Tokyo to beef up security
TOKYO: Japan’s Olympics Minister Toshiaki Endo has promised to make public safety the “top priority” of the 2020 Tokyo Games following the deadly Paris terror attacks last Friday.
“Once again it shows how difficult security is,” Endo said, referring to the coordinated attacks in the French capital on Friday that killed at least 129 people. “Until now Japan has been viewed as a country with relatively few security fears.
“However, these kinds of terrorist threats are spreading to countries throughout the world,” Endo said.
He added: “Cyber security and anti-terror measures will become the top priority in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, meanwhile, reiterated the determination of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to tighten security ahead of the Olympics, the 2019 Rugby World Cup and next year’s G7 summit in the western city of Shima.
“Following the recent incidents, the prime minister has directed with all the more urgency the need for anti-terror measures,” he told a press briefing.
Organised acts of terrorism are extremely rare in Japan, but the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo perpetrated the most shocking domestic attack in recent memory in 1995 when its members let off nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, killing 13 people.
Japan co-hosted the 2002 World Cup with South Korea less than a year after the terrorist attacks on New York which left nearly 3,000 dead, imposing no-fly zones over stadiums as part of beefed-up security for the tournament.
Border authorities also worked closely with Interpol and their counterparts overseas to prevent known hooligans from entering the country.