The family of a New Zealand man who died after being strapped to a bed for 10 days at a hospital in Japan held a news conference in Tokyo on July 19, saying the rights of patients were being grossly violated through such treatment.

Kelly Savage, 27, died after being restrained at a psychiatric hospital in Kanagawa Prefecture, where he was compulsorily hospitalized in April. He had worked as an English teacher in Japan under an international exchange program.

"How can the country that's hosting the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics claim to represent equality for all humans when it's violating U.N. policies regarding the human rights of mentally ill patients on a massive scale?" Savage's brother Patrick Savage asked reporters on July 19. "The world needs to know what's happening, and Japan needs to act immediately to stop it."

At the news conference, participants announced the formation of the Alliance Against Physical Restraint, a committee focusing on the issue of physical restraint in psychiatric treatment. The committee will investigate similar cases and call for reform to prevent medical workers from easily using physical restraint.

Kelly Savage came to Japan in 2015. According to the committee, he was hospitalized in Kanagawa Prefecture at the end of April based on the danger of injury resulting from a psychiatric condition, and was strapped to a bed immediately afterward. Ten days later his heart and lungs stopped functioning and he died. It is said there is a possibility he died from a pulmonary embolism as a result of deep-vein thrombosis.

Under Japan's Act on Mental Health and Welfare for the Mentally Disabled, facilities can detain or isolate patients to a limited extent, but restraint has become common in recent years. A survey by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in June 2014 showed that 10,682 patients were physically restrained -- roughly double the figure from a decade before.

Toshio Hasegawa, a professor at Kyorin University who called for the establishment of the Alliance Against Physical Restraint, pointed out that in developed countries the average length of time patients were restrained ranged from several hours to less than 100 hours, but in Japan the average was 96 days.

Kelly Savage's mother Martha Savage, who was at the news conference in Japan, pointed out that her son had "loved living in Japan" and said that the way his life ended was sad.

"We don't want this tragedy to happen to anybody else," she said.