350000 Petition Organizers To Cancel Olympics As Tokyo Insist. Critics of Japan’s plan to hold the Tokyo Olympics despite the fourth wave of coronavirus infections submitted a petition on Friday calling for the games to be cancelled.
Three hundred and fifty thousand people signed the petition over nine days.
‘Stop Tokyo Olympics’ campaign organiser Kenji Utsunomiya said the global festival of sports should take place only when Japan can welcome visitors and athletes wholeheartedly.
The Games was postponed from 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are not in that situation, and therefore the games should be cancelled,” he told a news conference. Precious medical resources would need to be diverted to the Olympics if it’s held.”
The petition was submitted to the Olympic and Paralympic committee chiefs and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike.
It came as Japan added three more areas to a state of emergency, now covering Tokyo, Osaka and four other prefectures amid surging case numbers.
“Though there is a global pandemic, it is important to hold a safe and secure Tokyo 2020 Games,” she told a news conference.
The International Olympic Committee has insisted it is “moving fully ahead” with the Tokyo Games despite growing public unease in Japan after the state of emergency in the country was extended.
But the IOC’s upbeat comments, which followed a meeting of its executive board on Wednesday, were overshadowed by a protester who gatecrashed its online press conference to shout: “No Olympics anywhere.
Fuck the Olympics. We don’t want the Olympics. No Olympics in LA. No Olympics in Tokyo.”
The demonstrator, who had told the IOC that he worked for Yahoo! but was later revealed to be part of the NOlympics LA movement, was quickly shut down and a video of the press conference was promptly removed by the IOC.