Arab News Japan

TOKYO: Protesters gathered in front of the Parliament (Diet) building on Wednesday to oppose the state funeral of assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

They started the demonstration by playing a song, “Zawawa,” which has an anti-war message. The song is based on a story about a sugarcane field and memories of war in Okinawa. It says: “There was a war, my father died, but in summer, the sugarcane is swaying in the wind as usual.”

Keiji Kokuta, a Communist Party member in Japan’s parliament told Arab News Japan he was opposed to the state funeral “because it forces people to praise Abe’s politics, and thus violates the ‘freedom of thought’” stipulated in Articles 19 and 20 of the Constitution.

Abe was assassinated by the son of a follower of the Korean-based Unification Church, and a number of protesters denounced the links between Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, which governs Japan, and the so-called “Moonie” cult.

The four main opposition parties – Reiwa, the Social Democratic Party, the Communist Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party – submitted questions on the opening day of the parliament deliberations, about the legitimacy and constitutionality of holding a state funeral for the former prime minister.