A Muslim man being detained at a Yokohama immigration center was served pork and has gone on a hunger strike in protest.
The 48-year-old man from Pakistan who is being detained for unknown reasons was served a hot meal that contained ham on the evening of 3 August and has now been on a hunger strike for two weeks. People of Islamic faith are forbidden to eat any kind of meat from pigs.
The man is currently only consuming water and nutritional supplements but immigration officials say the man’s health is not in any danger.
▼ An image of the Quran
A similar incident occurred last year in August where another Muslim man was served a salad with bacon pieces. On this occasion the Yokohama area immigration apologized for the “administrative mistake”.
A group defending the human rights of foreigners visited the immigration department this week to request that actions are taken to prevent this kind off incident from occurring again.
A representative of the group said, “The immigration office has the responsibility to provide meals with religious customs in mind, and we request that this doesn’t happen again.” The immigration department responded by saying, “We regret that this has happened and we are swiftly investigating the cause”.
Source: Hachima Kiko, NHK
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