Japan Press Weekly

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2018 April 18 - 24 [POLITICS]

Shii demands severe reprimand of SDF officer for his abusive remarks against Dietmember

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on April 19 in the Diet building said to the press that the Defense Ministry should issue a severe reprimand to a high-ranking Self-Defense Force officer who had verbally attacked a Dietmember.

Two days earlier, Democratic Party member of the House of Councilors Konishi Hiroyuiki at a meeting of the Upper House Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee revealed that just the other day he received abusive remarks such as “You are an enemy of the Japanese people!” from an SDF officer in his 30s who belongs to the Joint Staff Office on a street near the Diet building.

Shii said, “It is totally unacceptable for a uniformed SDF officer to abuse a parliamentarian, a person who was chosen by an election to represent the public.”

Shii stated that the SDF officer in question should be instructed severely and Defense Minister Onodera Itsunori’s supervisory responsibility should be called into question.

Shii stressed that if the mindset of disregarding civilian control as shown in the latest abusive remark incident is widely shared by SDF personnel, it will be a huge problem. He pointed out the fact that in 1938 when the National Mobilization bill was discussed in the Imperial Diet, an Imperial Japanese Army officer shouted, “Shut up!” to intimidate a lawmaker opposing the bill into silence and that this incident paved the way for Japan’s war of aggression. Shii said, “This should be remembered as a lesson of history.”