Key Points
・A planned speech by Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya at the University of Tokyo’s 99th May Festival was cancelled on May 16, 2026, after protests around the venue and a bomb threat targeting the Hongo and Yayoi campuses.
・The speech was planned as a student-organized festival program, not as an official University of Tokyo lecture or university-hosted event.
・The bomb threat led to the cancellation of all May Festival programs on May 16, not only Kamiya’s speech, raising broader questions about free expression, student autonomy, protest and campus safety.
News / What Happened
A planned speech by Sohei Kamiya, leader of Japan’s Sanseito party, was cancelled during the University of Tokyo’s 99th May Festival on May 16, 2026.
The event was reportedly organized by a University of Tokyo political student circle called “Ugo no Shu.” It was scheduled as one of the student-organized programs within the May Festival, rather than as an official lecture hosted by the university itself.
According to reports, people opposed to Kamiya’s appearance gathered around the venue, and confusion occurred near the event site. Some reports described a sit-in by opponents of the speech.
The situation changed more sharply after the May Festival Standing Committee and a specific participating group reportedly received emails threatening to bomb locations on the Hongo and Yayoi campuses during the festival period.
The Standing Committee said it consulted the university and police and concluded that it could not ensure the safety of visitors, participating groups and committee members. It then decided to cancel all May Festival programs scheduled for May 16.
The cancellation therefore affected not only Kamiya’s speech but the entire day of festival activities.
For May 17, the committee and related parties moved toward reopening the festival after safety checks, stronger security measures and bag inspections. As of the time of the initial announcement, the sender, motive, specific target facilities and any direct link between the protest and the bomb threat had not been confirmed.
Background
What the University of Tokyo May Festival is
The University of Tokyo’s May Festival is one of Japan’s best-known university festivals. It is held mainly on the university’s Hongo and Yayoi campuses and includes food stalls, exhibitions, performances, lectures and other programs organized by student groups.
That structure matters in this case.
A student group inviting a politician to a festival event is not the same as the university officially endorsing that politician’s views. University festivals often contain a wide range of student-led activities, and individual programs do not automatically represent the position of the university as an institution.
At the same time, the event took place on a university campus during a large public festival. That means the university and festival organizers still had responsibilities related to facilities, crowd movement and safety.
Why Sanseito and Kamiya draw criticism
Sanseito and Kamiya have attracted criticism over their rhetoric and policy positions on immigration, foreign residents and related issues. Critics have described parts of the party’s messaging as exclusionary or xenophobic. Sanseito and its supporters, however, often frame the party as nationalist, anti-establishment and focused on protecting Japanese society from what it sees as policy failures by existing parties.
This is why the planned speech became controversial. For opponents, the issue was not only that a politician was speaking, but that a figure they saw as promoting exclusionary rhetoric was being given a platform inside a major university festival.
For supporters of the event, the issue was also not only Sanseito itself. It was whether a student group should be allowed to invite a controversial political figure and let students decide whether to attend, question, criticize or ignore the event.
Analysis
Student autonomy and university responsibility
Divisive political speech on campus is difficult because several principles collide at once.
Universities are places where political debate, criticism and uncomfortable ideas can be examined. If student groups are allowed to organize events only around speakers who attract little opposition, the range of political discussion becomes narrower.
At the same time, universities are also managed public environments. They are places where students, faculty, visitors, families, festival participants and local residents may all gather in the same space. A university festival is not a closed political meeting. It is a mixed public event where political conflict can spill over into unrelated activities.
The planned speech was a student-organized program, not an official university endorsement. But because it was scheduled on campus during the May Festival, it inevitably became connected to the university’s public image and safety responsibilities.
Protest, obstruction and the shift in focus
Opposing a political speaker is a legitimate form of political expression. Protest letters, counter-events, questions, statements and demonstrations are all part of democratic conflict. For people who see Sanseito’s rhetoric as discriminatory, protesting the event was a natural political response.
However, when a protest appears to make the event physically difficult or impossible to hold, the focus can shift. The debate may move away from the speaker’s own statements and toward whether the speaker’s opportunity to speak was taken away.
That can benefit the side being criticized. A controversial politician can frame the controversy not around policy or rhetoric, but around being silenced. For critics of that politician, this creates a dilemma: stronger disruption may express moral urgency, but it can also strengthen the speaker’s claim to victimhood.
The bomb threat changed the nature of the issue
The most serious shift came with the bomb threat.
A bomb threat is not the same category as protest. It is a threat against public safety. Even if no explosive is found, organizers cannot easily dismiss such a threat when a large number of people are on campus.
The impact was also much wider than one speech.
All May Festival programs on May 16 were cancelled. That affected student groups that had no direct connection to the political dispute. Food stall organizers may have prepared ingredients and equipment. Exhibition groups may have spent months preparing displays. Visitors may have planned to attend events unrelated to politics. Festival committee members and participating students lost time, money and opportunities.
This is why the bomb threat is central to the story. It did not merely stop one controversial event. It disrupted an entire university festival.
Unverified speculation and online narratives
The sender and motive remain unconfirmed. That matters. In politically charged incidents, online speculation tends to fill the empty space before facts are established.
Some people may suspect opponents of the speech. Others may suspect a false-flag attempt. Still others may try to connect the incident to foreign residents or broader culture-war narratives.
None of those claims should be treated as fact without evidence.
The responsible distinction is clear: the protest, the controversy over Sanseito and the bomb threat may have occurred in the same timeline, but they should not be merged into a single story unless evidence supports that connection.
The University of Tokyo’s political memory
There is also a historical sensitivity to the University of Tokyo as a stage for political conflict. Japan’s late-1960s campus conflicts, including the University of Tokyo protests and the Yasuda Auditorium incident, remain part of the university’s political memory. When political confrontation becomes visible on that campus, some observers inevitably recall that history.
But this case should not be treated as a repeat of the late-1960s student movement. The scale, background and structure are very different. The relevant comparison is more limited: universities can still become symbolic spaces where national political conflict is projected onto campus life.
The longer-term challenge for campus events
The longer-term issue is practical as much as ideological.
If universities and festival committees respond to this kind of controversy by avoiding all politically divisive events, student political activity may shrink. If they leave everything to individual student groups without clear rules, safety risks may grow. The challenge is to build rules that allow controversial events to be held, allow protest to happen, and prevent threats or physical disruption from shutting down unrelated activities.
That may require clearer procedures for outside speakers, venue selection, security planning, protest routes, emergency communication and cancellation criteria.
The goal should not be to remove politics from universities. Nor should it be to treat all protest as disorder. The harder task is to manage political disagreement in a way that protects both expression and safety.
Conclusion
The cancellation of Sohei Kamiya’s planned speech at the University of Tokyo’s May Festival was not simply a story about one controversial politician.
It brought together several issues at once: criticism of Sanseito, student autonomy, protest, free expression, university responsibility and campus safety.
Criticism of Kamiya and Sanseito has a clear political background, especially around immigration and rhetoric about foreign residents. It is understandable that some students and observers objected to the idea of such a figure speaking at a major university festival.
At the same time, a student group inviting a politician should not automatically be treated as the university endorsing that politician’s views. Universities and student festivals are also places where disputed ideas may be heard, challenged and criticized.
The bomb threat crossed a different line. Its sender and motive have not been confirmed, but the result was clear: the entire May Festival program for May 16 was cancelled, affecting people and groups with no direct role in the political dispute.
The question left by this case is not simply whether controversial speakers should be invited or excluded. It is how universities and public venues should handle politically divisive speech under clear rules, while protecting protest, debate and the safety of everyone present.
