Ghanaian Dead in Narita

I found a tiny article in The Asahi Shimbun this morning, about the death of a Ghanaian man. Around three p.m. yesterday, he was about to be deported from the country and forced to board an EGYPTAIR flight. He reportedly resisted, and was "restrained" by immigration officers. He then "stopped moving," and was taken to the hospital in the airport, where his death was confirmed. That's about all in the article.

I think there are questions to be asked: why was he being deported in the first place?; why and how did he resist?; did he say anything?; what means of restraint was employed; was it a murder? The Japanese mainstream media are not accustomed to asking those sorts of questions when it comes to government-related cases like this, nor is the government willing to answer them. People "stop moving" every now and then in prisons and detention facilities in this country, and little investigation is conducted.

But this time, there are international witnesses, as the event took place on an airplane to Cairo. A man, a human being, "stopped moving," and it would be highly unlikely if there weren't airline employees and passengers present there to see it when that happened.

I believe the international community should take interest in this case and raise questions that we, the Japanese, may not be quite capable of asking ourselves. I want to know the facts, and I think they should be known; we need to know what our government is doing in our name so that we will be a bit more aware of our responsibility.

Oh, the flight number is MS965, by the way. It took off about fifty minutes late on March 22nd, with dozens of passengers and EGYPTAIR employees who likely saw what happened.