Japan Press Weekly

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2016 December 21 - 2017 January 3 [POLITICS]

Residents in Tokyo area: Their cities illegally dispatch riot police officers to Okinawa

Residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area have taken action, saying that their cities’ police authorities are illegally dispatching their riot police officers to Okinawa assigned with a duty of cracking down on local protests against the U.S. base construction.

A group of 135 citizens living in Kanagawa Prefecture on December 19 requested the prefecture’s audit committee to check to see if it was appropriate for the Kanagawa public safety commission, which oversees the Kanagawa prefectural police, to give a greenlight to the dispatch of riot police units to Okinawa.

The Kanagawa police office is one of the prefectural police offices that sent its riot officers to suppress Okinawan residents opposing the national government policy to construct U.S. military helipads in Higashi Village’s Takae district. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the Osaka Prefectural Police are doing the same.

The Kanagawa residents’ group in their request document said that the dispatch of Kanagawa’s riot officers to Okinawa was decided on not by the Kanagawa Police but by the National Police Agency, which constitutes a violation of the Police Law. The group went on to say that these officers are engaging in highly-controversial activities, including arbitrary traffic inspections, forcible removal of protesters, obstruction of journalists’ activities, and discriminative remarks against local residents. The group stressed that it is illegal for the Kanagawa police authority to use local taxpayers’ money to cover personnel expenses and travel costs for the temporary stationing of riot police officers.

The citizens demanded that the audit committee advise the Kanagawa governor to instruct the public safety commission to withdraw the riot units from Okinawa and compensate the prefecture for the costs spent on its illegal activities.

In Tokyo, on December 20, a group of 183 residents filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. The plaintiffs demanded that the Superintendent-General of the TMPD return to the Tokyo government 280 million yen spent for the dispatch of Tokyo riot police squads to Okinawa.

Aoki Hatsuko, one of the plaintiffs, grew up in Okinawa. She said to the press after the filing that the prime duty of the Metropolitan Police is to protect Tokyo residents’ safety and that the police officers should not lend a hand to cracking-down on Okinawa residents at Tokyoites’ expense.

Past related articles:
> Racist words of Osaka riot police against Okinawans come under fire [October 21, 2016]
> Riot police intimidating Okinawans staying at luxury resort hotel [September 2, 2016]