Prize-winning Okinawan novelist Shun Medoruma was released by the authorities Saturday, a day after his arrest for allegedly trespassing in a restricted area near a U.S. military base in Okinawa during a protest.
The Naha District Public Prosecutors Office freed Medoruma after the Japan Coast Guard handed him over to the prosecutors earlier in the day.
Medoruma, 55, who won the prestigious Akutagawa literary award in 1997 was taken into custody on suspicion of paddling his canoe offshore from the U.S. Marines' Camp Schwab base in the Henoko coastal area in Nago and trespassing in a restricted area.