June 26, 2014
The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on June 25 voted down the Japanese Communist Party’s draft resolution to demand the resignation of a ruling Liberal Democratic Party member who jeered using sexist language at a female member in the assembly.
The governing and opposition parties other than the JCP approved another resolution to call for “efforts” to prevent a recurrence and restore public trust in the council, which was proposed by the LDP and its junior coalition partner, the Komei Party. That resolution, not demanding that hecklers resign their seats, is intended to put an end to the matter.
While a Your Party assemblywoman was questioning the governor on June 18 about child-rearing support policies, some assemblymen believed to be LDP members shouted at her, “You’d better get married early!” “Are you sterile?”
Facing mounting criticism over the heckling, five days later the LDP made public that the jeerer was an LDP member, Suzuki Akihiro. Suzuki offered the woman an apology, but stated that he has no intention to resign as a lawmaker.
The JCP, the third largest party in the council, presented on June 25 a draft resolution to demand that Suzuki and other members who heaped sexist abuses resign as assembly members. Surprisingly, even Your Party opposed this resolution along with the other parties.
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Later on the same day, secretary general of the JCP Tokyo Assembly Members’ Group Oyama Tomoko published a statement criticizing other political parties for drawing the curtain on the issue of sexist jeers.
In the statement, Oyama stressed that making those remarks obviously violates women’s human rights and is intolerable.
She pointed out that the adopted resolution failed to recognize this blatantly discriminatory behavior as an infringement of human rights and to urge the LDP legislator in question to resign.
The JCP assemblyperson added that the party will pursue the matter and work hard to make the assembly aware of the need to be respectful of women’s human rights.
Past related article:
> LDP sexist assemblyman pledged to ‘respect’ women’s rights [June 24, 2014]
The governing and opposition parties other than the JCP approved another resolution to call for “efforts” to prevent a recurrence and restore public trust in the council, which was proposed by the LDP and its junior coalition partner, the Komei Party. That resolution, not demanding that hecklers resign their seats, is intended to put an end to the matter.
While a Your Party assemblywoman was questioning the governor on June 18 about child-rearing support policies, some assemblymen believed to be LDP members shouted at her, “You’d better get married early!” “Are you sterile?”
Facing mounting criticism over the heckling, five days later the LDP made public that the jeerer was an LDP member, Suzuki Akihiro. Suzuki offered the woman an apology, but stated that he has no intention to resign as a lawmaker.
The JCP, the third largest party in the council, presented on June 25 a draft resolution to demand that Suzuki and other members who heaped sexist abuses resign as assembly members. Surprisingly, even Your Party opposed this resolution along with the other parties.
*****
Later on the same day, secretary general of the JCP Tokyo Assembly Members’ Group Oyama Tomoko published a statement criticizing other political parties for drawing the curtain on the issue of sexist jeers.
In the statement, Oyama stressed that making those remarks obviously violates women’s human rights and is intolerable.
She pointed out that the adopted resolution failed to recognize this blatantly discriminatory behavior as an infringement of human rights and to urge the LDP legislator in question to resign.
The JCP assemblyperson added that the party will pursue the matter and work hard to make the assembly aware of the need to be respectful of women’s human rights.
Past related article:
> LDP sexist assemblyman pledged to ‘respect’ women’s rights [June 24, 2014]
