Lawyers and workers press parliament to abandon contingency legislation

As the Democratic Party of Japan was moving toward accepting the three contingency bills with token alterations, lawyers, women, religious people, and workers on May 13 rushed to the Diet to foil the legislation.

Outside the Diet Building, 300 people carried out a sit-in protest against the bills, joined by handicapped people and religious activists, including Christians. A banner read "Force can't make peace."

A member of the War Bereaved Family Association for Peace and against War said, "The Army drafted my father together with the cargo ship in which he was working. The ship was bombed on its way home with a load of munitions and gasoline from Burma. I'm opposed to all wars and war laws."

The Japan Lawyers Association for Freedom, to which 1,600 lawyers nationwide belong, handed over to 200 Dietmembers from the ruling and opposition parties an urgent appeal demanding the bills be withdrawn.

A liaison council of 54 trade unions of 13,000 aviation workers, including pilots, in a letter to the prime minister and the political parties demanded that details of the bills be clearly explained in the Diet for thoroughgoing discussions, and that the bills not be passed by the force of majority.

The Japan Federation of Newspaper Workers' Unions also published an urgent appeal calling for the discarding of the contingency bills, and sent it to all members of both the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors. (end)