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SPRING NEWS

Anti G8 Protests Kick Off in Sapporo

On Saturday 5 July the first large sized protests against the G8 summit in Hokkaido - set for July 7-9 at Lake Toyako - hit the streets with a multitude of leftist groups and NGO's making their presence felt in the Odori Koen area in the centre of the city. Four arrests were made as the police provoked demonstrators and arbitrarily opted to haul the driver of a sound truck from his cab - smashing the glass in the process and arresting him for "traffic violations" and "on suspicion of obstructing police officers in the performance of their duty" - a common charge here in Japan and a tactic used by police to disrupt peaceful protests. Also arrested was a Japanese Reuters cameraman.


Anti-G8 Demonstrators Sapporo July 5.

The protestors as usual were colourfully dressed, in high spirits and peaceful, displaying their disdain for the G8 through costume, music and dance as well as placards and banners with messages such as "G8 = war", "G8 = Empire", "G8 = poverty". In the meantime articulate spokespeople gave media interviews on topics ranging from the repression of indigenous peoples ( with special focus on the Ainu of Hokkaido - islands invaded and colonised by the Japanese whereby the Ainu people were forcibly assimilated to Japanese culture) to the problems of global warming, and of course to the age old issue of wealth disparity. Further to these issues La Via Campesina issued a statement protesting against the refused entry of nineteen South Korean activists at Chitose Airport near Sapporo. La Via Campesina is a worldwide group that protests and campaigns on behalf of the world's farmers, fighting the big biotech companies and unjust agricultural policies imposed on them by the WTO, World bank and IMF. The Japanese authorities have routinely been denying entry, harrassing, detaining and delaying activists on their way to alternative G8 forums.


One of Japan's finest greets the police in Sapporo.

More protests are expected today ( July 6 ) and on consecutive days throughout the summit and activists have established two campsites for a "Lake Toya Camp" with workshops and cultural events.

More news soon....


For the Anti-G8 Events Calendar click here these events have been arranged by a coalition of groups from a variety of political perspectives. Big respect to those who have put this together, especially No G8! For those of you going to Hokkaido, stay safe,  in solidarity!



Tokyo Police Deny Freedom of Expression: Police Arrest Several at Yoyogi Park Anti-G8 Rally 6/29

On June 27 the National Committee for Organizing a Rally on June 29 Against the G8 Summit, called by Doro Chiba, the Chiba Railway Workers Union demanded that there be no restrictions placed on the right of the people to use public roads for free speech activities. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had undertaken an initiative to exclude a march from the downtown area of Shibuya which was scheduled to take place on Sunday 29 June. The marchers had initially been granted  permission by The Tokyo Metropolitan Public Safety Commission, however, at the last minute the course of the march which had been filed under the Tokyo Public Safety Ordinance, was unilaterally changed without any legitimate reason. Furthermore, permission was only granted after 2pm on July 27 making it practically impossible for the organisers to file a lawsuit to get a provisional injunction which would have allowed the march to go ahead legally on the orginal course.
The organising committee strongly opposed this outrageous violation of freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution and called for the march to go ahead as planned. Followng the call, over a thousand people rallied at Yoyogi Park including many overseas visitors. The area was heavily policed by cops in full riot gear and snatch squads randomly pulled people from the crowds and numerous arrests were made. There will more news here as it comes in.....

Top Photo: Riot police block the path of demonstrators at Yoyogi Park, Tokyo. Bottom Photo: Demonstrators eventually march in Shibuya.



22 Hosei Students Released,15 Indicted for "Trespass", 1 Convicted & Jailed

Earlier in the month we reported on the plight of Hosei University students arrested for trespassing on their own campus at Iidabashi in Tokyo after handing out leaflets calling for freedom of movement and expression as well as anti-G8 material.

On June 18, three of the five students who had been arrested on May 28 were released and two indicted. Another student was arrested on June 18 for alleged "trespassing on May 29."

On June 19, the prosecution released 19 of 38 students who had been arrested on May 29. However 13 students were indicted for "trespassing." One was sent to a family court and then to a juvenile corrective institution.

On June 24, one of the 13 students indicted on June 19 (who had not been released) was "rearrested" for "obstructing officers from performing their duty."

All of the above-mentioned detainees, including very young and inexperienced students,  have been resolutely exercising their rights to remain silent during interrogation by police; they have uttered no word whatsoever and should be commended for their conduct in the face of harsh tactics and bullying form their interrogators.

Please visit the web site of Houdai Kyuenkai (Support Committee for the Arrested and the Accused for the Hosei University Dispute) for more information by clicking here. Further to thiss you can check out the original story below.





The Last Days of May: 38 Activists Harrassed and Arrested at Hosei University

During the last days of May things heated up in a G8 related series of events at Hosei University, where ultimately, 38 students were arrested for leafletting on campus at Hosei University in Tokyo. Protesting the G8 and in addition for their right to freedom of movement and political expression at the university, the students and activists hadn't banked on University officialdom hiring thugs to physically assault and eject them from the University - or that the said authorities would call in the police to act with impunity at a peaceful action. Read more




Earlier in June a Springer went out to help English teachers employed by Simul Academy in an ongoing dispute - if you are thinking of looking for work in education in Japan, then there are quite a few things to consider, not least of which are your rights as an employee and your status as an immigrant worker. The following is a brief account and commentary by our man Mercaders who was on the spot at Simul. Check out the story here.


Meanwhile at Shy Mule Academy.......
Check out what's been going on in Alice in Wonderland. Apparently fantasy figures have labour troubles too....Click here to read more.
  



Check out the Film & Discussion page
for news of our feature in July by clicking on the link to the left...

Take a look at the Hashimoto Spring page for news of Sulejman's new blog

Look at the articles page one or two things have been added......
 


Sign up for  the forum as it is being used by more people now and you can exchange news and views there it is slowly but surely becoming a good spot for updated international news and commentary as well as points of view from Spring participants. Please take the time and effort to re-register and we will validate your account a.s.a.p. Remember that you can create forums of your own within the board by learning about the settings and features. When you register, if you want to post in Japanese, select Japanese as your preferred language. You will be able to type and post in Kanji, hiragana and katakana. However, when you view the message on the board it will appear scrambled, as we don't yet have an installation that fully supports Japanese. To unscramble the post, click on view in your browser tool bar and select character encoding. Click on one of the three Japanese encodings and you should be able to read the message clearly.


"We speak of national interests, national capital, national spheres of interest, national honour, and national spirit; but we forget that behind all this there are hidden merely the selfish interests of power-loving politicians and money-loving business men for whom the nation is a convenient cover to hide their personal greed and their schemes for political power from the eyes of the world."
(Rocker, Culture and Nationalism, Michael E. Coughlan, 1978, p.253)


















































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