Molotov Cocktails on LDP Headquarters and PM Official Residence

Violence against politics during election campaign occurred again. A man hurled Molotov cocktails to the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party and broke into the fence in front of the Official Residence of Prime Minister with his car in early morning of Saturday October 19th. The case occurred during campaign for general election of the House of Representatives, reminding of assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Nara two years ago. Security status for politically important places can be questioned again. 

According to news reports, a man arrived in front of LDP headquarters in Nagatacho in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, riding a small van, and got off the van and threw five Molotov cocktails into the site at 5:43 on Saturday morning. Nine minutes later, he drove his van to Prime Minister’s Official Residence, about 500 meters away from LDP headquarters, and crushed his van into the guard fence in front of entrance gate of the residence.

 

The man burnt the gate of LDP headquarters and front panel of police car guarding the building, and threw canister igniting flame and smoke to the policemen in front of Prime Minister’s Official Residence and tried to burn his car which loaded gasoline in plastic tanks. The assault caused no serious injury of people guarding those facilities.

 

The man was identified as having considered to run for general election of the House of Representatives from Saitama 2nddistrict in 2009, arguing abolishing the system of mandatory deposit for every candidate. He has also been involved in civil movement of anti-nuclear power plant, and frustrated with the coalition of LDP and Komeito, which promotes resumption of nuclear power plants as many as possible.

 

LDP headquarters and PM Official Residence is guarded by police officers for twenty-four hours every day. However, the police could not stop his assault on Saturday. Although the car did not loaded bombs, the scene of a car crushed into the guard reminded of suicide bombing against occupation of United States Forces in Iraq.

 

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba argued that democracy would never give in violence and reiterated his campaign slogan of preserving people’s safety. The leader of Constitutional Democratic Party, Yoshihiko Noda, stated that threatening freedom of political activities by violence can never be tolerated. National Police Agency ordered all the local police offices to enhance guarding important facilities.

 

It was during a campaign speech when Abe was shot to death in Nara city in July 2022. Fumio Kishida was hurled an explosive device in his campaign rally in Wakayama city for by-elections in April 2023. In spite of enhanced security with National Police Agency’s involvement in security measures of local polices, the police could not stop the assault in highly important facilities in capital city. It is inevitable for the people to embrace skepticisms on guarding capability of the police organization.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amendment of Local Autonomy Law

The House of Representatives started discussion on revision of the Local Autonomy Law, which would vest the national government a power to instruct local government in an emergency. It may change the relationship between the national and local government, which has been recognized as equal. The opposition parties oppose the amendment, arguing that it would give the national government an excessive power.   With the Meiji Restoration, the national government abolished the feudal system, introducing modern governance. However, its autonomy was not sufficient. The governor of each prefecture was appointed by the national government. The local governments subordinated to the national government. It was as late as 2000 when  the Comprehensive Decentralization Law  was enacted and the relationship between the national and local government was defined as equal.   The national government found inconvenience in the relationship between the national and local government, when COVID-19 was preval
Read more

Request for Final Nuclear Disposal Site

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry requested Genkai Town, Saga, to accept “literature survey” for building a final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste. Genkai is going to answer within this month. If it accepts, it will be the third place to accept that survey, following two places in Hokkaido. Main reason to accept the survey is supposed to be subsidy from the national government.   Japan has no final disposal site. Among all 54 reactors in 17 nuclear power generation plant, 12 reactors of 6 plants are operating. The rest of them are not in operation, some of which are determined to be decommissioned. Used nuclear fuels are stocked in each plant, 　 or have sent to a reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori. There are two plans to stock nuclear wastes in the intermediate facility for disposal, one is already built and another is still in negotiation.   Nuclear Fuel Final Disposal Act in 2000 determines to bury nuclear waste in the underground. Literature survey, which is
Read more

Death Penalty Demanded on Criminal of Arson

On the historically brutal case of arson, the public prosecutors demanded an ultimate penalty to the offender. In the trial on the arson and murder in Kyoto Animation in 2019, the prosecutors requested death penalty on the defendant, Shinji Aoba. The lawyers of Aoba argued that the court should avoid sentencing death penalty. The judgement will be passed next January. Aoba was indicted as putting fire after pouring gasoline in the building of Kyoto Animation (Kyoani), a studio producing animation works, and killed 36 staffs and injured 32 on July 18 th , 2019. In the trial, Aoba argued that he could not tolerate Kyoani, because it had stolen his novel story in its works. Aoba later apologized to the victim’s families that he had done too much and regretted it.   In the closing argument in Kyoto Regional Court, the prosecutors demanded death penalty for Aoba, because the number of victims were extremely high in the history of criminal trials in Japan. “It is hard to describe about how t
Read more