Japan Press Weekly

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2012 June 20 - 26 [ECONOMY]

24,000 people rally in protest against consumption tax hike

Calling for opposition to a consumption tax hike, 24,000 people on June 23 marched in demonstration through Tokyo’s Harajuku, a popular shopping district for youth.

Participants converged from across the country to take part in a rally held earlier on the day at Meiji Park located near Harajuku.

The rally was organized by various groups, including labor unions and civic organizations, which object the Noda government’s adverse policies such as a consumption tax increase, cuts in social services, reactivation of idled nuclear reactors, and participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade agreement. The Noda Cabinet intends to steamroll through these policies in collaboration with the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and two key opposition parties, the Liberal Democratic and Komei.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo in his speech in solidarity pointed out, “The three parties have a force of majority in the Diet. They, however, have become isolated from the public.” He said, “Let’s develop people’s joint actions based on common grounds to oppose the government’s policies regarding the consumption tax, the TPP, nuclear power generation, and military base issues, strengthen solidarity between actions, and establish a new united front which can changes the future of Japan.”

From Otsu City in Shiga Prefecture, a subcontractor for a major machine manufacturer took part in the rally. He said, “When a bad slump brings hardships to both small business owners and the general public, doubling the consumption tax rate to 10% is preposterous.” He went on to say that on June 3 a wide spectrum of people in the prefecture jointly held a rally in protest against an increase in the consumption tax rate.

A 55-year-old building constructor from Iwate’s Miyako City, who left his home at 4 a.m. in the morning in order to participate in the rally, said, “A consumption tax hike will hinder the 3.11 disaster hit-region from achieving a recovery.” He explained that in the tsunami-devastated city of Miyako, many disaster survivors are hesitating to rebuild their homes. “The consumption tax is levied on everything needed for post-disaster reconstruction such as building houses. An increase in the consumption tax rate is inhumane. If the government ignores public opposition, we will scrap the government’s policy through public actions,” he said.

A participant from Tokyo’s Suginami Ward said that he found information about the rally on the Internet and that he also joined a protest action in Tokyo against the restart of nuclear reactors on June 22 where 45,000 people got together from information posted on Twitter. He said, “I had never taken part in demonstrations. But now, I want to continue attending such actions until all nuclear power plants are shut down.”