Talk:Death of Wishma Sandamali

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 11:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

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• ... that in 2021 Wishma Sandamali, who was detained for overstaying her visa after seeking police protection for domestic abuse, became the 17th to die in Japanese immigration detention since 2007? Source: Asahi Shimbun, Kyodo
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Beautiful Mystery

Created by Nardog (talk). Self-nominated at 12:25, 27 June 2022 (UTC).

• New enough and long enough. Well cited. I checked a few English and Japanese sources, and I didn't find any copyright issues. I think the article is reasonably neutral, though I'll make some suggestions on the talk page about structure. The article doesn't depict the detention center in a very positive light, but neither do the facts according to the official government and media reports so there's not much that can be done. The official report is given prominent coverage and presented alongside criticism of it, and the timeline has multiple sources supporting it. With all that in mind, I don't have serious neutrality concerns. I do think the hook can be improved, partly for neutrality but mostly for readability and interest. I think the original hook can be condensed:

Alt 1 * ... that after the death of Wishma Sandamali in 2021, 17 people have died in Japanese immigration detention in the last 16 years?

One worry I have is that both state a fact that treats the article subject (a woman's death) as a statistic rather than as a historical event in its own right. Having read through the article, I actually think there are some really interesting facts worth pointing out that highlight the event as being worth the reader's time. One idea is:

Alt 2 * ... that the National Diet withdrew an immigration bill after protests over the death of Wishma Sandamali in a Japanese immigration detention facility?

— Wug·a·po·des​ 03:19, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the review! Alt 1 is a garden-path sentence to me. It reads like 17 people have died in the past year or so until you reach the end. I think the same could be achieved better by simply removing the relative clause from my hook, but I wanted to include the background, which renders her fate particularly devastating.

I wouldn't mention the bill as I'm not sure how much of a factor her death was to the withdrawal, and AFAICT the government hasn't given up on the revision (also it was withdrawn from the Diet, by the ruling coalition). What I find significant about her death isn't what changed because of it but what hasn't despite it. Nardog (talk) 05:59, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Thoughts

Hi Nardog some thoughts on the article that I couldn't fix on my own:

• This was despite a 2008 directive from Japan's Immigration Bureau (later Immigration Services Agency) to its facilities to treat domestic violence victims with appropriate care and possibly grant them residency According to the (Google translated) source, it seems like there might have been a possibility that this happened, or at least, it seems that the source hedges this point. Could you double check the source and confirm that?
• Although her blood pressure and pulse had been undetectable since the morning of March 5, an ambulance was not called until 2:15 pm on March 6 The source is paid, so I cannot access the full timeline. I'm confused about how this relates to the sentence immediately before it which implies that she was found unresponsive on March 6. How is it known that her pulse and blood pressure were undetectable on the 5th?
• I think the article structure could be improved, but wanted to run the idea past you. I think there can be a "biography" or similarly titled level-2 heading, with "early life" and "detention" as sub-sections along with a new "Death" section; the article is about her death, so having a dedicated (sub-)section would be a good idea. I also think the "Response" section is overloaded. I think it would help to split it into two sections: "Official inquiries" and "responses". Official inquiries would include the ministry report, criminal complaint, and civil lawsuit. The responses section would include the immigration bill and the surveillance footage.

— Wug·a·po·des​ 03:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments.

• I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to, but the source says an immigration official said at the Diet she was not treated as a domestic violence victim even though they were cognizant of her being one (入管庁幹部は国会答弁で、警察から入管にウィシュマさんを引き受けた際、DV被害者であることを認識していたが、DV被害者として対応はしていなかったと認めた). What the source isn't definitive about is whether her visa could have been renewed according to the protocols, I assume because the directive specifies the condition for granting residency to be spousal abuse, which indicates the marital status could have mattered.
• She still had some activity such as uttering groans on the morning of March 6. According to the final report, bureau officers routinely check detainees' vitals, and her blood pressure and pulse could not be measured on 5th and on 6th. (The source is available in full in the archived version on my end.)
• I thought of splitting the section about detention too, but I'm still not sure where to. The deterioration of her health is quite relevant to the death, and requests for provisional release and treatment are to the deterioration. The response section is structured like it is for similar reasons. It's kept mostly chronological save for the part about the bill, and each subsection is related to the next (the footage was shown to the sisters right after the release of the final report, and it was preserved in preparation for lawsuits).

Nardog (talk) 05:11, 29 June 2022 (UTC)