Shii at Akahata Festival stresses the importance of logic, freedom, and human rights

Japan Press Weekly

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

Shii at Akahata Festival stresses the importance of logic, freedom, and human rights

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on November 7 exalted the JCP’s value by focusing on its Program, history, diplomacy, and grassroots power as well as its unwavering position on freedom and democracy in a commemorative speech delivered at the 40^th Akahata Festival.

In his speech, Shii reported that the JCP gained a favorable response from South Korea on the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of Japan’s annexation of Korea when the JCP stated, “The annexation treaty had no legal or legitimate basis.” By contrast, the Japanese government could only say that the treaty was “invalid” because it has not shown remorse for its colonial rule, Shii pointed out.

Regarding the issue of the Senkaku Islands, he stated that Japan can legitimately assert its claim to the islands because what Japan unfairly seized in the Japanese-Sino War were Taiwan and the Penghu Islands. He told the audience that the JCP argument has received a favorable reaction from government officials and the media.

The party can do this because the JCP is the only party in Japan that had opposed Japan’s war of aggression and its colonial rule while all other political parties promoted them. Thus, the JCP’s history of dissent is still alive today, Shii emphasized.

Stressing the need to have “sound logic” and a “self-motivated and independent” diplomacy in the world of the 21^st century, Shii called on the Japanese government to start negotiations with Russia to solve the territorial issue based on logic in order to redress the unfair postwar settlement.

The argument that “socialism breeds a dictatorship” is widely accepted, especially after the Soviet Union collapsed, Shii, however, stated that what Marx and Engels had pursued was the “full realization of human freedom” and that the JCP in its Program also states, “A socialist/communist Japan will” further develop “democracy and freedom”.

About the human rights issue in China, Shii strongly called for the importance to use freedom of speech as a means of responding to critical remarks of the political system. The JCP has candidly told China the importance of this, Shii said.

He furthermore stated that international politics now regards human rights as proclaimed in the 1993 Vienna Declaration for which China itself supported to be paramount importance: “While the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Shii said, “I strongly wish that China will adopt a stance that reflects this present international recognition and will earn the global trust and understanding in the field of human rights and freedom.”

- Akahata, November 8, 2010