Japan Press Weekly

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2008 January 9 - 15 [POLITICS]

New anti-terrorism special measures bill must be scrapped: JCP Shii

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo at a press conference on January 10 said that the House of Representatives must refrain from forcibly enacting the new anti-terrorism special measures bill that a House of Councilors committee voted down earlier in the same day.

“The House of Representatives must seriously consider the House of Councilors’ decision and scrap the bill,” he added.

According to newspaper polls conducted at the end of the year, opposition to the bill has risen to over 50 percent, and the opposition to the ruling bloc’s attempt to enact it by a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives has also become a majority, Shii pointed out.

Shii characterized the bill as absurd and said, “The more the bill is discussed in the Diet, the more the public opposition to it grows.”

Behind the increasing public criticism of the bill is the growing awareness of the fact that war cannot eradicate terrorism as well as the fact that the scandal-ridden Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces are unqualified to call for any “international contribution,” Shii pointed out.

Referring to Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo’s repeated remarks that his cabinet will ask the public for understanding and cooperation in dealing with the issue, Shii said, “The ruling bloc must refrain from forcibly enacting the bill that the public neither understands nor supports.”