In many nations summer is synonymous with open-air rock festivals. Japan is no exception. No event looms larger there than Fuji Rock, the nation’s largest such gathering, which draws well over 100,000 attendees to the mountains of Niigata each July. As in other countries, fans often hold up banners, messages or even Japanese flags when cheering on their favorite musicians.

But this year, with war in Europe and the Middle East, the flags of other countries flew. As seen in widely circulated social media photos and videos – posted on July 24 and since viewed over a million times – the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran flew on one pole, and the Palestinian flag, alongside the flag of Lebanon, on another.

Flags are not mere abstract symbols. Even when used as gestures of peace or solidarity, they carry histories, governments, and unresolved political claims behind them — not always in the same way — and that context matters before we wave them or watch others wave them. Seeing flags flying over Fuji Rock raises the question: Do the festival’s organizers and participants know what these flags actually represent? 

Music has long served as an expression of a fundamental human freedom — the right to speak, to challenge authority and to be heard without fear of the state. It is precisely this freedom that the Islamic Republic of Iran has spent nearly half a century hollowing out, using its judiciary and security apparatus to routinely criminalize political opposition. Iranian authorities have imprisoned, tortured and executed citizens for expressing political views, while subjecting others to harassment, arrest and violence for long hair, short skirts, dancing or singing in public. Most recently, in the wake of the nationwide protests of January 2026, Iranian authorities executed demonstrators........

© The Japan Times