Michiko Kanba (8 November 1937-15 June 1960) was a Japanese communist student activist who was killed by riot police during the 1960 Anpo Protests, causing an outcry which forced Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi's resignation.
Biography[]
Michiko Kanba was born in Tokyo, Japan on 8 November 1937, the daughter of a professor at Chuo University. She was raised in a middle-class Christian household, and she entered the University of Tokyo in 1957 and joined the Japanese Communist Party in November 1957. In 1960, she participated in the mass Anpo Protests, and she was one of the 76 student activists who were arrested at a 26 January 1960 sit-in at Haneda Airport. On 15 June, she and several other student activists took part in clashes with riot police outside the National Diet building, but she was beaten to death by riot police, who inflicted on her a chest compression and intracranial bleeding. Her death was blamed on the alliance of the yakuza and rightists in the government, and she was widely seen as a "maiden martyr".