A Japanese lawyer, who launched an online petition calling for the cancelation of this summer's Olympics on Friday, implored Tokyo's government to cancel the Games, saying that protecting people's lives from COVID-19 should take precedence above all else.

Axar.az reports that the petition has received more than 350,000 signatures from Japan and overseas since it was launched on May 5, and its organizer Kenji Utsunomiya, a former head of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, told a press conference that holding the Olympics had once again become completely untenable.

"Holding the Olympics should be welcomed by everyone, but that is not possible under the current situation. So the Olympics must be canceled," Utsunomiya said after handing over the petition to Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, with just 70 days to go until the scheduled opening of the already postponed Games.

"It is a question of which should be prioritized, people's lives or the event itself," added Utsunomiya, amid increased domestic opposition to hosting the Games with Japan in the grip of a fourth wave of infections and Tokyo itself, along with other major urban areas, under a third state of emergency.