Alwaght- Japanese people have protested in the country’s capital Tokyo demanding an immediate closure of the US military base in the country.
The protests came amid rising tensions after a military base employee was arrested following the rape and murder of a local woman.
The irate protestors also held banners reading “No more bases,” in reference to plans to create a new US base in Okinawa.
A plan agreed by the US to relocate the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, situated in the densely populated city of Ginowan, to the Henoko district of Nago, in northern Okinawa, has faced strong resistance from many Okinawans.
A series of crimes including rapes, assaults and hit-and-run accidents by the US military personnel, dependents and civilians have long sparked protests.
Last week Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, 32, a former US Marine employed at the US Air Force’s sprawling Kadena Air Base, was arrested for the alleged rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman.
He had earlier been arrested for disposing of the body of the victim, identified by local media as Rina Shimabukuro.
The case has intensified long-standing local opposition to the military presence on the strategic island, which reluctantly hosts about 75 percent of US bases in Japan by land area.
More than half of the 47,000 American troops in Japan under a decades-long security alliance are stationed on Okinawa, the site of a major World War II battle that was followed by a 27-year U.S. occupation of the island.
Anti-US sentiment has been spiking on the island, particularly since 1995, when an elementary schoolgirl was savagely gang-raped by three US troops.
