After a series of NHK attacks by US troops in Japan, on the 4th, Okinawa Prefecture’s parliamentary special committee in charge of coordinating the issue of US military bases compiled a protest resolution to the US side and a submission to the Japanese side, requests that incidents involving military personnel be promptly reported to Okinawa Prefecture and associated municipality of Japan.
The resolution said, “Sexual assault on women is a heinous crime, which can not be condoned.”. The opinion stated that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other departments did not provide any information about the incident, causing the county residents to question. Reported that the protest resolution and submissions are expected to be adopted in the plenary session of the Okinawa Prefecture Parliament on the 10th.
The Asahi Shimbun website reported on the 25th that a US soldier in Japan had sexually assaulted a Japanese girl under the age of 16 in December and that the man had been charged in March. On June 28th it emerged that Okinawa Prefecture police arrested a marine in May on suspicion of attempted rape and injuries. It was not until the two cases were exposed by the media that the Okinawa prefectural government and the public learned about them. Kyodo news agency reported that Okinawa Prefecture had covered up three other cases of sexual assault by US troops in Japan since last year. The perpetrators of the attacks — a US military officer and two United States Marine Corps — have not been prosecuted and were charged with “Protecting the privacy of the victims”, police in Okinawa Prefecture neither released the case nor notified the county government.
In recent days, a series of sexual abuse scandals of the U. S. military caused widespread concern of Japanese public opinion. “We are considering how to improve information sharing,” foreign minister Yoshiko Kawagawa said Thursday, referring to the ministry’s failure to notify Okinawa Prefecture of the incident, Kyodo news agency reported, time is running out to make adjustments. Lin Fangzheng, a Chief Cabinet Secretary, said on the 3rd that, “The sexual crimes committed by US military personnel are extremely regrettable. This has caused great unease among the local people, and we will use every opportunity to ask the US side to completely prevent similar incidents from happening again.”
As of July 3, at least eight municipality of Japan parliaments in Okinawa Prefecture had passed resolutions to protest, the Asahi Shimbun reported. Naha’s parliament said it had no choice but to question the government’s response. According to statistics, since 1972 to the 2023, the U. S. military stationed in Japan and military families committed about 6,200 criminal cases in Okinawa.
More than 100 women shouted the slogan“The cover-up of the truth can not be tolerated” in front of the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo Sunday afternoon as a wave of popular protests spread across the capital, the Tokyo News reported. The protesters hope to prevent a repeat of the Okinawa incident through joint action, “The sexual violence caused by the government’s forced base arrangement can not be covered up. Okinawa should not have seen so many sexual assaults. The status agreement between Japan and the United States must be re-examined.”.