As our last post consisted in the press release for the 9/11-no-nuke-demonstration in Shinjuku, Tokyo, it is time for a summary of the current protest situation. In the mean time, two big protests took place in Tokyo, that should be reported in this post.

September 11th no nuke demonstration in Shinjuku (Tokyo)

Maybe it should be mentioned, that the big demos in Tokyo took part in different towns of the city and therefore police came from different departments. According to that fact, there was a tendency to blame it on the different police department, when police behavior towards the protesters changed at each demonstration. Unfortunately, this theory has lost its grounds on September 11th. After a quite successful and peaceful June 11th action, which took place in the same Tokyo area (and btw also served as a positive and hopeful ending of our film), the Shinjuku police decided to take more drastic measures in September.Beforehand: organizers were forced to change the planned route on short notice. During the demonstration: according to participants, police imposed constant pressure upon the protesters. Afterwards: the sad result of 12 arrests, among them Shin Futatsugi, one of the organizers.

There is reason to believe, that authorities start to feel threatened by the increasing number of protesters and therefore act more determined against protesters.

If you want to learn more about this specific demonstration, feel free to check out the following links:

Articles:

http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/4959/September-11-nuclear-protests

http://www.majiroxnews.com/2011/09/12/anti-nuke-protesters-riot-police-clash-–-12-arrested

Pictures:

http://pierreboutier.photoshelter.com/gallery/12-antinuclear-activist-were-arrested-in-Shinjuku/G0000JFysOKxB_tQ

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxVjMMPTMeU&feature=share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=annz_aBnRdA&feature=related

Big Demonstration on Monday, September 19th

Luckily, just one week later, there were some good news: On Monday September 19th, the probably biggest demonstration took place in Tokyo and even found its way into the international mainstream media. Police is talking about a 20 000-people turnout. As usual, those numbers differ a lot from the turnout declared by the organizers, who talked about 60 000 participants.

Please check it out:

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Thousands-march-against-nuclear-power-in-Tokyo-2177440.php

http://www.euronews.net/2011/09/19/thousands-protest-in-japan-against-nuclear-power

http://www.focus.de/panorama/vermischtes/anti-atom-demonstration-60-000-japaner-demonstrieren-gegen-atomkraft_aid_666789.html (German)

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,787108,00.html (German)

http://www.taz.de/Anti-Atomkraft-Demo-in-Tokio/!78370/ (German)