Why Is Japan's Tiny Kurdish Community at the Center of a Political Storm?

The Diplomat

02-07-2025

On June 6, a group of parliamentarians within Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presented Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru with a new immigration policy proposal. Under the title 'Aiming for Zero Illegal Foreign Residents,' the document outlined several measures to combat foreigners engaging in illegal work and fraudulent residency, in addition to misuse of public services. The LDP would later adopt the slogan as part of its campaign for the upcoming upper house election.
This hawkish tone contrasts with the LDP-led government's recent history of admitting foreign residents in record numbers. This is a result of numerous proactive immigration reforms, which included the expansion of foreign labor through the Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) program in 2019 – passed to combat chronic labor shortages. Part of the explanation for this shift in tone is the recent national attention garnered by the so-called 'Kurdish Problem,' referring to perceived issues related to Japan's Kurdish community, who primarily reside in the cities of Warabi and Kawaguchi in southern Saitama Prefecture.
Kurds have been living in Saitama since at least the early 1990s, mostly without attracting much national attention. However, recent tensions began to rise following an incident that occurred in July 2023 in Kawaguchi. After a personal dispute among members of the Kurdish community led to an attempted murder, about 100 Kurds related to the concerned parties crowded a local hospital, which eventually had to temporarily disrupt emergency services.
Since then, right-wing groups and provocateurs have frequently targeted the Kurdish community, citing crime and assimilation concerns. In the online space, Japanese national broadcaster NHK recently found a staggering 25 million incendiary Japanese-language social media posts targeting Kurds in the two-year period leading up to April 2025. Unsurprisingly, this has translated into the real world as well, with far-right groups regularly appearing in southern Saitama in organized demonstrations against the Kurds that proliferate hate speech.
What has changed recently is the issue's salience beyond the fringes of the far right. LDP heavyweight Kono Taro, who has served in several prominent cabinet positions, recently highlighted Saitama's Kurdish community on his personal blog, calling for rigorous measures to combat 'bogus refugees.' At the end of May, current LDP policy chief Itsunori Onodera visited Kawaguchi, where he underscored that 'public order is at the core of coexistence.' He chairs the parliamentary group that would later draft the immigration policy proposal mentioned above.
Clearly, issues surrounding the Kurds have become prominent enough to impact policy at the national level. But why?
By all accounts, there are approximately 2,000-3,000 Kurds in Japan, mostly hailing from southeastern Turkey and holding Turkish citizenship. As of the end of 2024, Japan had more than 3.6 million foreign residents, meaning that Kurds account for less than 0.1 percent of the total population of immigrants. The continuous spotlight placed on the Kurdish community is completely disproportionate to its actual size.
Looking at local crime statistics, Turkish passport holders – who are not all necessarily Kurds, although they form the majority – committed 44 crimes in Kawaguchi in 2023. While this means that they have a higher crime rate than some other nationalities, the chief of the Saitama Prefectural Police himself underscored that 'regarding individuals of Turkish nationality… we do not assess the crime situation in Kawaguchi City as particularly severe.' While local residents have also pointed out other sources of tension, such as illegal dumping of garbage or noise-related nuisances, these problems could and should stay at the community or municipal level and be addressed there.
However, given the national attention the Kurds have received, realistic solutions at the national level should be explored as well. One of the primary causes of the socioeconomic precarity that the Kurds face, which undoubtedly contributes to their marginalization and can lead to problematic behavior, relates to their unstable status within Japan's immigration control regime. This is for two main reasons: some Kurds entered Japan via Turkiye's tourist visa exemption and overstayed to work, a common pattern among migrants in the 1990s and 2000s. Others entered through the same pathway but applied for asylum on the grounds of persecution faced back home. These two patterns can overlap, especially when undocumented Kurds apply for asylum after being detained, resulting in an overall deep entanglement with Japan's asylum and immigration detention system.
According to widely circulated data that Kono obtained from the Immigration Services Agency (ISA) – which is not publicly accessible at time of writing – about 75 percent of Turkish nationals living in Kawaguchi are stuck in an unstable visa situation. This translates to 1,652 out of 2,206 residents, the vast majority of which are on provisional stay visas (906) or under provisional release (717). The former status is granted to asylum seekers whose cases are being reviewed, while the latter is a temporary release from immigration detention due to a prior violation. Especially Kurds on provisional release, who are oftentimes also asylum seekers or have had their application rejected, are stuck in limbo, unable to work legally or access social benefits and thus forced into precarity. A recent policy change also allows for easier deportations after multiple failed asylum attempts.
Japan's asylum system is notoriously restrictive, and arguably even more so in the case of the Kurds. Some Kurds in Japan have clearly faced genuine persecution in Turkiye, especially in the 1990s and when the peace process temporarily failed in the mid-2010s. Yet only one Kurd has ever been granted refugee status in Japan – and that took multiple appeals, despite visible signs of torture.
The amicable diplomatic relationship between Japan and Turkiye probably also contributes to the status quo. In an unprecedented move, immigration officials famously visited southeastern Turkiye – at times together with Turkish military officials – to assess the validity of Kurdish asylum claims in 2004. The claims in question were subsequently rejected.
At the same time, there is also a subset of Kurds – including those in the asylum process – that migrated more traditionally, via kinship networks and with primarily economic motivations or due to family connections. There are currently dozens of Kurdish demolition companies in Kawaguchi, and the area's proximity to Tokyo provides ample economic opportunities. Furthermore, following a proclamation by the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, the group has disarmed, a major step toward ending the military stage of the conflict in Turkiye. All of this makes formal resolution of Kurds' immigration status in Japan through the asylum process even more unrealistic than it already was.
A realistic solution is thus to move the issue away from the asylum process altogether. Many Kurds have been living in Japan for decades, speak the language, and have raised families in the country. Expelling them now would be both unrealistic and impractical. Japan lacks an amnesty process, and given the current political climate, it is unlikely to introduce one. A more practical solution would be a one-time program to integrate long-term Kurdish residents – excluding those who have committed violent crimes – into Japan's recently expanded labor migration system, such as the aforementioned SSW program. Many Kurds already possess language skills and cultural familiarity and should be given the opportunity to lead a stable life while contributing to Japan's economy, which desperately needs workers.
For recent and new arrivals with flimsy asylum claims, the LDP's proposal to increase immigration capacity should lead to swifter resolutions. This will lead to some deportations. However, the government should simultaneously build up labor migration pathways in Turkiye, including in the southeast, as it has done with countries in South and Southeast Asia. The best way to avoid irregular migration is to provide a viable legal alternative. It would thus behoove Japan's policymakers to pursue realistic policy solutions in lieu of being swayed by sensationalist headlines.