Amnesty Now Urges Japan to Release Wishma Detention Death Footage

Amnesty International has called on Japan to give the family of Wishma Sandamali, a Sri Lankan woman who died in immigration detention in Nagoya in 2021, full access to video footage of her final weeks, in a petition calling for detention reform.

Wishma died on March 6, 2021, at an immigration detention facility in Nagoya, central Japan. She was 33. She had arrived in Japan in June 2017 on a 15-month student visa and was arrested in August 2020 for overstaying, Amnesty said.

Health decline in detention

According to Amnesty, her health deteriorated around January 2021, when she suffered vomiting, nausea and loss of appetite and reportedly lost 20kg. Test results indicated starvation and an urgent need for intravenous fluids and hospital treatment.

Amnesty said she repeatedly pleaded for help until her death and that “authorities failed to provide the medical care she desperately needed”.

Wishma Sandamali family fights for footage

Surveillance cameras recorded 295 hours of footage in the period before her death, but the Justice Ministry had released only five hours, News On Japan reported in May 2025. The Immigration Services Agency said releasing the videos could interfere with maintaining order, as they show internal security systems.

“What are they hiding?” one of her sisters asked, according to News On Japan.

Amnesty said the family brought a second lawsuit against the government in February 2026 demanding the full footage, and that the government has continued to refuse, citing security at the facility and a lack of resources to process the video.

What Amnesty is demanding

The petition urges Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita and Immigration Services Agency Director Takuji Nishiyama to give the family access to the CCTV footage and other relevant material, and to order an independent and impartial investigation into her death, publish the findings and hold those responsible to account.

It also calls for detention facilities to meet international human rights standards, including access to healthcare, independent oversight and the right of detainees to lodge complaints.

Amnesty said core problems in Japan’s immigration detention system, including indefinite detention and the lack of judicial review, remain unresolved more than 30 years after it first made recommendations to the government in 1993.

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