workers, including asylum seekers.
Japan has the lowest refugee recognition rate among
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries. It accepted only 11 out of 5,000 applicants last
year. In September, Tokyo announced plans to tighten
restrictions on asylum seekers' right to work and placed new
curbs on some reapplicants.
Last week, four Japanese non-governmental organisations
criticised the "human rights and humanitarian problems" of
detaining and deporting at short notice failed asylum seekers
like Shekh, and other long-term residents of Japan.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Shekh was charged with attacking police and damaging public
property with explosives during a demonstration in 2002 by the
Awami League, then the party in opposition.
Political violence is common in Bangladesh, which has been
alternately ruled by the Awami League, which is now in power, or
the Bangladesh Nationalist Party for the past 24 years.
The recent execution of two opposition leaders for
atrocities committed in the 1971 war of independence has further
heightened tensions.
Shekh said he came to Japan in 2003 to escape the indictment
and overstayed his visa. He first claimed asylum in June 2006
and said he applied again five years later, working throughout
his time in Japan.
He was arrested on Nov. 20 and held in an immigration
detention centre in Tokyo. Four days later, Shekh was told his
appeal of Japan's decision not to grant him asylum had been
rejected. He was deported along with 21 other Bangladeshis.
It was the fourth round of the Justice Ministry's programme
of forced deportations by chartered planes. Japan deported 26
Sri Lankan and six Vietnamese nationals in 2014, and 74
Filipinos and 46 Thais the year before, the Justice Ministry
said. It added that an unspecified number of failed asylum
seekers were among the deportees in each round.
Over 5,500 people were deported from Japan last year,
government data show. It does not say how many of them were
failed asylum seekers like Shekh.
Opening up to immigration remains politically unpalatable in
Japan, despite severe labour shortages caused by an ageing
population. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has rejected calls from
companies and politicians to relax strict controls on
blue-collar migrants, vowing to increase the number of women and
elderly people in the labour force before letting in foreign
manual workers.