Three peace activists on trial for trespassing at a Self-Defense Forces housing compound where they had been distributing antiwar leaflets told the Tokyo High Court on Wednesday their arrest and indictment is a form of political suppression and their case should be dropped.
The woman and two men were arrested in February 2004 on suspicion of trespassing on the SDF's residential quarters in Tachikawa, western Tokyo. They were distributing leaflets outlining opposition to the SDF deployment in Iraq in mailboxes.
That December, the Tokyo District Court's Hachioji branch acquitted them, ruling their act was a form of political expression guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. Prosecutors appealed the ruling.