Four simultaneous marches and rallies took place on June 29th in Tokyo and Sapporo, characterized by vibrant and colorful voices of resistance and a suffocating police presence. The marches in Tokyo weaved through the streets, complete with rolling sound systems blasting protest music. People chanted in various languages, waved flags from around the world, and joyfully displayed banners and puppets exclaiming what they are against as well as what they are for.

Eight puppets with heads of Group of Eight (G8) leaders and bodies of skeletons moved through the crowds. Each held a yellow and red sign with a word such as hunger, global warming, poverty or privatization of resources, to indicate things the G8 is creating with its current policies. At the same time, shimmering yellow birds made of painted cardboard and satiny cloth symbolized freedom, each with a word or drawing of something demonstrators desire in the world, from clean water and air to freedom of expression to real democracy. People brought banners and flags indicating the places and groups they are from, including the CNT in France, the Freeters Union in Japan, and the Wobblies in the US.

The street protests made apparent how little political breathing room the anti-G8 organizers have in which to function. Many hundreds of police flanked the demonstration route, crowding protesters into a thin line occupying less than one lane of traffic, and physically pushing those in the rear, as well as everyone who let more than a few feet of empty space grow in front of them. Hundreds more "public security" forces, a police agency in Japan that can work in an undercover political police capacity, lined the sidewalks and peppered the march, taking photographs, notes, and sometimes even setting up ladders to focus a photo on the face of an organizer.

"All of these tactics are clearly part of an effort to intimidate people and limit our imaginations as to what could be possible in organizing," one participant said. "The feeling on the street is one of being constantly surveyed, and literally being pushed if you get out of line. But despite the repressive tactics, people march and sing. We refuse to allow the intimidation to silence our voices or our bodies."

Repression Against Local and International Activists

As the G8 meeting approaches, the Japanese government is waging an escalating battle of repression and control against Japanese and international grassroots organizations and movements.

Our first indication of the level of political police repression came just after arriving in Japan last week, when we participated in an alternative media seminar in Osaka. A tall, thin man in a suit visited our laid-back guesthouse, asking to see a copy of our passports. Hostels are required to keep a photocopy of each guest's identification, but the manager declined to show them to the plainclothes police agents. They did, however, tell them how long we were staying, as required by Japanese law.

Local Repression

A wave of harassment and arrests of activists and organizers is taking place throughout Japan. Stories proliferate of people being arrested and held for many days under pretenses such as failure to inform the government of an address change, or alleged bicycle traffic violations.

A little over two weeks ago, the police raided a day laborers' union office and arrested a well-known organizer on absurd charges--receiving social benefits several years prior without the correct paperwork. It was one of the incidents that sparked the first riots in Japan since the 1990s in Osaka's low-income day laborer neighborhood of Kamgasaki. During the riots, which spanned several nights, neighborhood day laborers and youth fought to defend their neighborhood from water-canon-wielding riot police.

Four nights ago, an organizer with G8 Action Network briefed a group of international participants. He explained that they expected thousands to participate in the anti-G8 demonstration in Sapporo on the eve of the annual G8 meetings. He shared detailed stories about the excruciating amount of negotiations, permits, and government control they had to navigate to simply publicly express their opposition to the G8. Camps for participants in Sapporo had to be cancelled because police demanded to set up identity checks within the camp. Every demonstration requires a police permit. He told the internationals, many of whom are veterans of mass direct actions in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, just how little political breathing space there was for anything remotely disobedient. As an organizer, his hands were tied by the politically controlling and repressive government. At a public forum yesterday, plainclothes police moved through the crowd taking notes.

Harassment of Internationals

Many foreign participants in the Counter-G8 International Forums and protests have been harassed and detained. From Hong Kong to Europe to the US, grassroots organizers and intellectuals--such as movement scholar David Graeber--have been held and interrogated for a half-day or more, and allowed to enter the country only after pressure and negotiations by the local legal team. Lisa Fithian, a United for Peace and Justice Steering Committee member and longtime labor and global justice organizer, was detained and questioned for eleven hours in what she describes as "blatant discrimination against global justice activists." She and others have been ordered to leave the country before the G8 meetings are to take place.

"What is the so-called democratic government of Japan so afraid of?" she asked. The authorities told Lisa that she was held because she could not tell them exactly where she would be every day.

Lecturer and policy expert Susan George was detained and questioned for six hours. Activists and organizers from Hong Kong were detained overnight, not receiving basic amenities such as food and beverages. While many of the organizers from Korea are yet to arrive, a number of those who have attempted to enter Japan have already been refused entry.

We Will Not be Intimidated

Each attempt to silence and intimidate local and international activists is being met with organization and resistance by the local organizers of the protests. A new generation of smart, creative, and dedicated young Japanese organizers are building networks in the face of the repression that some say may be the biggest challenge to Japan's elites since the since the militant old "new left" of the 60s and 70s.

This article first appeared on Alternet at: 

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/#89425.