日本語は英語の次にあります

The Ministry of Justice has added a document with clear examples of re-entry for humanitarian reasons

On June 12th, The Ministry of Justice has added a PDF to the Japanese version of the “Notice on refusal of landing (as of May 27)”. This PDF is in Japanese only, but it states clearly the cases, in which foreign residents can temporarily leave the country and return afterwards. URL: http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001321919.pdf

This applies only to foreign permanent residents, residents on spouse visas and foreign holding other visas but whose family is living in Japan. This amendment is a very important step and it even fulfills the bare minimum of what I was trying to achieve when I started this petition. At least the separation of families after essential travels will be prevented in most cases.

This does not solve the problem with family members of Japanese who want to enter Japan with a newly issued visa or of those foreign residents who temporarily left before April 2nd and are still stranded abroad, but I think that we should warmly welcome every small move in the right, humane direction. Since there are other developed countries which limit re-entry to permanent residents and family members (e.g. Australia) I think it gets really difficult to ask the Japanese government for even more relaxation now.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who has supported this petition. Thank you so much.

法務省が人道的な理由の事例を明文化しました

法務省は「新型コロナウイルス感染症の拡大防止に係る上陸拒否等について」（5月27日版）に、人道的な理由に基づく事例を明文化するPDFを追加しました。URL: http://www.moj.go.jp/content/001321919.pdf

永住ビザ、配偶者ビザ並びに家族が日本に住んでいる他のビザの保持者が対象だそうです。この明文化は大変重要なことであり、本陳情活動の最低限ラインを超えるのではないか評価しています。せめて家族の分離がこれで大半のケースに阻止されるように思います。

新規に入ろうとする外国籍の家族や4月2日以前に一時出国して現在足止めになった方々の問題の解決ではないのですが、状況の小さな改善も高く評価すべきではないでしょうか。他の先進国の中にもすべての住民よりも永住者や国民の家族だけ入国させる国（オーストラリアがこんな方針の代表事例でしょう）がありますので、これ以上の緩和を強く求め続けるのが難しいかもしれません。

現在まで賛同をしていただいた皆様、ありがとうございました。