Japan Press Weekly

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2012 October 3 - 9 [HISTORY]

Ishin-no-Kai members call for restoration of prewar Constitution

At a Tokyo metropolitan assembly meeting held on October 4, “Tokyo Ishin-no-Kai” members voted in favor of a petition for restoring the Constitution of the Great Empire of Japan under which sovereignty resides with the emperor.

The Tokyo Ishin-no-Kai was formed in September by three ex-members of the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party in concert with the Nippon Ishin-no-Kai headed by Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru.

The Japanese Communist Party, DPJ, LDP, and the Komei Party opposed the petition, and it was turned down.

The petition praised the prewar Constitution that gave the emperor absolute power as the head of empire and suppressed the freedom and rights of people. The petition stated, “We, Japanese subjects, should abandon the arrogant idea of popular sovereignty,” and demanded the assembly to resolve that the present Constitution is invalid.

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Head of the Nippon Ishin-no-Kai, Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru on October 2 said that the use of physical punishment by teachers on students should be approved at a meeting of the city’s advisory committee on education.

Regarding the city’s draft education program under which teachers are allowed to suspend trouble-making students from classes, the mayor said, “We should give teachers a little broader authority to punish students.”

He also said that students’ problematic behaviors will escalate if they do not feel the pain of being beaten, and stated, “We should set more effective guidelines on punishing students than the lax ones made by the education ministry.”