Upwards of 2,000 demonstrators clash with riot police. Sections of trains are set alight, the fire spreads into the station and trains don't start running until late in the morning. In the middle of the night, some 450 people are arrested.
Another time, at least 5,000 young people gather at the city's busiest plaza, where as many as 7,000 have massed before. This time, police use tear gas to disperse the crowd. Arrests follow.
Greece? Or, perhaps, Syria? No, these incidents took place in Japan and were once typical of an era. The first describes the so-called Shinjuku Riot (Shinjuku Sōran) in the capital on Oct. 21, 1968. The second was an incident the following June in an underground part of central Tokyo's Shinjuku Station known as West Exit Folk Plaza (Nishiguchi Fōku Hiroba).
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