August 22 and 23, 2014
A cross-party Dietmembers’ group working on the U.S. military base issue on August 21 visited the planned construction site of a new U.S. base which is adjoining U.S. Camp Schwab in Henoko district in Okinawa’s Nago City in order to see the actual situation with their own eyes.
The lawmakers in a fishing boat observed the sea area where a seabed boring survey is being conducted, anti-base protesters in fishing boats and canoes trying to stop the survey, and a fleet of Japan Coast Guard (JCG) vessels surrounding the protesters.
Among the parliamentarians, Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Akamine Seiken with microphone in hand protested to the JCG, saying, “It is totally unacceptable for the government to suppress protesters exercising their legitimate constitutional rights.”
In this sea area, the JCG is repeatedly interfering with the anti-base protest without legal grounds by restricting the movement of protesters’ boats outside the off-limits zone and getting dangerously close to them under the pretext of ensuring the security of the construction site.
On August 22, a JCG ship blocked the protest vessel and shouted at them, “Get out!” and “Back off!” The Japanese coast guard forcibly removed anti-base activists in canoes who approached buoys marking the border of the off-limits area.
At the same time, U.S. base personnel were enjoying themselves on a beach in the off-limits zone, but the coastal guard did nothing about that.
Miyagi Yasuhiro, one of the protesters, said that the JCG is acting like a guard for the Okinawa Defense Bureau.
The lawmakers in a fishing boat observed the sea area where a seabed boring survey is being conducted, anti-base protesters in fishing boats and canoes trying to stop the survey, and a fleet of Japan Coast Guard (JCG) vessels surrounding the protesters.
Among the parliamentarians, Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Akamine Seiken with microphone in hand protested to the JCG, saying, “It is totally unacceptable for the government to suppress protesters exercising their legitimate constitutional rights.”
In this sea area, the JCG is repeatedly interfering with the anti-base protest without legal grounds by restricting the movement of protesters’ boats outside the off-limits zone and getting dangerously close to them under the pretext of ensuring the security of the construction site.
On August 22, a JCG ship blocked the protest vessel and shouted at them, “Get out!” and “Back off!” The Japanese coast guard forcibly removed anti-base activists in canoes who approached buoys marking the border of the off-limits area.
At the same time, U.S. base personnel were enjoying themselves on a beach in the off-limits zone, but the coastal guard did nothing about that.
Miyagi Yasuhiro, one of the protesters, said that the JCG is acting like a guard for the Okinawa Defense Bureau.
