Youth take part in anti-terror actions

Commemorating the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., events took place in Japan to mourn for the dead and to pledge to act for peace.

Shouting in chorus, "No wars and no terrorism," about 200 young people carried out a peace-walk in Shibuya, Tokyo. Similar events took place in Fukushima City in northeastern Japan under the title "peace pupa," and in Kyoto City with a candle service.

At Waseda University in Tokyo, about 50 students took part in a peace-walk rally toward JR Takadanobaba Station. "We need neither an attack on Iraq nor wartime legislation. What we need is to make Article 9 of the Constitution known to all over the world," they said.

Members of the Democratic Youth League of Japan held a street campaign in front of JR Shibuya Station, and then visited the Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to demand that they make efforts to stop the U.S. plan to attack Iraq.

"2001 women's year of the Constitution" members also petitioned the embassy to convey their wish that the U.S. plan to attack Iraq must be withdrawn.

The Japan Congress of Journalists held a discussion meeting in Tokyo titled, "A verification of the September 11 incident." Sotooka Hidetoshi, Newspaper Asahi's editor, stressed that Japan's mass media must make efforts to foil the U.S. attempt to carry out preemptive strikes with nuclear weapons. (end)