LDP Drafts a Bill against Destruction of National Flag

A project team of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) made a draft of legislation that punishes a crime of damaging national flag. Although the LDP expects the law to protect people’s sentiment of cherishing national flag, there is no specific example in which most Japanese citizens were hurt their love for flag of Japan. Some lawmakers concern violation of freedom of expression. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi nonetheless promotes this right-wing agenda.

The draft is full of unclear concepts. What is national flag? The draft answers that it is “something commonly regarded as national flag.” It would be made of a fabric or paper, shown by hanging on a rod. The draft proposes punishment of two years or less in prison or 200 thousand yen or less of fine to damaging a national flag “in a way which causes extreme uneasiness or dislike of someone.”

 

The crime of damaging national flag may include destruction of one owned by an individual. Publishing a video of destroying national flag through social networking service will be punished. The object of punishment excludes animation video, cartoon, video game, something created by generative artificial intelligence or Japanese flag painted in a drawing. While it is common that a small national flag is standing at the top of chicken rice in a kid’s lunch of restaurants, the project team explained that damaging that national flag should not be punished.

 

A major question on the legislation is why it is necessary now. Penal Code of Japan has a provision of punishing damage on foreign flag for diplomatic reasons. The conservatives including Takaichi argue that it would be unacceptable that damaging Japanese flag is legally tolerated, while damaging foreign flag is a crime. Even though there is no specific dispute over invasion of interest by damaging Japanese flag, they assert that possible interest in the future should be protected.

 

In the discussion at the LDP project team, it was reconfirmed that intention of damaging national flag should not be considered. The legislature is going to punish only act of damaging regardless its purpose. They supposed that it would trespass freedom of expression, once the punishment is made based on its purpose. However, one of the members of the LDP, former minister for foreign affairs Takeshi Iwaya, firmly opposed the legislation, arguing that punishing “what was communicated,” not “what has been done,” would be violating freedom of expression.

 

A right-wing and populist opposition party, Sanseito, has submitted its own bill for punishing damaging national flag to the Diet in April. Another conservative opposition party, Democratic Party for the People, is careful about violation of freedom of expression. Centrist Reform Alliance is skeptical about necessity of the legislature. Japan Communist Party strongly opposes the legislation, recognizing it as a surveillance of people’s thoughts.

 

Takaichi once drafted a bill to punish damaging national flag in 2012, which was　scrapped without enough support. She still insists on it as a prime minister and had an agreement with Japan Innovation Party in last October, which hoped enactment of an act in 2026 ordinary session. The conservative legislators in the LDP are promoting the legislature to appeal their support for Takaichi. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LDP Kickoffs Presidential Election

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)   kicked off  its presidential election campaign on September 22 and five lawmakers officially submitted their candidacy to the party. Having lost majority in both Houses of the Diet under the leadership of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the presidential election should be about how to regain power through reform of the party. Nevertheless, the candidates do not talk much about the reform, rather focusing on economic policies for the people or maneuvers to attract the opposition parties.   Those five candidates are former Minister on Economic Security Takayuki Kobayashi, former LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Minister on Economic Security Sanae Takaichi and Miniser of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Shinjiro Koizumi.   Kobayashi insists on temporary income tax cut with a fixed rate, which return is bigger for high-income taxpayers than them with low-income. Identifying h...
Read more

Defense Ministers Meet in Seoul

Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani visited Republic of Korea and had a meeting with ROK Minister of National Defense Ahn Gyu-back. It was the first time for Japanese defense minister to have a bilateral ministerial meeting in these ten years. Both ministers reconfirmed importance of trilateral security cooperation including the United States to deal with another trilateral cooperation by China, Russia and North Korea.   In the  press conference  after the meeting, Nakatani stressed importance of maintaining bilateral relationship between Japan and ROK, or Japan-ROK-U.S. relationship in a volatile security environment. Both ministers agreed on promoting discussion by both defense authorities and exchange of personnel. They also agreed on further cooperation in cutting edge technologies including artificial intelligence, unmanned system or the space. They will maintain joint exercise called “Freedom Edge,” in which multiple countries participate.   Their bilateral relati...
Read more

Contaminated Soil to Prime Minister’s Residence

Shigeru Ishiba Cabinet discussed how the radioactively contaminated soil in Fukushima prefecture would be treated and decided some of it should be used in Prime Minister’s Official Residence in Tokyo. Although the soil needs to be removed from Fukushima with legal requirement, the government of Japan has not found anywhere it should go. Ishiba administration hopes that the decision will pave the way for any local community to accept the soil.   Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant emitted a huge amount of radiation into the air, which contaminated the land surface around the site, in the severe accident in East Japan Great Earthquake in 2011. The contaminated soil in Fukushima prefecture was stocked in the intermediate stockyard built in the towns of Futaba and Okuma, where the power plant is located. The government promised the people in Fukushima to remove the soil out of Fukushima prefecture within thirty years, when it decided to build the stockyard in 2014.   The total a...
Read more