Andreya receives social visit visa

Andreya receives social visit visa

SURABAYA: Andreya Masaru Miyakoshi, the four-year-old Japanese
boy recently deported for overstaying his visa, returned on
Thursday after the Indonesian embassy in Singapore granted him a
social visit visa.

With the document, Andreya will be able to stay in the country
for 60 days. His mother, Atik Kristia Yuliani, an Indonesian,
brought him to Bali where she planned to arrange for an
extendible limited stay visa.

The child can later apply for a permanent residence permit,
which allows him to stay for as long as five years before he is
eligible to apply for Indonesian citizenship. He is a Japanese
citizen, in accordance with the nationality of his father, Mitsuo
Miyakoshi.

Ida Sampit Karo-Karo, Atik's lawyer, said Andreya's problem
for the moment was solved. The legal problems facing children of
parents with different nationalities, however, have yet to be
tackled.

"We need a legal breakthrough to handle possible similar cases
in the future," she said, but did not elaborate.

Andreya's deportation grabbed public attention because he was
very young and his mother claimed she did not have the money to
apply for an extension of his visa or take him out of the
country.

The directorate general of immigration at the Ministry of
Justice denied yesterday it had acted inhumanely by deporting
Andreya. "We have been acting very humanely by not bringing him
to court and not preventing him from reentering Indonesia," the
office said. (27)