Okinawa.
The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 15 | Issue 2 | Number 4 | Jan 2017
The Japanese State versus the People of Okinawa:
Rolling Arrests and Prolonged and Punitive Detention
Gavan McCormack, Sandi Aritza
Edited and translated by Gavan McCormack, Sandi Aritza
1. Gavan McCormack, “Yamashiro Hiroji and the Okinawan Anti-Base Struggle”
2. “Emergency Statement by 41 Criminal Law Scholars Demanding the Release of Yamashiro Hiroji”
"Henoko, Takae, and Yamashiro Hiroji
For anyone who has spent any time on the front lines of the protracted resistance struggle by the people of Okinawa against construction of new bases for the Marine Corps at Henoko and Takae, one indelible impression is likely to be the performances of the master choreographer of the resistance, Yamashiro Hiroji. Conducting the assembled citizens day after day, month after month, in song, dance, and debate, this retired (64 year old) public servant has seemed to be a natural leader of the struggle to delay or prevent construction of the projected new bases for the Marine Corps at Henoko, adjacent to the existing Camp Schwab base on Oura Bay, and in the “Northern Training Area” in the Yambaru forest at Takae.2 At Henoko, the resistance has managed to hold off the base construction so that major works initially planned in 1996 have yet to begin (although the state, following a Supreme Court judgment in its favour in December 2016, appears determined to start work in January 2017). ...."