Japan Press Weekly

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2017 May 17 - 23 [POLITICS]

4,200 citizens rally to scrap anti-conspiracy bill

About 4,200 citizens on May 16 held a rally in Tokyo and called for the repeal of an anti-conspiracy bill which the Abe administration is aiming to pass through the Lower House within the current session of the Diet.

Fukuyama Shingo, co-chair of a citizens’ group working to defend Article 9 said to participants in his speech, “The struggle for scraping the anti-conspiracy bill has been spreading. Let us increase our concerted effort to repeal the bill.”

Japanese Communist Party Vice Chair Yamashita Yoshiki, Democratic Party Lower House member Edano Yukio, Liberal Party co-leader Yamamoto Taro, Social Democratic Party Policy Council Chair Yoshikawa Hajime, and Okinawa Whirlwind (a political group in the Upper House) representative Itokazu Keiko respectively delivered speeches in solidarity.

JCP Yamashita said, “Diet deliberations revealed that the anti-conspiracy bill has a number of serious flaws. Let us scrap the bill by mobilizing mass public opposition!”

One of the rally participants, a woman in her 60s, said, “Any society where people cannot express their opinions freely is not healthy. I will do everything to block the path leading to war.”

After the rally, the participants marched in demonstration and chanted in chorus, “Scrap the conspiracy bill!”, “Maintain the Constitution!”