Japan is preparing to grant refugee status to a Kurdish man from Turkey after an appeals court ruled that he would be at risk of persecution if he returned home, a government source said Tuesday.
The man in his 20s would become the first Turkish Kurd to be granted the status in Japan, according to the secretariat of the Japan Lawyers Network for Refugees.
According to the Sapporo High Court ruling handed down in May, the Turkish national entered Japan in 2014 and later applied for refugee status, but the application was rejected in 2018. He subsequently filed a lawsuit with the Sapporo District Court seeking revocation of the decision.