July 16 and 20, 2014
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2014 July 16 - 22 TOP3 [US FORCES]
Citizens protest against Osprey aircraft flying across Japan |
At around 7:30 am on July 19, two Ospreys took off from the Iwakuni base in Yamaguchi Prefecture where the aricraft arrived from Okinawa on the previous day. After stopping at the Yokota base in Tokyo for refueling, the military transport aircraft arrived at the Ground Self-Defense Force Okadama base in Sapporo City in Hokkaido Prefecture at 2:20 pm. The aircraft will be put on public display in a base event open to the public.
This was the second flight of Ospreys to eastern Japan following the first one in which an Osprey on July 15 carried personnel to Camp Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture by way of Kanagawa’s Atsugi base. This time, the MV-22s flew to Tokyo and Hokkaido for the first time.
Peace groups in both Tokyo and Hokkaido conducted protest actions near the bases.
In a park at the south of the Yokota base in Tokyo, civic groups calling for the removal of the base held a rally to protest against the Osprey flight with 300 people participating.
Tsuruta Kazutada, from one of the organizing groups, criticized the flight for totally ignoring the opposition of local residents and municipalities.
In Hokkaido’s Sapporo City, around 200 citizens marched in demonstration near the Okadama base, chanting, “We don’t need the defective Osprey in Okinawa or in Hokkaido,” and “Osprey, go back to the U.S.”
A female participant said that she always suffers from the noise of SDF helicopters flying above her house, and that she is concerned not only with the noise pollution but also with the potential of an Osprey crash.
Past related article
> Gov’t wants public to get used to seeing Ospreys flying overhead [July 9-11, 2014]
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