Japan Press Weekly

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2019 February 13 - 19 [POLITICS]

Abe’s Article 9 revision attempt aimed at forcing local gov’ts to provide young residents’ names to SDF: Shii

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on February 14 at a press conference in the Diet building said, “Making local governments to provide a list of their young residents’ names to the Self-Defense Forces is one of the major reasons why Prime Minister Abe intends to change the war-renouncing Article 9.”

Shii made this comment in regard to PM Abe’s remark given at the Liberal Democratic Party’s convention held on February 10 in Tokyo.

At the convention, delivering a speech as the LDP president, PM Abe noted that 60% of local governments in Japan show an uncooperative attitude toward SDF recruiting activities and said, “In order to change this situation, it is necessary to have the Constitution stipulate the legal status of the SDF.”

Shii at the press conference referred to Article 120 of the Ordinance for Enforcement of the SDF Act which allows the Defense Minister to issue to municipalities a demand for materials for SDF recruiting activities such as a list of names of individuals in a specific age group. Shii said, “Municipal governments have no obligation to obey the minister’s demand. Each local authority can decide whether to accept such a demand. If a municipality decides to not provide required materials to the SDF, it should not be accused of being uncooperative.”

Shii also said, “PM Abe insisted that to add an SDF-legitimatizing clause to Article 9 is necessary to ‘deal with the situation’, which amounts to a virtual admission that the aim of PM Abe’s attempt to change Article 9 is to force local governments to submit young residents’ personal information to the SDF. The JCP will work to foil Abe’s attempt.”

Past related articles:
> Young Kyoto residents to city government: Don’t provide　our personal information to SDF [January 29, 2019]
> Japan-SDF should refrain from resorting to outrageous recruit methods [April 4, 2016]