NEWS
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For a Society Where Life and Dignity Are Respected
From Okinawa to the World
Equal accountability, regardless of nationality or uniform.
Okinawa is grieving again.
On October 3, 2026, a woman from Okinawa died in a serious incident in Naha City. The following day, a U.S. Marine stationed in Okinawa was arrested on suspicion of robbery and murder. According to media reports, the suspect is assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, and the investigation remains ongoing.
First and above all else, we mourn the loss of a precious human life. Our deepest thoughts are with her family, her loved ones, and everyone whose life has been changed by her death.
As a human being, as a woman, and as a mother raising a daughter, I do not want this to become simply “another tragedy in Okinawa”—something we grieve today and forget tomorrow.
That is why, together with others who share this hope for change, I am launching this petition.
Our question is simple: What happens afterward?
For decades, Okinawa has faced serious crimes involving U.S. military-affiliated personnel, including sexual violence, murder, robbery, and serious assault.
According to official Okinawa Prefecture statistics, from Okinawa’s reversion to Japan in 1972 through the end of 2025, 6,409 Penal Code offenses involving U.S. military personnel, civilian employees, and others covered by the Status of Forces Agreement were recorded by police. Of these, 600 were categorized as serious offenses, including murder, robbery, and rape.
Whenever a serious incident occurs, we repeatedly hear familiar words:
“Protests have been lodged.”
“Stricter discipline has been demanded.”
“Measures to prevent recurrence have been requested.”
These responses matter.
But then the headlines disappear.
And the public is often left without answers.
When a U.S. service member is finally convicted by a Japanese court of a serious crime, what happens next?
Was that person discharged from the military?
What happened to their military status or rank?
Are they eligible to reenlist?
Could someone convicted of a serious crime later be assigned again to Okinawa, elsewhere in Japan, or to another U.S. installation overseas?
If the person was a civilian employee, what happened to their employment or eligibility for reassignment?
And most importantly:
After the cameras leave and the court proceedings end, are victims and bereaved families still being supported?
Our concern is not simply what happens when a crime is reported.
Our concern is that what happens afterward is often invisible.
We are asking for a system in which serious cases can be followed to their conclusion, so that the public can understand—within appropriate legal and privacy limits—whether meaningful accountability actually followed.
Okinawa Has a History the World Should Understand
Okinawa endured devastating ground combat during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 and remained under U.S. administration for 27 years afterward.
Okinawa reverted to Japan in 1972. Yet even today, although Okinawa accounts for only about 0.6% of Japan’s total land area, approximately 70.3% of the land exclusively used by U.S. Forces Japan is concentrated here.
In 1995, three U.S. servicemen abducted and sexually assaulted a 12-year-old Okinawan girl.
The outrage that followed led the governments of Japan and the United States to change criminal-procedure practices, allowing Japan to request the pre-indictment transfer of custody in certain serious cases, including murder and rape.
That history teaches us something important:
Okinawan voices have changed systems before.
But serious incidents did not disappear.
So today, we are asking for the next step.
This Is Bigger Than “Pro-Base” or “Anti-Base”
People hold different views about military bases, national security, and defense.
They are entitled to those views.
This petition does not ask people to abandon them.
What we ask is that we begin with something more fundamental:
A human life has the same value regardless of politics.
If military forces are present in the name of security, then security must also include the lives, bodies, and dignity of the people who live beside those bases.
Security cannot mean protecting borders and territory while overlooking the people who live there.
A society is not truly secure unless its people can live safely.
We are not seeking to make the U.S. military an enemy.
Nor are we asking anyone to view all U.S. service members as criminals.
On the contrary, if the military seeks to “continue contributing as a good neighbor in the local community,” then we ask that this principle be reflected consistently in discipline, transparency, accountability, and care for the surrounding community.
Do Not Let Victims Disappear Inside Politics
When crimes involving U.S. military-affiliated personnel occur in Okinawa, the discussion can quickly become trapped between two political camps:
“pro-base” and “anti-base.”
If someone raises the issue, they may be accused of using a victim for an anti-base agenda.
If someone recognizes the importance of national security, they may be accused of minimizing the victim’s suffering.
But while those arguments continue, the person who should matter most can disappear from the conversation:
the victim.
A victim’s suffering must never become a tool for someone else’s political position.
What victims need is not ideology.
They need:
justice, safety, dignity, support, and systems capable of preventing the same harm from happening again.
And this is not only about women.
Women and girls have repeatedly suffered sexual violence, and that history must never be erased. But men, boys, and people of every background can also become victims of serious crime.
Nor is this only about sexual violence.
It concerns murder, robbery, serious assault, and other crimes that threaten human life and bodily integrity.
Ultimately, this is not only a women’s issue.
It is a fundamental human-rights issue that concerns all of us.
【What We Are Asking of the Governments of Japan and the United States, and the U.S. Military】
1.Establish a formal mechanism for notifying the Japanese side of the final military or employment disposition of U.S. military personnel and affiliated employees who are finally convicted in Japan of serious crimes.
While respecting victims’ privacy and applicable law, provide appropriate transparency regarding discharge, separation, employment consequences, and other final status decisions.
2. Establish clear and transparent standards governing reenlistment, reemployment, and future assignment to U.S. Forces Japan following serious criminal convictions.
The public should be able to understand, within lawful limits, what happens when someone is finally convicted of crimes such as murder, robbery, rape, or other serious offenses.
3. Publish case-tracking statistics that follow serious cases from the initial incident through their final outcome.
Where legally possible, reporting should cover investigation, referral, prosecution or non-prosecution, judgment, sentence, and the final military or employment disposition.
4. Guarantee long-term support for victims and bereaved families.
Psychological care, legal support, and assistance with compensation and damages should not end simply because criminal proceedings have concluded.
5. Give Okinawan communities a meaningful role in safety dialogue and institutional reform.
Survivor advocates, women, children’s-rights advocates, human-rights organizations, local residents, service members, military families, and other affected communities should have meaningful opportunities to participate in discussions about community safety.
Anyone who has not been convicted must be afforded the presumption of innocence and due process.
That principle matters.
At the same time, once a person has been finally convicted of a serious crime, society should be able—within reasonable legal and privacy limits—to understand what accountability followed.
Equal justice requires both due process for the accused and dignity for the victim.
Individual Responsibility Must Be Matched by Institutional Accountability
We do not believe that crimes committed by individual service members justify treating every member of the U.S. military as a criminal.
But neither should a serious crime simply be treated as “the action of one individual” and end there.
A military is not merely a collection of individuals.
It is an institution that recruits people, trains them, establishes rules and discipline, exercises command and supervision, and determines where personnel are assigned.
Therefore, when a member of that institution commits a serious crime, the individual must bear responsibility for their own conduct.
But the institution must also ask:
Could this have been prevented?
Were warning signs missed?
Was supervision adequate?
What changed afterward?
What disciplinary, administrative, training, or preventive measures were taken?
That is not collective punishment.
It is institutional accountability.
When someone is finally convicted of a serious crime, communities should be able to understand, within lawful limits:
Was that person discharged?
Can they reenlist?
Could they be stationed again in Okinawa, elsewhere in Japan, or at another overseas installation?
What measures did the institution take to prevent another case?
We believe this information should not depend solely on goodwill or case-by-case discretion.
For serious crimes, appropriate transparency should be built into the system.
Where necessary, we ask the governments of Japan and the United States to consider changes to domestic law, military regulations, bilateral arrangements, and operating procedures so that meaningful accountability does not disappear after a conviction.
This principle should not apply only to the U.S. military.
Any institution entrusted with significant authority and public responsibility should be expected to demonstrate high standards of transparency and accountability when serious wrongdoing occurs within its ranks.
Individuals must answer for their actions.
Institutions must answer for supervision, prevention, reform, and transparency.
Victims must receive dignity, justice, and support.
We need all three.
Okinawa Is More Than War and Military Bases
There is another Okinawa we want the world to know.
Okinawa is a chain of islands surrounded by beautiful seas and coral reefs, with subtropical forests and extraordinary biodiversity.
Northern Okinawa Island and Iriomote Island form part of a UNESCO World Natural Heritage property recognized for its globally significant biodiversity.
Okinawa is also known for traditions associated with longevity, for its music, hospitality, and its champuru culture—a culture that has long blended different peoples and influences into something uniquely Okinawan.
We do not want Okinawa to be known to the world only through war, military bases, and tragedy.
We want Okinawa to be a place that sends another message to the world:
love and peace, coexistence with nature, and coexistence among people.
That is why we want change to begin here.
To People Around the World
We do not want this to remain an Okinawa-only movement.
We want to connect with:
human-rights advocates,
people advancing women’s empowerment,
those working to protect children,
survivor-support organizations,
people protecting nature and biodiversity,
peacebuilders,
service members and veterans,
military families,
and people of every nationality, culture, gender, and political belief who believe that human beings can live together with dignity and mutual respect.
You do not have to agree on every question of politics or national security to stand with us.
You only need to believe that:
Every human life has value.
Victims should never be forgotten after the headlines disappear.
When a person is finally convicted of a serious crime, accountability should follow regardless of nationality, uniform, or institutional affiliation.
And institutions entrusted with power must also be transparent about how they respond.
We are not asking for division.
We are asking for responsible coexistence.
From a society that protests after every tragedy,
to a society that can follow accountability to its conclusion.
From a society that promises prevention,
to a society that can measure whether prevention is actually working.
The nationality of a victim must never determine the value of justice.
Equal accountability, regardless of the nationality of the victim.
And equally:
Accountability regardless of nationality or uniform.
We cannot change what has already happened.
But we can change what happens next.
We hope that one day our children will be able to say:
“This used to happen in Okinawa.”
Not because we chose hatred.
Not because we chose division.
But because people across borders chose human dignity, transparency, accountability, and responsible coexistence.
So that another generation does not have to shed the same tears for violence that could have been prevented.
For a society where life and dignity are protected.
From Okinawa to the world.
Please stand with us.
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Petition Organizer: Remi Ie
Coalition: 未来共生おきなわ
Okinawa Future Coexistence Initiative
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（Reporting on the current case:）
NHK report https://news.web.nhk/newsweb/na/nd-20261005de54384
NPRreport https://www.npr.org/2026/10/04/nx-s1-5990790/us-marine-arrested-for-alleged-murder-woman-on-okinawa
＊This petition does not seek to prejudge any ongoing investigation or judicial proceeding.
＊This petition does not promote hatred or discrimination against any nationality, ethnicity, institution, or individual.
＊Its purpose is to protect life, safety, human rights, and dignity in Okinawa by calling for greater institutional transparency and accountability
