Japan Press Weekly

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2020 October 14 - 20 [JCP]

JCP holds memorial service for 210 activists

A memorial service for 210 Japanese Communist Party activists and assemblypersons who died over the past year took place on October 13 in Hachioji City in Tokyo.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s event was held with a limited number of JCP Central Committee members participating. The party will send copies of the ceremony DVD to the bereaved families.

After observing a moment of silence, JCP Vice Chair Ichida Tadayoshi delivered a memorial address.

Ichida said, “It is really regrettable that the party was unable to invite the bereaved families to the ceremony because of the coronavirus situation. I’d like to extend my sincere sympathy to them and express my deepest respect for the 210 deceased.”

Looking back on the history of the JCP-hosted memorial ceremony, Ichida said that the first ceremony took place for 23 activists and assemblypersons on July 12, 1986. According to Ichida, in the ceremony, the Chairperson of the JCP Central Committee at that time Miyamoto Kenji in his memorial speech said that the many JCP predecessors’ hard work in defiance of relentless oppression by the prewar and wartime Imperial government contributed to the party’s growth and development in postwar Japan and led to the party-hosed memorial ceremony.

Ichida said that amid the corona crisis, the JCP empathizes with affected people and works hard to protect people’s lives and livelihoods. He went on to say with a thankful heart that the 210 deceased, with the party’s founding spirit of dedicating itself to reducing the hardships facing the Japanese people in mind, devoted themselves to the JCP activities at the grassroots level throughout the nation. He concluded his speech by again expressing his sympathy to the bereaved families.