Human chain formed in front of Diet building against ruling parties' scheme to forcibly pass education bill

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Human chain formed in front of Diet building against ruling parties' scheme to forcibly pass education bill

Some 2,300 people on November 8 formed a "human chain" in front of the Diet building in opposition to a bill to adversely revise the "Constitution of education," the Fundamental Law of Education.

Amid a tense situation in which the ruling parties intend to take a vote on the bill in the House of Representatives next week in order to enact it in the current Diet session, this action was urgently called for jointly by six citizens' groups.

On a sidewalk in front of the dietmembers' office buildings, participants joined hands to form several rows of a human chain.

Teruoka Itsuko, a rally organizer and professor emeritus of Saitama University, criticized the government for failing to give a valid reason for the revision.

Another organizer, Komori Yoichi, a professor at Tokyo University, said, "What should be called into question now is not the Fundamental Law of Education but the fact that education has long been conducted in disregard of the Law."

Japanese Communist Party House of Representatives members Kasai Akira and Akamine Seiken as well as a Social Democratic Party Dietmember spoke in solidarity.

In a separate action, the People's Big Movement Organizing Committee that includes the All Japan Teachers and Staff Union (Zenkyo) and the Japan Federation of Prefectural and Municipal Workers' Unions (Jichiroren) held a rally in front of the Diet Building on the same day. They submitted to the Diet a petition with 60,000 signatures calling for a withdrawal of the bill to revise the Fundamental Law of Education.

JCP House of Councilors member Inoue Satoshi encouraged the participants in the rally.
- Akahata, November 9, 2006