🇯🇵🇺🇸 Japan’s Okinawa roiled by silence on US base sex crimes

Protests have erupted across Okinawa following revelations that the Japanese government withheld information about US troops’ sexual assaults on local women, with residents expressing outrage and demanding greater accountability from Tokyo.

There have been a series of demonstrations across the prefecture, home to around 30,000 US military personnel, and local residents say that they feel anger is reaching levels similar to those last seen in September 1995, when three US servicemen abducted and repeatedly raped an Okinawan girl aged 12.

The most recent eruption of anger can be traced back to June 25, when media in Okinawa reported that a US Air Force serviceman had sexually assaulted a teenage girl in December 2023. The suspect was not indicted until late March. On June 28, it was discovered that a US Marine had allegedly injured a woman while attempting to rape her in May. The marine was not indicted until June 17.

#Japan #USA

@asianomics

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