June 8, 2018

Calling to foil Prime Minister Abe's attempt to take the teeth out of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, 13.5 million signatures were submitted to the Diet on June 7.

The signature-collection drive started in September last year as a nationally-uniform petition, hoping to collect as many as 30 million signatures and to ensure the principles of the Constitution manifest in people's daily lives.

At the Lower House lawmakers' office building, citizens who have been active in this campaign in each community or organization held a rally and handed over the signatures to representatives of opposition parties.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo, Edano Yukio of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Okada Katsuya representing independents, Ozawa Ichiro of the Liberal Party, Teruya Kantoku of the Social Democratic Party, and Itokazu Keiko of the Okinawa Whirlwind gave speeches in solidarity.

JCP Chair Shii, speaking on the recent changes in regard to the Korean Peninsula, pointed out that PM Abe has been using North Korea's military advance as a pretext for revising Article 9, but this justification is now collapsing.

Shii suggested that the Japanese government play a role in taking diplomatic initiatives to build a peace structure in this region by making the best possible use of Article 9. He added that in order to achieve this, the 30-million signatures drive is becoming more important than ever.

Following speeches given by politicians, citizens from various fields also spoke in solidarity. Tanaka Shoji, a representative director of the National Counsel of Visual Disabled in Japan, reported that more than 1,500 visually-challenged people signed the petition in Braille.

Past related article:
> 30 million-signature campaign launched to defeat PM Abe’s attempt to revise Article 9 [September 5, 2017]