In the concluding event of ten days of anti-G8 protests, hundreds of activists from protest camps established in the area of the summit marched in a demonstration organized by the Ainu, the disenfranchised indigenous people of Hokkaido Island. The march was surrounded by several rows of police the entire time. Protesters held signs in English and Japanese reading "No G8" and "Japan is a police state." (Media G8way [2], July 9)
The New York Times confirmed that at a July 8 march of some 200 at the Hokkaido fishing town of Date, demonstrators "quickly found themselves outnumbered by the police, who formed a moving cordon around them." (NYT [3], July 9)
In another escalation of the general crackdown on Japan's grassroots left which has occasioned the G8 summit, police in Tokyo raided the offices of the Dora Chiba Rail Union July 4. One unionist who asked to examine the warrant, he was wrestled to the ground and arrested. (International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba [4], July 5)
See our last post on Japan [5].
