Japan Press Weekly

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2014 June 18 - 24 [POLITICS]

Letters from young people to PM against right to collective self-defense

Eighty young people visited the Cabinet Office on June 23 to request that the government comply with the Japanese Constitution and submitted 1,067 letters from young people to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.

They were members of a group which organized a demonstration with 800 participants in downtown Tokyo the previous day.

In the Cabinet Office, the youth group requested that the use of the right to collective self-defense be disapproved by maintaining the present constitutional interpretation and that the prime minister steer the country based on the Constitution.

Participants directly expressed their sentiments to government officials, saying, for example, “My cousin joined the Self-Defense Forces because he couldn’t afford to pay tuition fees for a university. It is always the poor who gets involved in war. So, please do not exercise the right to collective self-defense. Please adhere to the Constitution.”

They also made representations to Dietmembers, requesting them to vote against bills to allow the country to use armed force abroad.

What their letters say include: “Please do not repeat the same mistake and protect us from having to shed blood in war again. It is not you but us, young Japanese, who go to battlefields,” “My friend whose boyfriend is in the SDF said in tears one day, ‘What does the prime minister think our lives are worth.’ I’m opposed to the right to fight collectively with other countries because it threatens not only the lives of SDF soldiers but also the lives of Japanese people as a whole,” “I’ve got a lot of people I care about. So, I don’t want them to go to war and kill anyone,” and “You have kept telling us that you will protect young people. If that is the case, please protect Article 9 of the Constitution.”

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On June 22, a pro-constitution, antiwar rally took place in Meguro in Tokyo, attracting 1,056 young people, followed by a demonstration parade through Shibuya.

People on the roadside joined one after another, increasing the size of the parade to 800 from the initial 500. Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Kira Yoshiko also took part in the demo.

A 20-year-old college student said, “Young people are the ones who must strongly oppose both the collective self-defense right and the state secrecy law.” A 21-year-old student said, “This kind of action is a good opportunity for us to think about politics.” A 24-year-old man said, “This is good. People of my own generation together call for peace.”