May 13, 2014

With the inauguration of the “Article 9 Association of municipal leaders” in Yamagata Prefecture, this kind of organization has covered all the six prefectures in Japan’s northeastern region (Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Yamagata, Miyagi, and Fukushima).

Those associations are composed of both incumbent and former municipal heads. The A9A of Yamagata, represented by Yonezawa City Mayor Abe Sanjuro, issued a statement on May 9 calling on the general public to block the move of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s administration to revise the Japanese Constitution.

The statement stresses that Japan’s peace has been maintained since the end of World War II by the existence of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution and the successive Japanese governments’ interpretation of the supreme law, which prohibits the state from exercising the right to collective self-defense. It also points out that there is a growing danger that the constitutional reinterpretation could allow Japan to use its force abroad.

In that appeal, they express their resolve to run campaigns for creating a peaceful international community, saying, “Municipal leaders have a responsibility to make efforts to ensure an environment in which the public can live peacefully without being involved in war.”

Local government heads upholding Article 9 in the six prefectures are scheduled to meet on May 16 in Akita City to form a regional federation of the associations.

Past related article:
> ‘Article 9 Association’ spreading throughout northeastern Japan [May 21, 2012]