On 23 March, the CWI in Japan, Kokusai Rentai, participated in an anti-war demonstration in Osaka. It was the biggest in the city so far. Around eight thousand participated.

Osaka city sees biggest demonstration so far

Although, as usual, the bulk of the demonstration was made up of union contingents, there was a whole section of youth on the march. There would have been a greater participation by young people but for the fact that we are now in the spring vacation and most of the schools and colleges are closed.

We distributed over 1200 copies of a Kokusai Rentai leaflet on the march and it was extremely well received. People were coming up and asking us for copies. One pensioner approached us for extra copies to distribute in her neighbourhood, because she said that the leaflet was the most easy to understand of all those distributed on the demonstration.

The leaflet also went down particularly well with the large contingents from the dockworkers, ready-mixed concrete workers and Kamagasaki day labourers, amongst whom the Kokusai Rentai members are quite well known.

There were also quite big contingents from unions and groups linked to the Social Democratic Party (ex Japan Socialist Party), in particular municipal workers, teachers and water workers.

(Copies of our leaflet in Japanese are available for anyone who wants them).

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