OSAKA -- A citizens' group demanded Tuesday that immigration authorities provide detainees at the regional detention facility here with individual electric shavers, instead of forcing them to share a single shaver.

Forcing detainees to share a communal electric shaver puts them at risk of contracting diseases, the group said in a letter to the authorities.

The group also called on a lawyers' association in Osaka to urge the Justice Ministry to do something about the shared-shaver issue.

Past calls to immigration authorities to allow detainees to use their own shavers have gone unheeded, the group said.

An official at the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau acknowledged that the detainees must share a communal electric shaver but added they are instructed to sanitize it after each use.

"We will continue making efforts to maintain hygiene at detention facilities," the official said.