I cannot take off my straw sandals
I have worn straw sandals for ten years to help innocent prisoners.
I keep walking through towns and villages shouting out about
their innocence, appealing to each and every person.
There are as many as one hundred million people (in Japan),
how is it that innocent prisoners can be kept isolated ?
One day, maybe some twenty or thirty years from now,
everybody will know and help release them.
I believe this will happen and walk and walk,
today and tomorrow, till my last day.
A world that cannot save even the life of one man
- this I cannot believe !
A world that does not execute any innocent prisoners -
this I wish to believe and show to be true !
For, otherwise, I myself must remain unsaved and unable to live.
I cannot take off my straw sandals.
Tairyu Furukawa(1971)
