Japan Press Weekly

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2019 February 13 - 19 [POLITICS]

LDP to pressure local governments to cooperate in SDF recruiting activities

The Liberal Democratic Party headquarters has instructed its Dietmembers to pressure municipal governments in their election districts to cooperate with the Self-Defense Forces’ recruiting activities, Akahata on February 15 reported this based on an LDP internal document.

The document which Akahata obtained was sent to all LDP Dietmembers on February 14 under the names of the Director of the LDP Policy Research Council National Defense Division and the chairperson of the LDP Research Commission on Security. Apparently, this document reflects LDP President Abe Shinzo’s remarks in the LDP convention last week. He said that many local governments refuse to work together with the SDF in their recruitment drive and that this situation should be changed.

The LDP document points out that based on Article 120 of the ordinance for the enforcement of the Self-Defense Forces Act, in a bid to find new recruits, the SDF requests municipal governments to provide a list of names and addresses of young residents of particular ages, but more than 60% of all municipalities continue to reject this request.

The ordinance stipulates that the SDF can ask local governments for information needed in SDF recruitment activities. However, this is not required and it is illogical to blame municipalities for placing priority on privacy protection.

The LDP document also stresses that in some municipalities, leftwing members of the assemblies criticized the local authority for having handed personal data to the SDF and pushed it to apologize. The document states that this situation should not be left unaddressed. It calls on all LDP Dietmembers to “inquire of municipalities in their constituencies whether they accept information requests from the SDF”. Such an inquiry is tantamount to exerting undue political pressure.

Past related articles:
> Young Kyoto residents to city government: Don’t provide　our personal information to SDF [January 29, 2019]
> Rally held to oppose Kyoto City’s move to provide personal data to SDF [December 14, 2018]