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Sign Petition to Drop All Charges Against Okinawa Anti-Bases Activists
WILPF US encourages you to sign this "Petition to Drop All Charges Against Arrested Okinawa Anti-Bases Activists."
Every signed petition will be immediately emailed to the Naha Court in Okinawa and to the Japanese Ambassadors to the United Nations and the United States.
This petition is in support of Hiroji Yamashiro, chairman of the Okinawa Peace Action Center and his co-defendants, Hiroshi Inaba and Atsuhiro Soeda. Okinawa peace activists have held an action every day for 13 years, often with representatives from U.S. or other peace groups, to demand removal of the 30 U.S. military bases and a halt to building new Navy bases on the island. These protests have been big and powerful and have even stopped construction at times.
As a result, Hiroji and other movement leaders have now been arrested. T
he Prosecutor has asked for two and a half years in prison with hard labor for Hiroji.
The Court Date is March 14
March 5 is the last day for flooding the
court with signed petitions
Leading up to
the court date, civil disobedience actions are planned for three times a day in Okinawa.
Here's a short twelve minute video
of Hiroji and others speaking at an earlier protest rally.
Here's the message
sent to members of the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases and his supporters on February 6, 2018, explaining that "the Japanese government authorities, including prosecutors and the Department of Defense are eager to set me up as a wicked criminal.....I am in the middle of a legal battle right now."
Hiroji's situation is very precarious now, because the Mayor of Okinawa who was supportive of these dedicated non-violent protestors was defeated in a recent election and the new Mayor is far less sympathetic.
Protests in other countries have been watched closely.
Petitions sent from around the world, especially from the U.S.,
have been very helpful to the defense.
The Japanese Section and Kozue Akibayashi, current International WILPF President, have been very involved in supporting and participating in these protests. Kozue, a feminist researcher and activist, has worked on issues of gender and peace and has long protested U.S. and Japanese militarism in Okinawa.
Thank you for promptly signing the petition. Please email to your friends and ask them to do the same.
Nancy Price, WILPF-US liaison to the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases
Robin Lloyd, Barbara Nielson, and Ellen Thomas, DISARM-End Wars Co-Chairs
Mary Hanson Harrsion, President, WILPF US
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