This Indymedia video is called Mobilization-Video for G8 2008 in Japan.
Reuters reports:
Japan Detains Journalists, Academics Ahead of G8Update 6 July 2008: here.Japan has implemented heavy security ahead of this year`s July 7-9 Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
Journalists, academics and activists said on Monday they had been detained and questioned at airports in Japan, sometimes for more than 10 hours, in a sign of growing security jitters ahead of next week’s G8 summit.
The Japanese G8 Media Network said six journalists from independent or alternative media invited by the group and 10 academics participating in an anti-G8 university conference had been detained by immigration officials.
These included three journalists from Hong Kong In-media who were questioned for three hours, held for a night in a detention centre and then questioned for another half day before being allowed into the country.
“Why did they pick us out and detain us for 17 hours? They never told us,” Chu Hoi Dick told a news conference.
“They only said: ‘you know at this time, the Japanese government is a little nervous’.”
Two Korean nationals, one affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, were questioned and deported, G8 Media Network added.
An immigration official confirmed some people had been detained but declined to comment on their cases or the reasons for the hold ups.
Japan has implemented heavy security ahead of this year’s July 7-9 Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, northern Japan with police presence increasingly visible in major cities like Tokyo and up to 21,000 police mobilised.
Its security budget is some 30 billion yen ($283 million), topping the 113 million euros ($186 million) spent at the last summit in Germany.
Anti-G8 protests have become a fixture of G8 summits. On Sunday, two rallies in Tokyo gathered over 1,000 people, including anti-capitalists, labour union members and protesters from abroad, such as Spain and South Korea. Eight men were arrested after scuffling with police at one of the rallies.
But tight security and the sheer cost of travel to the remote site of the summit, at a hilltop luxury hotel near a hot spring resort in rural Hokkaido, is expected to dampen turnout compared to previous summits.
Demonstrations are expected near the summit venue — where some 1,000-plus protesters are expected to gather in three camp sites — and organisers of a peace rally in Sapporo, capital of Hokkaido, ahead of the summit hope to draw 10,000 participants.
The journalists and academics said they had been repeatedly quizzed about their schedules and where they would be staying and in many cases were not given food.
Four academics had their visas cut short although one has since won an appeal to have it extended, organisers of the anti-G8 conference said.
“They gave me no food, coffee, water — nothing for more than 12 hours,” Andrej Grubacic, a sociology professor who teaches at the University of San Francisco, told a separate news conference.
“So while ‘Welcome to Japan’ was plastered all over the airport, the feeling in the interrogation room was very different,” he added.
G8 summit results: here.
Fidel Castro on G8 summit: here.
Japan: Rising fuel prices lead to largest ever fishermen’s strike: here.
YFA NETWORK NEWS! July 2008
EYFA newsletter is a tool to spread information on campaigns, actions,
meetings and convergence happening around Europe and beyond. Info is
forwarded to our network e-list and to network partners and contacts.
Please send us info if you have news to be spread.
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. on Global Matters
It looks like it is going to be a hot summer of transnational gatherings
and transnational action. So whether you jump on your bike, the bus or
train crossing borders to put up your tent or roll out your sleeping bag
elsewhere (those priviliged to cross borders, that is), or whether you
stay
in your neighborhood and bring global matters to the forefront in your
locality, there sure is no need to get bored the coming months.
**Contents
1. G8 Hokkaido, Japan July 7-9 – Take action everywhere
2. 5th Peoples’ Global Action Gathering Athens, Greece August 20-27
3. ESF & Autonomous Spaces Malmo, Sweden September 17-21
4. The European Return Directive
5. Go camping
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1. G8 Hokkaido, Japan July 7-9 – Take action everywhere
Climate change, hot on the agenda of the coming G8 summit. We already
mentioned this talkshow of the 8 ‘world leaders’ in our June newsletter
.on Nuclear Power. The solution to reduce CO2 emissions lies, according
to the G8 and it’s Japanese host, in nuclear power. For a future, less
shiny,
actions will take place in Japan and around the world. See
http://www.gipfelsoli.org for a rough schedule.
Actions have taken place already and continue on July 1 with themed days
of action in Japan against militarism, against WTO and privatization,
and
against neo-liberalism. On July 5 there is an International Day of
Action.
Join your local groups or get your friends together and stage an action
yourself. Below you find activities in some countries but resistance
against
the G8 is, and has been, global and everywhere.
Netherlands: http://www.enterforteuropa.org
France: http://www.dissent.fr
Belgium: http://tchantchescross.over-blog.com
UK: http://londonfete.ucrony.net
Germany: http://www.gipfelsoli.org/static/Media/080705_actionday_berlin.pdf
‘Make the Tokyo summit 2008 the last summit!’
Walden Bello interviewed by Ogura Toshimaru, August 2007:
http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=18286
In solidarity with the protestors in Japan.
Comment by Administrator — July 1, 2008 @ 7:41 pm