People who live in a state of daily desperation sometimes react to their circumstances with violence against others or themselves and, while such actions are a manifestation of frustration, they can also alert the larger world to that frustration, even if it wasn't intended.
During a single week in May there were four suicide attempts involving three people at the East Japan Immigration Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, where more than 300 foreign nationals are being detained as they await deportation. These acts follow the suicide of an Indian man at the center in April, which then led to a hunger strike by more than 100 detainees.
Attorney Shoichi Ibuski, an expert on immigration issues who has represented foreign detainees, discussed the matter during the May 29 edition of the TBS Radio talk show Session 22, saying that "there are more suicide attempts (at immigration facilities) than are reported."