Tens of thousands rally in Tokyo against constitutional revisions

November 4, 2017

T0KYO- Tens of thousands of people staged a rally in central Tokyo on Friday to protest against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to amend the country's constitution.

About 40,000 people gathered outside the parliament building to mark the 71st anniversary of the promulgation of the constitution, according to the rally's organizers.

"The Japanese government is on the path of opposing a ban on nuclear weapons and destroying Article 9 of the constitution," said Akira Kawasaki, a member of the international steering group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

"The right path to take is to campaign to protect and use Article 9 and eliminate nuclear weapons globally," Kawasaki said, referring to the war-renouncing provision of the constitution.

Former Supreme Court justice Kunio Hamada expressed opposition to Abe's proposal for amending the constitutional provision to recognize the role of the Self-Defense Forces. The proposal "will undermine the trust and standards built over the 70 years since the end of World War II," he said.

Toshiyuki Sano, a 67-year-resident of Tokyo, said that his father was pulled into the war while my uncle died in the war. "Article 9 should be protected at any cost," he said. Jiji Press