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The protest, actually termed the "G8 March for Peace," started off pacifically enough. Marchers gathered early in the afternoon to listen to speeches from the likes of Indigenous representatives from the Philippines, farm movement leaders from small-scale Japanese farms and Via Campesina, and Walden Bello, author and director of Focus on the Global South.

Speeches and translations exhausted, marchers gathered in a very organized Japanese manner, all protest groups separated by flags, colours, and often by nationality. The usual suspects were there, from Oxfam to Jubilee South, masked as the G8 leaders, as well as some anarchists who seemed to emerge from nowhere.

Right away, the march through downtown Sapporo was a bit of a parody, only enhanced by a group of protesters dressed as clowns and faeries. The Japanese police only wanted marchers to take up one lane of traffic, and they became exasperated when nobody seemed to want to follow this demeaning law. It seemed that police outnumbered protesters all throughout the day as well, encircling us on all sides, and sticking cameras in our faces. A few scuffles emerged, but the protest carried along generally peacefully.

That is, until the police decided to arrest the DJ.

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