A controversy has broken out on social media after the name of a high-profile youth activist appeared last week on the list of artists attending this year¡¯s Fuji Rock Festival.

The unexpected name: Aki Okuda, a leader of the Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy-s, better known as SEALDs.

SEALDs is a group of young people aligned against the security laws enacted last year after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared a new take on the government¡¯s long-held interpretation of the Constitution, sidestepping war-renouncing Article 9 to expand the legal scope of the Self-Defense Forces¡¯ missions abroad.

Okuda was invited to Fuji Rock to be a guest speaker on a talk show hosted by the anti-nuclear group Atomic Cafe on July 23. The show is a side event to the mammoth rock festival hosted annually by the Naeba Ski Resort in Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture.

Right after the list was released, a Japanese Twitter hashtag (¡°ongaku ni seiji wo mochikomu nayo,¡± meaning ¡°don¡¯t politicize music¡°) was created to express opposition to Okuda¡¯s appearance.

Some critics said the well-known rock festival shouldn¡¯t feature a ¡°left-wing¡± activist like Okuda, while others said he deserve no place at the event because he¡¯s not a musician.

But other people including famous Japanese rock musicians and commentators defended Okuda¡¯s billing, pointing out that the annual festival has hosted a number of political side events in the past.

¡°People who don¡¯t know about Fuji Rock say, ¡®Don¡¯t politicize Fuji Rock.¡¯ Until now many NGOs and artists have repeatedly expressed their various opinions on stage,¡± Masafumi Goto, the main singer for Asian Kung-fu Generation, tweeted in Japanese on Sunday.

¡°We need to argue back by saying something like, ¡®Hey shut up, idiots.¡¯ Otherwise I feel a little bit of freedom will be eroded,¡± Goto said in the tweet.

The Fuji Rock Festival was started in 1997 with the goal of ¡°Coexistence of Nature and Music.¡±

Preservation of the environment is a key theme of the event, and attendees are urged to clean up and recycle their garbage at the venue, the festival¡¯s website says.

According to Atomic Cafe¡¯s website, the anti-nuclear group has been holding talk shows at the Fuji Rock Festival since at least 2011. This year¡¯s festival will run from July 22 to 24.