Protests increase against Prime Minister Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine

Religious leaders, scholars, and citizens organizations voiced their anger in protest against Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro's January 14th visit to Yasukuni Shrine.

The National Christian Council of Japan (NCC) General Secretary, Otsu Ken'ichi said that the prime minister violated the constitutional principle of separation of religion and politics when he visited Yasukuni Shrine, which, as the state center of Shintoism, had helped Japan's government carry out its war of aggression.

Otsu was worried that Prime Minister Koizumi, who calls for wartime legislation, may want to lead Japan onto a path toward more war.

Takara Tetsumi, a Ryukyu University professor, said that if the United States attacks Iraq, Okinawa, which hosts 75 percent of U.S. bases in Japan, would be used as a stepping-stone for attack. He said this is a source of Okinawans' apprehension.

Pointing out that Prime Minister Koizumi is the only prime minister to visit the shrine three times, the New Japan Women's Association (Shinfujin) criticized that his visit to the shrine, at a time when the international community is making joint efforts to prevent a U.S. war on Iraq, is tantamount to declaring that Japan is again becoming a war-fighting nation.

Japan Religionists' Council for Peace Secretary General Ishikawa Yukichi demanded that the prime minister, who has sent an Aegis warship to the Indian Ocean, listen to criticism from the neighboring Asian nations'.

Concerned that Japanese people and Self-Defense Forces personnel might be involved and killed in a U.S. war against Iraq, he asked if the prime minister visited the shrine to mourn for the expected dead.

Sugawara Ryuken, a Buddhist Jodo Shinshu Honganji Sect priest who has filed a lawsuit in Osaka complaining that the prime minister's Yasukuni visit is unconstitutional, and criticized Prime Minister Koizumi for ignoring the lawsuit and the feelings of family members of the war dead enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine. (end)