The refers to a political rally that took place in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, on June 22, 1908. In the mixed political climate of the late Meiji and early Taishō period, celebrated political activist and

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

Koken Yamaguchi was discharged from a term in prison. His release was met with by a crowd waving red flags carrying Anarchist Communist slogans such as and and a chorus of communist songs. The police attacked and suppressed the small demonstration, and ten prominent activists, including

Ōsugi Sakae was a prominent Japanese anarchist who was jailed multiple times for his writings and activism. He was murdered alongside his partner, Itō Noe, in what became known as the Amakasu Incident. Biography Ōsugi was born on January 17, 1885. ...

Hitoshi Yamakawa was a Japanese socialist intellectual, activist, and theorist. He was a central figure in the early Japanese socialist movement and a co-founder of the first Japanese Communist Party in 1922. After breaking with the party a year later, he becam ...

, Kanno Sugako, and Kanson Arahata, were arrested. In later trials, most of the arrested were found guilty and received sentences of one year or more, with Ōsugi receiving the longest prison term (of two and a half years). Although a relatively minor event in the complicated history of Meiji politics, it gained notability later, when the incarceration of certain participants in the rally (including Ōsugi, Yamakawa and Arahata) protected them from being involved in a much more prominent crackdown, the

High Treason Incident The , also known as the , was a socialist-anarchist plot to assassinate the Japanese Emperor Meiji in 1910, leading to a mass arrest of leftists, as well as the execution of 12 alleged conspirators in 1911. Another 12 conspirators who were init ...

, which resulted in a number of activists being sentenced to death. This incident marked the start of stronger government action against the socialist movement in Japan.

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