About 300 people protested on Tuesday against the planned relocation of a U.S. military base within Okinawa Prefecture, 63 years to the day after Japan recovered its sovereignty after being defeated in World War II.
Okinawa was excluded from the handover and remained under U.S. control until 1972. The 1952 date therefore came to be remembered in the prefecture as a "day of insult."
In a rally at Henoko in Nago, the coastal district earmarked as the proposed site where U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma will relocate to, participants chanted slogans such as "We're opposed to a new base" and "Don't destroy the beautiful sea."