Japan Press Weekly

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2011 June 1 - 7 [EDUCATION]

‘Kimigayo’ bill rammed through Osaka Assembly

A bill to force teachers to stand up to sing “Kimigayo” at Osaka public school ceremonies became regulation on June 3 with the majority vote of the “Osaka Ishin-no Kai” party headed by Governor Hashimoto Toru at the Osaka Prefectural Assembly plenary session.

The Japanese Communist Party voted against the bill, arguing that it violates the freedom of thought and creed guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution.

Governor Hashimoto is also planning to submit another bill to the assembly in September to enable authorities to punitively dismiss teachers who disobey the new ordinance.

On the previous day, an assembly’s standing committee on education allowed only four assemblymen, including three from the “Osaka Ishin-no Kai”, to take the floor and then forcibly closed the discussion after one hour. The bill was passed through the committee by the majority vote of the “Osaka Ishin-no Kai” alone.

The All Japan Teachers and Staff Union (Zenkyo)-affiliated Osaka teachers’ union says it will increase the movement to abolish the new ordinance and to block a “punitive dismissal” bill from being submitted.

In regard to the ordinance in question, six out of the 14 representatives who submitted the bill are members of a local assemblymen’s group of the “Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi)”, a pro-Yasukuni sect calling for the elimination of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.

The “Nippon Kaigi” heads various other groups praising Japan’s past war of aggression as a just war. Its local assemblymen’s groups aim to establish a new constitution and a new basic law on education based on a national polity with the Emperor as the center uniting the people.