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Notícies :: guerra |
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Emergency Statement by the Supporters Group of the Four Unlawfully Arrested
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per IMC-Japan |
17 ago 2005
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On August 2005, Japanese right-wing groups who hoisted banners proclaiming support for militarism and Xenophobia had a big conference with six thousand participants at Yasukuni Shrine, Tokyo. At the same time as these rightists, politicians arguing in favor of Japan’s nuclear armament, including Shinzo Abe and Shintaro Ishihara, and a number of Cabinet and Diet members visited the shrine to offer their “condolences� to the war dead on the 60th anniversary of the “end� of the war.
Collectively their actions are tantamount to acceptance of wars ranging from Japan’s past aggression in East Asia to the recent Iraq War, overlooking Japan’s responsibility for bloodshed and the massacre of people in other countries, pushing Japan’s own history as perpetrator and the lives of its victims into the abyss of forgetfulness ofindifference. |
At the signal of a 12 o?fclock bell, while the militarists stopped to join a moment of silence, our friends crying out against these wars were arrested by police on the street just a few hundreds meters away. The group was holding up placards against war and militarism, with the appealing that “commemorating� the former soldiers’ deaths is preparation for moving on to another war. While the crowd of about fifty citizens holding the placards was approaching Yasukuni Shrine, an enormous number of heavily-armed police surrounded the citizens and started violent maneuvers against them, even sweeping up some passers-by in the process. Four citizens were dragged out from the crowd and finally arrested. The police stated the four were arrested for “obstructing officers from performing their duty,� however we strongly question whether there was a valid reason to call this repressive behavior official duties when they were not doing anything other than swooping down on these anti-war people.
It is not unusual that Japanese police arrest citizens for trivial reasons or call the people they arrest “radicals� or “extremists.� Unfortunately, we, anti-war people have gotten used to witnessing or finding ourselves involved in such situations. Now we see strengthened infringement of our right to freedom of political activities and expression of thought, while so-called law-enforcement is becoming increasingly highhanded and aggressive. What we are seeing is a concerted effort to distort the reality of citizen’s activities to make them appear to be a threat to public peace and order when in reality the actual threat is coming from the law enforcers themselves. We feel now on the verge of a crisis of reverse to the horrifying and repressive era before and during the war.
We oppose wars. We oppose militarism and a police state which tries to stop our manifestation of simply being anti-war. Who should be judged are not the citizens holding placards but those who seek to repress their actions. We call on all of you to consider how “extreme� those anti-war citizens were, and whether in fact it was not the law-enforcement authorities whose actions are truly extreme.
We appreciate your continuing support for and attention to our activities.
The supporting group for the arrested anti-war friends
ANTIFA 815
Contact/ fund-raising:
Kyuen Renraku Center (Rescue Assistant Center)
Ishida Bldg., 2-8-16 Shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Bank account to sent support funds:
Bank: Mizuho Bank
Branch: Nakano-kitaguchi
Saving Account 1025488
Account Name: Motoaki Yamaguchi |
Mira també:
http://antifa815.podzone.org/en/
http://japan.indymedia.org/index.php
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This work is in the public domain |
