RIOTING IN JAPAN

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28099, 15 October 1956, Page 11

RIOTING IN JAPAN

Survey Of Land For U.S. Base

(Rec. 10 p.m ) TOKYO, Oct. 12. Steel-helmeted Japanese police and armoured cars ringed Sunakawa City, near Tokyo, tonight, after a large-scale riot in which police estimated that 79 demonstrators and police were injured. The riot began whenpolice moved in to disperse a crowd estimated at 4000 who were gathered outside the city to prevent a Government survey team from surveying land needed to extend the runways of an aerodrome used by the United States Air Force. A police spokesman said more than 1500 police had been called out to restore order. As reinforcements arrived, they were greeted with jeers and a barrage of stones from the crowd which police said included Sunakawa residents, members of Communist organisations, students, and unionists.

Some 20 members of the Japanese Socialist Party were involved in the disturbance, police said. Many of the crowd ripped up bamboo poles which were being used to fly banners protesting at the Government’s decision to requisition about 12,000 square yards of farmland and some 900 square yards of residential land near the Tachikawa Air Base in the city.

Four policemen and 39 demonstrators. including a Socialist member of Parliament, Mr Rikiya Nishimura, had been detained in hospital. A further 75 police and 679 demonstrators, mostly students and unionists, had received medical attention. Members of the Japanese Cabinet, high police officials, and the chief of the Japanese Defence Board, Mr Naka Funada .today called off a further survey of the land. No official reason was given for suspending the survey, but it was understood that the survey had been suspended because of bad weather. Meanwhile no incidents were reported from the city early today. A large number of police were continuing their investigation, but no further arrests had been made.