Humanitarian Stain

If Michael Howard decides to elicit international support for his get-tough policy on asylum seekers, he could do worse than approach the government of Japan.

Japan, a signatory to the 1951 UN refugee convention that Mr Howard wants Britain to discard, contributed $76.4m in 2004 to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, second only to the United States.

But when asylum seekers like Ahmet Kazankiran and his family arrive on Japanese shores, the generosity all but evaporates.

Mr Kazankiran, 48, his wife and their five children have been seeking asylum in Japan for almost a decade. As Kurds, they feared persecution, even torture, in their home country of Turkey, where Mr Kazankiran was involved in the Kurdish rights movement.

The family was refused asylum three times and made the subject of deportation orders, but were granted "provisional release" in Japan as long as they reported to the immigration authorities once a month.

It was an imperfect arrangement, but at least it gave the Kazankirans time to seek safe haven in a third country. Last week that task became even more complicated.

Mr Kazankiran and his eldest son, Ramazan, 20, were detained within hours of arriving at the immigration bureau in Tokyo on January 17. A day later, they were bundled on to a plane back to Turkey before they had the chance to talk to their lawyers or the other members of their family.

In other circumstances their treatment might have gone unnoticed by all but their closest friends and supporters.

But their deportation, and the plight of the family they left behind, has become an embarrassment for the Japanese government, which has been condemned by the UN just as it is trying to win support to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The UNHCR in Tokyo said it was "deeply concerned" about the turn of events. "The UNHCR considers the deportations contrary to Japan's obligations under international law. The deportation is unprecedented and contrasts with Japan's humanitarian assistance towards refugees and disaster victims abroad."

Takeshi Ohashi, a lawyer representing the family, said the justice ministry had "insulted" the UN and that the deportation would "stain Japan's position in the international community".

The family received support from the public and from opposition MPs when they and another Kurdish family staged a two-month, round-the-clock protest in front of the United Nations University in Tokyo last summer.

By October, the UNHCR had recognised them as refugees. Their supporters, meanwhile, collected 63,000 signatures backing their bid for asylum.

Earlier this week it was the turn of Mr Kazankiran's wife and four other children to report to the immigration bureau. They were spared his fate and granted a one-month reprieve.

Shoichiro Okabe of the Tokyo regional immigration bureau told Guardian Unlimited that Mr Kazankiran and his son had been sent to Turkey "in accordance with the law".

He said the decision to allow their relatives to stay was taken "after consideration of their particular circumstances and for humanitarian reasons". He declined to discuss the prospects of finding the family an alternative home.

"My family was separated for 15 years until two years ago, when we were reunited in Japan," the eldest daughter, Zeliha, 21, said, "but we have been forced apart again. How long will it be before we will finally be able to stay together?"

Nathalie Karsenty, the UNHCR's senior legal officer, said: "We are happy as it gives us more time to find a third country," she said, but added: "The family was split up, so we would have preferred to have been given more time to find a country where they can all be reunited.

"It is important for us to stay in very close contact with the authorities so that they know how difficult the resettlement process is. Perhaps Japan can help us with this.

"It's not about finding countries that take Kurdish asylum seekers, but about finding one that will accept them coming from Japan."

The door to cooperation opened a little yesterday when the justice minister, Chieko Nono, suggested that the government would consider sending Zeliha, her mother and three siblings to a country other than Turkey.

If that happens, it will be a significant departure for Japan, whose immigration policy is frequently criticised by human rights groups.

Between 1982, the year it joined the UN refugee convention, and 2003, Japan received 3,118 applications for refugee status but granted only 315, although that number does not include the 10,000 or so refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who were treated separately.

In 2003 it accepted only 10 refugees and rejected more than 300 applications.

Significantly, Japan has never accepted a Kurdish asylum seeker, out of deference, critics say, to its close diplomatic ties with Turkey, now a candidate for membership of the EU.

Individual experiences bear out their suspicions. Erdal Dogan, another Kurdish asylum seeker in Japan, said his family's home in Turkey had been searched by Japanese immigration officials with the help of local police.

There are other political obstacles. When Mr Kazankiran was deported the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said, "We take it for granted to respect human rights". But he has also gone on record as saying that it is difficult "to draw a line between refugees and suspicious persons", adding that a more generous policy would create "a new domestic problem".

The Kazankirans, meanwhile, face another month of uncertainty. They are barely able to support themselves financially and do not know whether their next visit to the Tokyo immigration bureau, on February 24, will be their last.

"Whatever happens, however scared we are, we'll do what we have to do to survive," Zeliha told Japanese reporters, in their own language, on Monday. "The most important thing is that we look after each other. We've managed it until now."

Looking across at the dozens of people holding up placards denouncing the immigration authorities, she added: "I want to thank the many Japanese people who have helped us, even though they didn't know us at first."

It was a show of responsibility, generosity and composure from a young woman who had only just been forcibly separated from her brother and father and who must now look after the rest of her family in a country where, officially, they are unwelcome.

Some might say she is a model citizen, but one whom no country, so far, has deemed worthy of a permanent home.