Acting with uncharacteristic speed, the Justice Ministry bundled a Kurdish father and his son, both U.N.-recognized refugees, onto a plane and sent them back to Turkey on Tuesday, a day after they visited the Immigration Bureau to extend their provisional release.

Cries and screams broke out in a room at the Tokyo Bar Association as the message came through that Ahmet Kazankiran, 48, and his eldest son, Ramazan, 20, had been forced onto the plane. The news was received during a press conference held by the remaining members of the deportees' family and another Kurd family facing deportation, and supporters and one of their lawyers.

The pair won recognition last summer during a sit-in outside United Nations University to protest their plight.

On Monday morning, the father and son reported to the Immigration Bureau in Shinagawa Ward to apply for an extension to their provisional release. Before noon, it was announced that the two were being detained. The next day, they were deported...

...Kazankiran took part in protest demonstrations in Turkey to stop discrimination against minority Kurds and was once arrested and tortured, his supporters said.

It is extremely rare for anyone to be deported so soon after detention, said Takeshi Ohashi, the lawyer present at the briefing.

"I am angered by the way (Ahmet and Ramazan) were deported," he said, decrying Japan's apparent lack of a human rights standard.

In Japan, very few asylum-seekers are granted refugee status, with only 26 people, including those granted special residence permits, in 2003.

The Kazankirans and Erdal Dogan and his family, also Kurdish asylum-seekers, together staged the two-month sit-in. The remaining 10 members of the two families face imminent deportation...

...The quick day procedure from detention to deportation is not exceptional, the Immigration Bureau official claimed, explaining that deportation orders had already been issued and the law states that deportees must be sent back to their home country as soon as possible once the orders are issued.

The official also said that because deportation orders have been issued for the rest of the Kazankirans as well, the family will be united once again "if they are going to be sent to the same country" as Ahmet and Ramazan.