警察との事前打ち合わせ（英語字幕）と英語ニュース

Prime Minister Taro Aso is rich - should anyone care?

http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=6873

Fifty people gathered at Hachiko yesterday to hold a protest march directed at Prime Minister Taro Aso’s very expensive home in Shibuya-ku. The protesters, who organized the event on the internet, had not applied for a permit, so police blocked them when they attempted to start their march. Three people were arrested - one organizer and two protesters who had assaulted police officers.


The protest has come at a time when the Japanese press is giving a lot of attention to the wealth of politicians. A few days ago, it was the Asahi attacking the Prime Minister Taro Aso’s habit of dining at expensive hotel bars and restaurants (paying the bill with his own money, not official government funds). Now Mainichi is printing articles about the wealth of Aso and his cabinet:

Members of the Cabinet, including Prime Minister Taro Aso, own an average of 141.28 million yen in family assets, the government has announced.

The figure is 24.33 million yen more than the average of the Cabinet of his predecessor Yasuo Fukuda.

The average amount of personal wealth that the prime minister and his 17 Cabinet members have in their own names came to 118.29 million yen.

Of the 18, Aso is the second wealthiest with 455.48 million yen in assets he owns in his own name and the names of his family members he lives with, following Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama, who is worth 764.6 million yen.

Mainichi states that Aso might be the second wealthiest Prime Minister in Japanese history. That sounds like he is ultra rich, but his 455 million yen ($4.8 million) fortune isn’t quite as big as the wealth of other first world leaders such as George W. Bush ($15 million), Helen Clark ($8 million), Kevin Rudd ($37 million), and Silvio Berlusconi ($9.4 billion).

麻生でてこい救援会：英訳

Statement denouncing unlawful arrest
Show your face,Aso!! 'reality tour' Solidarity Group

October 26th,"'reality tour2' what is 6200,000,000 Yen like?
Let's go and see the Prime minister Aso's House" was held
as a pre-event to Anti-war and Resistence Festa happeninng at 29th & 30th Nov.
During this event,3 of the tour participant were arrested and are now still hold in policw custody.
We are making it clear that these arrests are unlawful and denouncing Public Safety Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and Shibuya police for taking away our comrades.

Why a 'reality tour'

We did aa reality tour to the'rip off mansion' of a temping angency president and this was another version of it where we decided to go and see the Aso Taro's mansion which is said to costs 6200,000,000 just for the land.There has been some press coverage on Prime minister's money sense
recently,and we wondered what kind of life he has as he is responsible for resolve the poverty and wealth gap.However this tour had to be broken up by police.

How the unlawful arrest happened

3pm,Chief of security department of Shibuya police said to us "If you wt want to go the Prime minister's house by walk,that7s fine" and"you can go and see the house in group of 5to6 people each in turn" when we were gatheing in front of Shibuya train station.We did some anouncement of the tour for 30or40minutes,then about 50 of us started to walk.We held our signs and baloons,and we never used our speaker just as police told us to do.
Only 5 minutes later,when we were reaching Dogen Zaka Street one of our comrades who were holding a sign to show the way to other participant was held his arm and wrestled to the ground by police.Police officers stared to get a full nelson on other 2 participant with the cue saying"go!go!It's KOBO(Short term for "interfering with policemen in the execution of their duties")It's KOBO!" and then took away the 3. On the news report they say police gave us warning many times but there weren't any except when we started walking.The reason for the arrest of the 3 given by police are "breaching public safety ordinance" and "interfering with policemen in the execution of their duties"but it's all clear in recorded film that there were no such act.There are no fact that tour participants conducted violence.

Custody Visiting blocked and unlawful 10 days detention

Later on same day, we went to Shibuya Police station to denounce te unlawful arrest and demand custody visiting and take necessities (food,cloth,toothbrush etc) to the 3 .But police did not let us the 3. Also even when the soliciter/lawyer arrived at 5pm police didn't let him visit the arrestees and blocked the visiting of the soliciter for 2 hours. I was only after 7pm the soliciter could go iin to visit the arrestees and the necessities were handed to our comrades.Later on 28th,the 3 were decided to be held for another 10 days and custody visiting by non-soliciters were banned.Police didn't only unjustly reppressed us but also openly infringed on arrestee's legal rights by blocking the custody visiting and keeps holding the 3 unlawfully.

We can never condone this outrageousness.Since when we have no right to walk the pavement?
Who made the police guard us in large excess when we were only walking the pavement?
Who told the press false information and trying to put a crime on the innocent 3?
Police always do this,make their move first and make us take the blame.
The police fearing people are going to "see"the prime minister's house, never hesitate to trample on
our comrades' freedom and lives.
Police protects Aso.
Then we will protect ourselves.

We say this with rage!
Release our 3 comaredes immediately!
Apologize for the unlawful arrest!
Taro Aso take the responsiility for your merrymen's misconduct!

October 29th
Show your face,Aso!! 'reality tour' Solidarity Group

note) Tokyo Public safety ordinance is unconstitutional as the constitution says in Article 21
"Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed."But even this ordinance it should not give police or other public servant power to ban or cencor any political publications or signs or gatherings other than march or demonstration.

As Arrest Solidarity group,we strongly protest to this repression and demand the immidiate
release of the 3 arrestees. Please support our statement.

If you or your organization decided to support,email to "asouq(at)sanpal.co.jp" as following

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I Support the statement of Show your face,Aso!! 'reality tour' Solidarity Group*

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