The mother of a 16-year-old girl who died from emaciation following detention and alleged menacing interrogations by authorities is seeking compensation, in the latest case of what is known as \u201chostage justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, filed with the Kobe District Court in Kobe Wednesday, argues that the girl\u2019s 18-day ordeal at a jail traumatized her so much that five months after her release, she weighed just 20 kilograms \u2014 and died in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughter was unrecognizable when she died,\u201d the mother of Runa \u2014 a pseudonym used in the complaint \u2014 told a news conference Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to know what happened to her, and why she was arrested, detained and had to die,\u201d the plaintiff said.<\/p>\n
The Kobe District Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office has declined to comment, saying it had not yet received a complaint.<\/p>\n
In Japan\u2019s harsh criminal justice system, critics say innocence is not always presumed and that authorities rely heavily on confessions.<\/p>\n
Campaigners say suspects\u2019 decisions to remain silent or deny charges often lead to lengthy, grueling pretrial detention, with confessions used as a de-facto condition for release \u2014 hence the term \u201chostage justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June last year, Runa \u2014 then a worker at a care facility for people with disabilities in Hyogo Prefecture \u2014 was arrested for allegedly assaulting one of them during a Valentine\u2019s Day party.<\/p>\n
Runa maintained her innocence, with the complaint saying she was merely trying to stop the patient from biting another by gently pressing her hand against their chin.<\/p>\n
It took authorities 18 days to decide to drop charges against her altogether.<\/p>\n
During her detention, she was denied access to her family, could only contact her lawyers and was repeatedly pressured to confess.<\/p>\n
Runa is \u201cone of the most tragic victims of hostage justice,\u201d the complaint read, seeking \u00a5100 million (around $623,000) in redress.<\/p>\n
During interrogations by police, she was threatened with the prospect of a reformatory and told she would not be able to see her mother if she does not confess, Masahiro Sasaki, a lawyer representing Runa\u2019s mother, said Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou did it, didn\u2019t you? Just tell the truth,\u201d Sasaki quoted an investigator as telling Runa, citing a journal the girl kept while detained.<\/p>\n
Runa as a result was diagnosed with acute stress, and eating and post-traumatic stress disorders, the complaint said.<\/p>\n
Sasaki questioned the validity of her arrest given the \u201cextremely trifling\u201d nature of her alleged assault, and her age that should have rendered detention justifiable \u201conly when it\u2019s absolutely necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was also no probable cause to suspect the girl with no previous history of delinquency who lived under parenting supervision would flee or destroy evidence, he said.<\/p>\n
Yet, prosecutors at least twice requested…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of a 16-year-old girl who died from emaciation following detention and alleged menacing interrogations by authorities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8,17,708,1770,4075],"class_list":["post-43499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-japanese-courts","tag-kobe","tag-mental-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}