Anti-war protests in Tokyo


About 2,000 people rallied Saturday in a downtown Tokyo park to mark the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and demand that Japanese and other coalition troops pull out, a protest organizer said to AP, in a story I found over at the Mainichi Shinbun:

The rally is one of several planned around the world to condemn the occupation of Iraq, and follows a similar protest of about 500 people who marched through the streets of Sydney, Australia.

About 2,000 demonstrators turned out in Tokyo, carrying signs saying "Stop the Occupation" as they listened to a series of anti-war speeches, said Takeshiko Tsukushi, a member of World Peace Now who helped plan the rally.

The demonstrations continued on Sunday.

The World Peace Now poster is great, with a drawing of three military tanks moving in the direction of a shrine gate that looks just like the one at Yasukuni in Tokyo... The slogans are "Lets finish the war in Iraq" and "Lets finish the era of war", directed to both Mr. Bush and Mr. Koizumi.

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