It's cloudy, may be raining a little. I have no idea how many people are showing up, but the police and the mainstream media seem more ready than last week.
Some photographs being tweeted by the participants. The protest has just started officially. People are shouting "saikado hantai!".
Yasuo Tanaka, head of the New Party Nippon (or Shinto Nippon), giving out white balloons (from @singo_mpc). I didn't even know he became a politician until last year after the Fukushima accident. All I knew of him was that he was a successful and popular novelist.
Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Social Democratic Party of Japan, is also at the protest. Kazuo Shii, head of the Japanese Communist Party, is at her side. No sign of any politicians from DPJ, LDP, or Komei Party.
Cameramen on top of the nearby building (from @noiehoie):
Here's the site that shows 4 IWJ USTREAM channels that cover the protest.
Here's a camera from the top of the Ministry of Finance building:
Live streaming by Ustream
30-Day free trial by following the link.
Tokyo Time
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
10 comments:
Making a lot of noise! No nukes!
Thank you EX SKF for the links!
Watch out for those Agent Provacteurs.... planted by the government and nuke industry to derail the show...
It looks like a lot of people of that even with the rain that's good.
Just got home, very hot and humid evening with rain. Thin areas of the sidewalks were set up for protesters and tons of police on hand to keep the busy roads flowing while everyone chanted Sai Ka Do Han Tai (we are against the restart). At 8 a tweet and e-mail were sent and everyone told to go home. So orderly and organized.
I went to the Kepco protest in Osaka. There were maybe 2000 there, but the energy was good. A crowd of diverse folk: Japanese hippies, suited salarymen (a few), 50ish housewives who look like they might subscribe to Akahata, college students, older working class men. The "staff" of organizers kept the sidewalks open. Drums, it seems, were not permitted in consideration of the local residents, but the chant of 再稼働反対 went on and on and on. Plenty of groups passing out literature and calling for attendance at other meeting scheduled for the near future. Impending rain and the reality of the restart may have kept numbers down. The demonstrators were in two locations, the main entrance (which does not provide much sidewalk room) and the back entrance. Most were at the rear, shouting at the workers has they came out and made their way toward the subway.
Back from the demonstration, all wet, with my flags soaking with water ! I've never seen such a crowd. We could not move and proceed. At 6 p.m. when we arrived, the space in front of Noda's residence was already so full of people that it was out of the question to get there. The police just asked people to stay where they stood. Impossible to get through the crossroad towards the Diet and the residence. All the large streets around the crossroad at Kasumigaseki were packed with people, on each side of the road, everyone of them shouting something. As we tried to walk past the standing crowd nonetheless, telling the police we were just going to do that: walking (otherwise, they ask you to stay behind the plastic barriers they got ready for the protest), we heard the different slogans : SAIKADO HANTAI, OI-wo TOMERO, KODOMO-wo MAMORE, NIHON-wo MAMORE, SEKAI-wo MAMORE, FUKUSHIMA-wo KAESHITE (= No restarting (of reactors)! STOP OI! SAVE THE CHILDREN ! SAVE JAPAN ! SAVE THE WORLD ! GIVE US BACK FUKUSHIMA!). It was very impressive, but also very friendly, with protesters obviously from very different paths of life (businessmen, young ladies, couples, elderly people, young guys, few children). Everyone seemed happy to see foreigners: people took my picture almost non stop and shook my hand or waved to me. At 8 p.m. we were asked (by the police and the organizers)to leave and everybody just did that, joyously and still shouting right up to the subway station. I rode the Marunouchi line from Kasumigaseki station's exit N°A8 but the crowd was going in all directions, to Kokkaigijidomae, to Nagatacho, and different exits of Kasumigaseki st.
Well, well, overall a nice day. A bit disappointed by today's crowd, because there was not a huge increase compared to last week. Probably same amount or a bit less, blame the rain.
Funny thing it started pouring from 8PM as if to tell the people to go home :)
Much more police than last week, with more equipment (ropes to prevent people from jumping red pedestrian lights, etc...).
Surprising: we were under pouring rain from the beginning... The crowd WAS impressive.
@Japanymous at 8:08 July 6
If you were there, I guess you forgot your glasses and could not see what was happening really. The rain started from about 6 PM and by 7 we were soaked in water, though we had umbrellas.
The numbers were much higher than last week. Last week, we could move forward. This time, no way. Everything and everybody was blocked all around the place. They say there were maybe 150 000 people, my guess is: almost double that.
Post a Comment