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Protesters out on the streets as Abe tries to build support
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THOUSANDS of people took to Japan’s streets again yesterday to protest at laws expected to be passed this week that could see troops fight overseas for the first time in 70 years.
An estimated 13,000 were outside parliament in Tokyo demanding security bills be scrapped, ahead of a scheduled committee vote, the penultimate stage before they become law in the officially pacifist nation.
By 10pm the debate had still not started as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tried to consolidate cross-party support for the controversial legislation.
“Japan is now heading toward war, blindly following the United States. The bills are against the constitution,” said 55-year-old Makiko Inui as she stood in the rain outside parliament.
“Prime Minister Abe is wrong in his way of trying to build peace. We must oust Abe or Japan could be destroyed.”
Yesterday’s protests were the latest in weeks of rallies that have drawn tens of thousands on to the streets to oppose Abe’s plans to expand the role of the military, a show of public anger on a scale rarely seen in Japan.
Organizers said 35,000 people had turned out for the rally, although police put the figure at 13,000.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of people faced off from a line of police outside a hotel in Yokohama, a city south of Tokyo, where lawmakers were holding a public hearing on the bills.
Demonstrators later began blocking roads, chanting anti-war slogans and trying to stop lawmakers from driving away after the debate.
“I am angry,” said 28-year-old Hironobu Saeki, a graduate student at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, outside parliament. “The Abe government is taking its people too lightly,” he said.
Under the planned changes the military would have the option of going into battle to protect allies such as the United States even if there was no direct threat to Japan itself or its people.
Although the current post-war constitution, which bars troops from taking part in combat except in pure self-defense, was imposed by US occupiers, many Japanese feel strongly any change would alter the country’s pacifist character.
There are growing signs the bills have taken a toll on Abe’s once high popularity. Opinion polls show the vast majority of the public oppose them.
But despite the fierce opposition, the bills are expected to be approved by both the committee and Japan’s upper house, where the ruling coalition has a majority large enough to push them through.
Opposition parties have made every effort to block the bills, including by physically trying to prevent committee members from entering the chamber for yesterday’s debate.
But they are still expected to become law either today or tomorrow. Many legal scholars have said the changes are unconstitutional, and critics worry they would drag Japan into American wars in far-flung parts of the globe.
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