TOKYO: Thousands of demonstrators formed a human chain around Japan’s parliament in Tokyo on Sunday, protesting the planned construction of a new US airbase on the southern island of Okinawa.

The protesters, who organisers said numbered about 15,000, surrounded the parliament building holding banners reading “No to Henoko”, in the latest rally against the controversial base.

Henoko is a small coastal area on Okinawa where Tokyo and Washington plan to relocate the existing Futenma military facility, currently situated in built-up Ginowan. “We must stop this construction,” said one of the protesters, Akemi Kitajima, 66.

“The government is trying to force the plan no matter how strongly Okinawa says ‘no’ to it”. Okinawa is home to more than half of the 47,000 US service personnel stationed in Japan as part of a defence alliance, a proportion many islanders say is too high.

The plan to move Futenma has become the focus of anger among locals, who insist it should be shuttered and a replacement built elsewhere in Japan or overseas. But both Tokyo and Washington have repeatedly backed the plan, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month insisting it was “the only solution”.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2015

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