‘Stop Tokyo Olympics’ petition submitted

An online petition with more than 350,000 signatures calling for the Tokyo Games to be cancelled was submitted Friday to local organisers, the International Olympic Committee and others.

The Olympics are scheduled to open in just 10 weeks on July 23 in the midst of a pandemic with Tokyo and other areas under a state of emergency. Cases continue to rise in Japan, where less than 2% of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Surprising response

The petition campaign — called “Stop Tokyo Olympics” — was drafted by well-known lawyer Kenji Utsunomiya, who has also run for governor of Tokyo. He said the response was surprising but acknowledged that this was too little, and probably too late.

“I think that the media coverage puts a lot of pressure on the IOC, the International Paralympic Committee, the Japanese government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the organising committee,” Utsunomiya said at a news conference.

“So in that sense, I am glad I did it. However, in terms of the numbers, I think that tens of millions of signatures are really necessary.”

Organisers and the IOC say they will hold the games safely, isolating 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes in a “bubble” and repeatedly testing them and the tens of thousands of others — judges, staff, sponsors, media and broadcasters — who will enter a country that has had its borders sealed for a year.