Recently, many cases of sexual assault on Japanese woman committed by U.S. soldier have been made public one after another arousing strong anger of residents in Okinawa, Japan.

According to Japanese media, it has been revealed that a soldier of U.S. air force, stationed in Japan, kidnapped a teenager girl to sexually assault her in late June, and a member of U.S. Marine Corps was arrested on a charge of raping and wounding a woman who resisted.

Earlier, in February and August last year and also in January this year, back-to-back sexual assaults by U.S. soldiers broke out.

Consequently, the grievance of the residents in Okinawa against the crimes of U.S. soldiers stationed in Japan is growing and their anger now hits the peak.

Okinawa’s governor and residents expressed their vehement indignation saying: “it not only brings the residents great anxiety but also tramples on the dignity of women”, “I can’t repress my strong anger”, “the Japanese government should give serious consideration to the fact that local people are constantly living in such uneasiness.”

A joint representative of a civic organization, at an interview, said “same incidents will happen again in the future too as the military base exists”, going back on the violent case against a girl in 1995.

“Women and children cannot feel at ease walking on the road. It makes us furious,” she stressed.

Residents who participated in a protest in Naha city, the seat of Okinawa prefecture, marched with placards in their hands, saying “Defend Okinawa’s dignity!” and “Shut down the base!”

According to a data, during 51 years - from the restoration of Okinawa to Japan until last year - the number of criminal cases committed by the ones related to the U.S. forces in Japan, including soldiers and their family members, reaches up to 6,200. Among them, more than 580 cases are violent crimes such as murder, burglary and rape.

Whenever a crime was committed by the U.S. forces in Japan, local residents made a protest with demand for practical measures to prevent recurrence of violence and for readjustment and reduction of military bases and review of the Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the U.S., but all to no avail. Nothing has changed.

Citing this fact, a Japanese newspaper said as follows:

We cannot help but point out that the Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the U.S., which gives the U.S. side a privileged legal status while restricting the rights to investigation of the Japanese side, results in the shameless acts of U.S. soldiers. We should not tolerate any more the recurrence of human rights violations of local residents which is derived from the U.S. military bases.