Photo/Illutration A member of YamatoQ attends a rally in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district on Dec. 18 carrying a backpack adorned with the English character “Q” and a cap supporting former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign. (Gakushi Fujiwara)

Five people including members of an anti-vaccine conspiracy group who disrupted COVID-19 vaccination sites in Tokyo were found guilty of unlawful entry by the Tokyo District Court on Dec. 22 and given suspended sentences. 

The court handed Hiroyuki Kuramoto, 44, who acted as leader of the YamatoQ group under the alias “Ichibei Okamoto,” a prison sentence of one year and six months, suspended for three years.

A man and a woman who intruded into three vaccination venues with Kuramoto were each given a one-year prison sentence, suspended for three years.

The court also sentenced another man and a woman who unlawfully entered two such venues with Kuramoto to 10 months in prison, suspended for three years.

The length of the sentences is exactly the same as prosecutors had demanded for all five defendants.

According to the ruling, Kuramoto conspired with the other defendants and intruded into three locations in Tokyo in March and April where COVID-19 vaccinations were taking place.

The three sites were the Tokyo Dome in Bunkyo Ward, a medical clinic in Shibuya Ward and a venue run by the Shinjuku municipal government in Shinjuku Ward.

In the ruling, the presiding judge said that their offenses were “premeditated crimes committed by many accomplices. People at the vaccination venues including staff members became scared and nervous. Peace and calm at such venues were significantly harmed.”

The judge then criticized Kuramoto and his co-defendants, saying, “(The defendants) thought that they couldn’t achieve their aim of forcing the vaccinations to be canceled and committed the offenses in light of their own views.”

Kuramoto admitted to the charge in the first hearing and later left YamatoQ.

During questioning of the defendants in November, he said, “I’m calm now and regret (what I did). Back then, I was filled with a sense of justice and couldn’t understand how other people were feeling.”

He also said in the questioning that he will seek to disband the group.

The ruling took into account such comments made by Kuramoto, suspended his sentence and urged him to mend his ways in society.

YamatoQ calls itself the Japanese arm of U.S. conspiracy cult QAnon.

According to the statement made by prosecutors during the trial, the group’s founding declaration says that it will “save and protect 'many lives, children, and the world' from control by the worst, strongest and enormous power.”

YamatoQ started to increase its supporters on the internet in fall 2021. It began staging large-scale simultaneous anti-vaccine rallies across Japan in January.

However, the number of members started to decrease after Kuramoto’s arrest in April. Other senior YamatoQ members have since been arrested or prosecuted for fraud or unlawful intrusion to a vaccination venue.

Despite declining numbers, the group is still spreading anti-vaccination conspiracy theories on the internet and holding rallies almost monthly.

Around 60 YamatoQ members participated in one such rally held in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district on Dec. 18.

They marched together, urging people to remove their masks and shouted unfounded accusations such as, “None of the 'jokyu kokumin' (a colloquial word describing higher-ranking people in society), politicians or the health ministry’s officials have received the vaccine.”

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