Protests Across Japan Against Security Bills

More than 150,000 people across Japan joined rallies Sunday against security legislation that would allow its Self-Defense Forces to fight overseas for the first time since the end of World War II.



Kyodo News reported that protests took place at more than 200 locations, including in front of the Diet building in Tokyo.



The organizer was cited as saying that around 120,000 people joined the gathering, which also drew opposition party leaders including the Democratic Party of Japan's head Katsuya Okada Japanese Communist Party Chiarman Kazuo Shii.



Aki Okuda, a central member of a group called Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy, stressed the need to preserve the country's pacifist constitution in a speech near the parliament.



"Is it extreme, biased, or self-centered to say that the constitution should be protected?" the 23-year-old asked.



Among the other rallies countrywide, around 25,000 people participated in a park in western Osaka city.



Another 500 and 800 joined in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, weeks after the cities marked the 70th anniversary of U.S. atomic bombings before the end of WWII.



Mitsugi Moriguchi, 78, an atomic bomb survivor, was "ed by Kyodo as saying, "I was very happy when, after the war ended, my elementary school teacher taught me that we would no longer need to go to war [thanks to the constitution]."



Moriguchi expressed concerns that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "is trying to change that constitution."



Maya Uchino, whose grandfather witnessed the bombing of Nagasaki, said, "I got interested in the topic after hearing about war and peace from my family."



The 13-year-old added that while watch televised discussions on the legislation bills, "I feel that Prime Minister Abe is not properly answering questions [raised by parliamentarians]."



After Abe's Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Komeito party, pushed the bills through a lower house plenary session last month, they are currently under debate in the upper house.



The government is aiming for their passage during the current Diet session, which is set to run through late September following an extension.



The legislation would significantly expand the scope of overseas operations by Japan's Self-Defense Forces, and allow the country to increase contribution to international peacekeeping efforts and defend allies under armed attack to cope with new security environments.



Those opposing the bills have argued that by exercising the right to collective self-defense the country would violate its war-renouncing constitution.



The constitution -- imposed on the country after WWII -- does not allow Japan to maintain a military, and only allows it to defend itself if facing direct attack.



Public opinion is running against passage by, in some instances, 60 percent -- though it is not clear if this is opposition to the bills themselves or the way, they say, they are being "rammed" through parliament.



According to Japan's so-called "60-day rule", the measures can be resubmitted to the lower house if the upper chamber fails to vote on them within 60 days of its passage in the House of Representatives.



They can then be enacted into law upon winning the approval of more than two-thirds of attending lawmakers -- a percent the ruling coalition holds in the 475-seat chamber. - Ankara