Toshiyuki Obora is an unlikely threat to society. Bespectacled and soft-spoken, the 47- year-old has spent much of his adult life working as a cook in a Tokyo school and preaching pacifism on his days off. In 2004, however, he was arrested by Japanese police, interrogated and held in detention for 75 days. 'I thought it would never end,' he said. The police confiscated his belongings and called his workplace, which then forced him to take 10 months' leave and a 60 per cent pay cut. Prosecutors demanded a six-month prison term. When a district court threw the charge out, the state spent thousands of hours and millions of yen challenging the decision and fighting it in the Tokyo High Court. Obora's crime was handing out pamphlets to members of Japan's Self-Defence Forces (SDF) suggesting they 'think deeply' about their decision to support a costly and illegal war. The flier, distributed around an SDF housing complex in Tachikawa, western Tokyo, asked rhetorically: 'Would George Bush or Junichiro Koizumi go to fight a war in Iraq?' Japanese pacifists have been alarmed by the SDF dispatch to Iraq, which they believe is a prelude to ending Tokyo's 60-year pacifist stance. Political pamphleteering is one of the oldest forms of modern political activity but the High Court decided last December that the danger it posed to SDF members required a conviction for trespassing and a fine of 100,000 yen ($6,500). Obora and his two co-defendants Nobuhiro Onishi and Sachimi Takada, who are challenging the conviction, were stunned. 'This is like delivering the final blow to Japan's democracy,' said Takada. 'Is that an overreaction? This case is crucial,' said Lawrence Repeta, a faculty member of Tokyo's Omiya Law School, who says the three were exercising 'the most traditional means' of free expression. 'The government must carry a very heavy burden to justify a restriction on people expressing their opinions on an important matter of public policy in this fashion. And in my view they have shown nothing at all to justify their actions.' Professor Repeta and others say the arrest and conviction of the so-called 'Tachikawa Three' points to a co-ordinated campaign by the authorities to intimidate Japan's dwindling ranks of pacifists, as the government moves to shed the post-war political architecture that has kept Japan out of conflict since the second world war. 'The government's taking a stronger stand against people who campaign on controversial issues such as the SDF dispatch,' said Makoto Teranaka, of Amnesty International Japan, which labelled the Tachikawa Three 'prisoners of conscience'. 'But most importantly, the criminal justice system's working in the same direction.' With long-mooted revisions to the so-called 'peace clause' of the Japanese constitution looming, Obora and his colleagues are among several prominent activists to have been harassed, arrested or convicted on what their supporters call spurious charges. Buddhist priest Yousei Arakawa, for example, was distributing anti-war leaflets produced by the Japan Communist Party (JCP) in an apartment complex in Katsushikaku, east Tokyo, when he was arrested. 'Somebody had decided this was to be treated as a serious crime,' said the 58-year-old priest, who told the police he had been campaigning for a decade and was not a member of the JCP but a supporter of their anti-war activities. 'After two hours of this I said I wanted to go home, because I had things to do, but they said, 'actually you're under arrest'. I had no idea you could be arrested for such a thing.' He was held for 23 days. Mr Arakawa is preparing for his ninth appearance in the Tokyo District Court where his lawyer, Ousuke Nakamura, will ask police witnesses why they did not initially inform the priest he was being arrested. 'They broke the law, but they have higher priorities,' Mr Nakamura said. 'For them, people like Mr Arakawa who distribute information warning people what will happen if they change the constitution are like a cancer. It grows unless you cut it out.' Another priest, Hiromitsu Kizu, was detained near Kadena Air Base in Okinawa last year. Supporters say he was handing out fliers outside the base when he was stopped by police and handcuffed to a patrol car after he questioned what law was being applied. When the car moved off with him still attached, he protested and was arrested for police obstruction; he was held for 21 days. The arrests of Mr Kizu, Mr Arakawa and the Tachikawa Three follow the successful prosecution of Masaki Kinoshita in 2004 after he sprayed a public toilet wall in Tokyo with anti-war slogans. The prosecuting judge said he had 'spoiled the beauty of the toilet, making users uncomfortable and unhappy'. The Tachikawa case, however, has attracted particular attention - and protests from dozens of lawyers - because of the circumstances of the arrest and the length of detention. The three walked past a small sign banning unauthorised entry into the SDF complex, just as dozens of other people hawking pizzas, family restaurants and membership in religious organisations do every week. But the High Court judge argued that only the activists warranted conviction for criminal trespass. Their arrest was troubling enough, but what followed was 'outrageous', said Professor Repeta. 'The prosecutors said they had to hold these guys for 75 days because they needed more information, but the activists admitted what they did.' So why were they held? Intimidation, he says, is the answer. 'In no other major democratic country could authorities lock up harmless people for such a lengthy period. It violates any basic standard of due process.' Anti-war campaigners say the police left them alone for years but have switched tactics under the government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a nationalist who supports constitutional change. The tactical switch was most evident during last year's protests outside the Tokyo war memorial Yasukuni Shrine, which attracted about 500 pacifists among the 200,000 people and several prominent right-wing politicians who visited on the 60th anniversary of Japan's defeat on August 15. The pacifists quickly attracted the attention of police dressed in full riot gear who aggressively wielded batons and fists, they claim, arresting six people by the end of the day. 'One of our members was 90-year-old Mr Oshima, and he was roughly handled,' said Reverend Kyoko Hoshiyama, a member of Japan's largest protestant group, the United Church of Christ. 'It was the most police we'd ever seen,' said protester Tomoko Amakasu, who claims she and her colleagues were kicked and punched as they tried to get to the shrine, where they intended to shout anti-war slogans during the traditional one-minute silence at noon. As always on August 15, the shrine was serenaded by martial music from dozens of ultra-nationalist sound trucks which were left untouched by the police. One of the arrested six, Yagi Wataru, said he was shocked by the way the incident was reported. 'The newspapers said it was an illegal demonstration, but we were just walking from the [underground] station when the police came. They hit us with their shields, punched us and grabbed our throats. People were screaming.' He claims that after his arrest he was interrogated for five hours a day. 'The police said we were insulting those who died in the war, and that our activities were meaningless because the shrine wasn't going to go away. They shouted that they knew where I worked and threatened to arrest me again next year.' Like Obora and Mr Arakawa, Mr Wataru tells the same story of rough police tactics, well in excess of any motivation to uncover 'crimes', with the authorities calling his home and workplace and asking personal questions about his past. 'It was intimidation, not investigation.' Mr Hoshiyama, who is part of a group attempting to help bring Japan's undigested historical issues into the open, believes the Yasukuni clampdown was very significant. 'So much has happened since we did this 10 years ago for the 50th anniversary: the flag and anthem law [since 1999, the playing of the anthem and the flying of the Hinomaru (Rising Sun) flag, have been compulsory at Japanese school ceremonies], the dispatch of the SDF, the attempt to revise the constitution. 'These people want to remake Japan,' he said. So far, the intimidation has been meted out only to mainly middle-aged people who cling to the hope that their brand of liberal pacifism in Japan can be saved. But several wonder what's next. 'Today it is me. Who will it be tomorrow?,' Mr Arakawa said.