Tokyo: After referring to Ukrainian students as "elite refugees" who receive more government assistance than they should, the president of a Japanese language school reportedly resigned.
According to a Thursday article in the neighbourhood newspaper Asahi Shimbun, the Nippon Academy in Maebashi, Japan, declared on Monday that Masumi Shimizu would resign from his position.
38 students from Ukraine have been accepted at Shimizu's school, but they protested when the administration asked them to start paying tuition after receiving it for a while for free.
In a statement to the media last month, Shimizu described the students as "robbers" and "elite refugees" who benefit from free housing and tax breaks while Asian students struggle to make ends meet.
Shimizu's remarks were made public, and the school received criticism from the prefectural government. The Mainichi newspaper reported that these authorities later announced that Ukrainian students who wished to continue studying Japanese would be paid for doing so while continuing to receive free housing and assistance with living expenses.
As he announced his resignation, the former school leader refused to apologise, stating that the "prefectural government is doing far more than it should" for the Ukrainians. Shimizu continued, saying that the refugees are acting like a "privileged class"—some of whom told the Mainichi that his remarks hurt their feelings.
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Shimizu claimed that the management board of the school urged him to resign.
A similar incident, in which a Japanese asylum seeker from Afghanistan criticised the government for its alleged application of different standards to Ukrainian refugees, was reported by the Asahi Shimbun last year. According to him, Tokyo was favouring Ukrainians in a "extremely political move."
Since last February, Japan has taken in roughly 2,300 Ukrainian refugees, the majority of whom have little to no knowledge of the Japanese language. Japan, which has historically kept its doors closed to refugees and immigrants due to its homogeneous ethnic and linguistic population, accepted a record-breaking 74 asylum applications in 2021, up from 27 the year before.
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Technically, Japanese authorities do not recognise Ukrainians as "refugees," which would qualify them for five-year visas. Instead, they are given work permits good for one year with the option of an extension.