HONG KONG - Some pro-democracy activists from Hong Kong have faced needless uncertainties from Japanese immigration officials while trying to enter the country after completing their prison sentences, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Those individuals were detained for hours for questioning or refused entry at Japanese border checkpoints, the sources added, despite a visa exemption in place since 2004 for stays of up to 90 days by visitors from Hong Kong. They were convicted of charges including taking part in illegal assemblies.
Japan's Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act stipulates that individuals sentenced to imprisonment for one year or more shall be denied permission to land in the country, except in cases involving political offenses.
A Hong Kong individual previously jailed for participating in an illegal assembly in 2019 was asked upon arrival in Japan to return to the semiautonomous Chinese territory and apply for a visa, according to the Japan Hong Kongers Association, a Tokyo-based group supporting expatriates.
Beijing introduced a national security law that cracks down on a wide range of dissenting acts in the former British colony in 2020, following pro-democracy protests that swept through the financial hub in 2019.
Jimmy Sham, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist who in May 2025 completed a prison term of more than four years for subversion in a national security case, was held for almost 22 hours at Tokyo's Haneda airport in June for questioning before being allowed entry.
In an interview with Kyodo News, Sham said Japanese immigration officers told him that people with over a year's imprisonment on their records were not welcome in Japan, even though he declared his conviction in advance and explained to them it was politically motivated and did not involve violence.
"I felt that those border control officers didn't understand the Hong Kong national security law," he said. "There was a feeling that they were persuading me to abandon my trip and get on a return flight to Hong Kong myself."
Sham called for clearer guidelines for Japanese immigration authorities to handle Hong Kong pro-democracy activists' attempts to enter the country. "I just want to become an ordinary Hong Konger again. I should be able to travel to Japan without a visa," he said.
Isao Itabashi, chief of the research division at Japan's Council for Public Policy who is well versed in crisis management, said immigration authorities could have foreseen Sham's attempt to enter Japan developing into a potential diplomatic issue. Therefore, the detention for more than 20 hours was "appropriate," he added.
Japan's Immigration Services Agency declined to respond to Kyodo News queries about the criteria its officers use when considering entry for individual visitors based on the criminal records they declare.
Tokyo has called Beijing's enactment of the national security law "regrettable," saying it will hurt international confidence in the "one country, two systems" principle.
Alric Lee, a visiting Hong Kong researcher at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, said, "I have never heard of such incidents taking place in any other democratic country like what happened in Japan."
"This has deviated from the Japanese government's official stance I've had in mind and has made some activists feel the pressure from China even while they are abroad," added Lee, founder of the Tokyo-based human rights group Lady Liberty Hong Kong.
Tomoko Ako, a professor at the University of Tokyo, said Japan "has yet to properly discuss" the definition of political offenders, thus giving rise to "this state of ambiguity we currently face."
"Granting entry to those who may cause political problems between China and Japan will create diplomatic complications. This is a political judgement Tokyo must make," she said. "The Japanese way of doing things at present is not one that can protect those arrested under the national security law."
