Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2015 May 27 - June 2 [POLITICS]

Civil movements opposing war legislation are growing across Japan

One week has passed since Japan’s Diet started deliberations on government-proposed war-related bills. Now civic movements opposing the war legislation are mounting across the country.

In Saitama City, Tokyo’s immediate neighbor to the north, more than 10,000 people participated in a rally on May 31 calling for the revocation of the Abe Cabinet decision to allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense.

The rally was organized by a group of lawyers, trade union members, women, and youth who are working to defend the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.

At the gathering, lawyer Koide Shigeyoshi, former chair of the Saitama Bar Association, delivered a speech on behalf of the organizing committee. “It is the force of popular movements that can foil the Abe Cabinet attempt to destroy the pacifist Constitution,” he stressed.

Ex-member of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces Doro Norikazu made a speech as a guest speaker. “Prime Minister Abe’s goal is to revise the Constitution and upgrade the SDF to ‘national defense forces’. Being careful not to be fooled by Abe’s lies, let’s raise our voices against Japan’s use of the collective self-defense right,” he said.

A high school student talked about her experience of collecting signatures in her school in opposition to exercising the controversial right. “I want to think about our future together with my friends,” she said.

On the same day, teachers’ unions staged a rally and parade in Kyoto City, with about 850 people taking part.

At the rally, a 29-year-old woman teacher said, “If the war legislation is enacted, teachers would be forced to explain to children about the ‘justifiability’ of the wars in which Japan is engaged. We must scrap such bills at all costs.”

In Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture, which has the home port for the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet, some 300 women wearing red-colored clothes and accessories paraded through the downtown area. They called out to passersby, “We won’t fight in wars!” “We won’t send anybody to wars!” and “Let’s give the red penalty card to the Abe administration and kick them out!”

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) on May 29 held its annual general meeting in Tokyo, adopting a statement condemning the war legislation for going against the constitutional principle standing for peace.


Past related articles:
> Pro-Article 9 citizens launch weekly demonstration against Abe’s war legislation [May 22, 2015]
> Federation of municipal leaders’ A9As in Tohoku region adopts appeal calling for scrapping of war bills [May 23, 2015]