Japan: 'Exceptional security' becomes routine

The northern-most and thinly populated island of Hakkaido, Japan, has seen the extreme security measures taken against those wishing to protest against the G8 summit.

Twenty thousand police officers had been mobilised for the summit itself, with an additional 20,000 to police sympathy protests in Tokyo.

While protesters closest to the G8 summit were confined to three officially designated camps, near an active volcano on the shores of Lake Toya, a "peoples' summit" was being held by NGOs an hour's drive away at the island's capital, Sopporo.

Visitors from outside Japan were given special scrutiny on entering Japan, with the author being questioned by police within one minute of leaving the airport.

A stay in a (very inexpensive) hotel in the small town of Nishi-Muroran led to me being openly told by the hotel staff that my passport details, intended stay and occupation would be immediately passed to the local police, as requested by the authorities.

Members of a farmers' group from Korea were detained on their arrival in Japan, even though they were not attending a protest, merely the planned peoples' summit as delegates from La Via Campesina. According to the July 6 Japan Times, the 19 delegates were returned to Korea after their detention.

Renowned social commentator from the Philippines, Walden Bello, was detained and questioned by authorities for over an hour before being allowed into the country.

Over-the-top security in order to intimidate protesters and stifle dissent was presumably the thinking behind the security at the main anti-G8 protest in Sapporo, where I had the novel experience of being escorted, along with others, through the entire route of the 2 kilometre march by shoulder-to-shoulder riot police.

Masaki Inaba, a representative of poverty and development NGO Forum, said that the security forces over-reacted. "Security officials have confused anti-globalisation movements with international terrorist activities, but this is a mistake", he told the July 7 English edition of Asahi Shimbun.

It is a "mistake" repeatedly made by security authorities all over the world.

[Wendy Abrahamson is a Sydney-based activist writing under a pseudonym to avoid being excluded from future international protests.]

From GLW issue 758