Japan arrests 4 of 'QAnon'-style group for vaccine protest: Media

TOKYO - Four members of a group said to be a Japanese version of QAnon, which has frequently protested against Covid-19 vaccinations, were arrested on Thursday (April 7) for intruding on a clinic where vaccinations were taking place, media reports said.

Japan is conducting booster shots against the virus that causes Covid-19, with about 44 per cent of the population having received a third dose. About 80 per cent of the general public have had the first two shots.

Four members of "YamatoQ," a version of the US QAnon group, were arrested on charges they intruded into a Tokyo clinic, police were quoted by media as saying.

The group's website says vaccines are untested and "a number" of people have died after receiving them. It also lists anti-vaccine protests around Japan.

The vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, which are used in Japan, were tested on tens of thousands of people before approval.

Police declined to confirm the reports, but a man saying he was the leader of "YamatoQ" posted a video statement on his YouTube channel in which he said police actions were "completely illegal."

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"We were just there at the clinic, asking to be shown the components of the vaccine, which has not been tested," the man said. "Then the police came in and took four people away."

The group is one of several Japanese offshoots of QAnon, a conspiracist group born in the United States that posited that former President Donald Trump was fighting a secret global cabal of sex traffickers.