Arab News Japan

TOKYO: ABE Tetsuya, the recently elected mayor of Hiji Town in Japan’s western Oita Prefecture, has reiterated his opposition to the construction of a Muslim cemetery in the town by the Beppu Muslim Association.

“This is not just an issue for the town,” he told the Yomiuri newspaper. “We need to get the national government to provide guidelines. It’s a matter of ordinances and a constitutional problem.”

Abe said he wants to freeze the sale of land for the Muslim burial site and enter discussions with the relevant organizations.

After his inauguration ceremony, he said the plan for the burial site would be “difficult to approve in its current form.”

Japanese and naturalized Japanese Muslims have been appealing to the government for several years to help them get approval from local authorities to establish cemeteries for deceased Muslims, but local Japanese residents have opposed the plan.

Opponents to the cemetery say the proposed burial ground bought by the Muslim community is close to an agricultural water source, so having corpses in the area might pollute it. 

Muslims living in Japan who are not of Japanese nationality usually ask to be returned to their own countries for burial outside Japan. Some reports say there are cases of Muslims being cremated due to the shortage of Islamic cemeteries in Japan.