The Yamada saga continues:
Consulate officials briefed Yamada on a conversation between a member of the consulate staff and the head of the Tokyo-based NGO, the Society to Help Returnees to North Korea, at a detention facility in Shanghai on Tuesday, they said.She had expressed a desire to meet her husband but wrapped up her one-day visit to Shanghai and left for home Saturday afternoon after meeting a Chinese lawyer to discuss the situation.
The article doesn't exactly explain what transpired, except that the Japanese government appears not to be taking any sort of lead:
Haruhisa Ogawa, an honorary representative of the NGO and professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, also arrived in Shanghai on Saturday but did not accompany Yamada to the consulate.He said he will stay for several days and demand that the Chinese authorities promptly release Yamada, an assistant professor at the Osaka University of Economics.
Ogawa said he will also ask China not to force the seven North Koreans detained along with Yamada to return to their country.
When he returns to Tokyo, Ogawa ought to ask the Japanese government to accept some responsibility and political risk, and stop defending human rights - or the safety of its own citizens - vicariously.
UPDATE: Japanese officials met with Mr. Yamada. No details on the nature of the discussions is available yet - however, the Japan Times felt it necessary to report a gift of clothes, provided by Mrs. Yamada. If the Reds had been keeping Yamada in prisoner fatigues, clothes would be unnecessary. I know the Chinese government is brutal and heartless, but is it not above preventing a man from changing for eleven days?