Anti-war protest reported in downtown Tokyo
A group of protesters have staged a rally in Tokyo with the two strong messages of end the wars in the Middle East and remove the American military bases from Japan.
About a hundred people accompanied by more than a dozen political activists took part in the demonstration on Sunday evening near Shinjuku station, a major hub in the Japanese capital, a Press TV correspondent reported.
One of the organizers, a Japanese disc jokey playing music for the crowd who introduced himself as 'DJ Mix Noise,' said the only path for "eternal peace" in the world was to seek an end to wars.
He also questioned the motives of US President Barack Obama, who has inherited two major conflicts started by his predecessor George W. Bush, to continue the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"President Obama has been awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize," he said, "But we don't think he deserves it."
The spirit was high among demonstrators who were singing and asking the more than one hundred police officers present on the scene to "go home."
An Australian woman, who identified herself as Jane, said the police had tried to "stop" the demonstration as protestors attempted to approach the station.
Jane, who was sexually assaulted by an American soldier in the port city of Yokosuka — where the US Navy commands its largest facility in Japan — in 2003, said it was time for the Americans to go home.
Dissent to the issue of the US bases in Japan has gained momentum since Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama took power in mid-September following a historic general election.
He has promised that his government would re-evaluate the relationship between Tokyo and Washington and form a bond respectable for the two allies.
He has also launched a campaign to relocate the US military base from Okinawa, but conceded after meeting with President Obama in Tokyo in early November that it was a "difficult issue."
Mariko Hashimoto contributed to this story.
