Japan Press Weekly

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2014 May 7 - 13 [POLITICS]

Citizens at Constitution Day events resolve to block Abe’s move to change Japan into war fighting nation

On May 3, the day celebrating the 67th anniversary of enforcement of the pacifist Constitution, citizens across Japan took part in rallies and demonstrations in protest against the government move to open the way for a war fighting nation and Japan’s use of the collective self-defense right.

A Tokyo rally gathered 3,700 people in Hibiya Public Hall. The overflow audience viewed live images of the rally on a large screen set up outside the hall.

In the rally, Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo and other guest speakers, including journalist Tsuda Daisuke, Gakushuin University Professor Aoi Miho, and Social Democratic Party Chair Yoshida Tadatomo, delivered speeches.

Aoi said, “Since the postwar Constitution came into effect 67 years ago, the state has been bound by Article 9. Thus, Japan has not killed anyone. We must be proud of this.”

Regarding the government attempt to legalize the use of the right to collective self-defense by changing the constitutional interpretation, the JCP chair pointed out that many people are criticizing this attempt as a blatant denial of the validity of constitutionalism. He called on the participants to join hands with a broader range of people regardless of their stance toward Article 9 in order to protect constitutionalism and hamper the government attempt to override the Constutition.

After the rally, the participants paraded through the Ginza shopping district crowded with tourists and shoppers enjoying the “Golden Week” holidays, and appealed to passersby to help protect the Constitution.

In disaster-stricken Miyagi’s Sendai City, 950 people held a rally under the theme of poverty and war.

Shimizu Masahiko, constitutional law professor at Nippon Sport Science University, explained that the current Japanese Constitution aims at creating a society without structural violence, such as poverty, starvation, oppression, and discrimination. “The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is intending to revise this supreme law which is even more pacifistic than the UN Charter,” he criticized. The 950 participants marched in demonstration through the city’s downtown area to increase people’s awareness of the pressing need to protect the pacifist Constitution.

In a rally in Hiroshima, about 60 people aged between 5 and 77 performed a musical comedy which satirizes Prime Minister Abe’s reckless move toward constitutional revision.

On behalf of the rally’s organizing committee, lawyer Ishiguchi Shun’ichi in an opening speech said, “This year, we really need to raise our voices against the move to revise the Constitution.”