Over 10,000 take to streets in Tokyo to say No to PM Abe

A demonstrator holds a sign, reading No to the Abe Administration, during a mass protest in the heart of Tokyo, March 22, 2015. [Photo/IC]

TOKYO - About 14,000 people took to the streets on Sunday afternoon in Tokyo to express opposition to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies over rights to collective self-defense, nuclear reactors restart and relocation plan of US military bases within Okinawa.

The peaceful demonstration, which was organized by civil anti- nuclear power groups based in Tokyo Metropolitan areas, came ahead of regional gubernatorial elections in next month.

The protestors gathered together in the Hibiya Park, in which a man set himself on fire last year protesting against the collective defense right, and then march around the prime minister 's official residence and the Diet building, holding paperboard reading "No to Abe's administration."

In the park, a high school girl from Chiba Prefecture was quoted as saying that to exercise the right to collective Self- defense means Japan will engage in war.

"If we don't oppose the policy, it means that we connive with them to wage war," she said.

The rally came after a graduate ceremony held Sunday morning in a defense university in Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture. Abe said the ceremony that the government will resolutely push forward legislation related to the right to collective defense.