10,000 people rally in protest against contingency legislation

About 10,000 people attended a rally in Tokyo on May 21 to renew their demand that the contingency-related bills be rejected in the Upper House and the Self-Defense Forces return from Iraq.

The war contingency-related bills were forced through the House of Representatives on the previous day.

Ohno Noriyuki, chair of the Japan Federation of Civil Aviation Workers' Unions for Air Safety, spoke on behalf of the organizing committee. Saying that contingency legislation is actually an obstacle to protecting the lives of the Japanese people from danger, he called for the SDF, deployed to help the U.S. forces, to be withdrawn from Iraq.

Kokuta Keiji from the Japanese Communist Party and Doi Takako from the Social Democratic Party gave speeches calling for a struggle to reject the bills in the Upper House.

Makizoe Masanobu of the All Japan Seamen's Union spoke of the dangers he experienced as a seaman on an oil tanker during the Iran-Iraq war.

Uehara Kimiko, mayor of Kunitachi City in western Tokyo, warned of a possible danger that contingency legislation will allow the SDF and the police to interfere in citizens' daily lives to make the Japanese people serve the interests of the U.S. forces fighting a war.

After the rally, the participants walked in demonstration on two courses. (end)