People of faith and workers vow to block war laws from being invoked

About 500 people of faith and union workers on October 11 met in Tokyo to discuss ways to prevent the wartime laws from being invoked. These laws were enacted to mobilize Japan's territory and people for U.S. wars.

Lecturers and panelists focused on the question of why the contingency laws must be prevented from being put into action and what the country, people's living conditions, and workplaces would be like if the wartime laws are invoked. The participants resolved not to give an inch in the struggle against an imposition of the war contingency laws.

This assembly was sponsored by 20 land, air, and sea transport-related unions, a network of religious people, the Christian net, and four citizens' groups.

Citing Buddha's teachings, Kizu Mitsuhiro, a Buddhist monk, spoke to the audience about various vicious practices of people and the preciousness of life.

Playwright Matsuzaki Kikuya presented a comic talk satirizing successive prime ministers wagging their tails before the United States.

Watanaba Osamu, a professor at Hitotsubashi University, lectured on people's struggles in the post-war Japanese history that has kept the nation from being an aggressor by defending Article 9 of the Constitution for more than 50 years. (end)