FREE HOSHINO! Okinawa Whistleblower Hoshino Fumiaki Defense Committee Comes to SF

July 15th, 2011. The defense committee for Okinawa Whistleblower HOSHINO Fumiaki came from Japan to San Francisco and spoke about US occupation of the Okinawa Island in Japan, the 37-year imprisonment of HOSHINO for protesting the occupation, and parallels between HOSHINO's case and that of MUMIA Abu-Jamal. MUMIA is an American journalist and radical activist imprisoned on death row in Pennsylvania after he exposed racism within the Philadelphia Police Department. HOSHINO is a Okinawa journalist and radical activist imprisoned for life after he opposed an agreement "legalizing" the occupation of the island of Okinawa by the US military.

The support committee showed how Okinawa has been occupied by Japan since 1609 and the US since World War II. Today, Okinawa is not merely the home of a single US military base as many people think, but in fact, is occupied by more than 30 US military sites--including "areas," airfields, "camps," sites, stations, and offices. The US took Okinawa as a war trophy after World War II.

Student protests in 1971 sought return of the island to the people of Okinawa. HOSHINO led part of the protests. After a police officer was killed during the protests, HOSHINO was arrested for murder and charged and convicted in spite of overwhelming exculpatory evidence.

HOSHINO's wife (pictured) called on San Franciscans to form a San Francisco defense committee and to "spread the word." Her flyer is attached.