I wouldn’t say that he was unpopular, but the end of his premiership was marred by corruption scandals. He officially resigned for health reasons.
The main things policywise were his attempts to revise the constitution to allow Japan to remilitarize (which partially succeeded with a new law that allows the “Self Defense” Force to act in “defense” of Japan’s allies) and a national security law that is pretty draconian (kind of like America’s Espionage Act of 1917).
It would appear that his assassination was not politically motivated, but the assassin’s mindset is still largely shrouded in mystery. The police held a press conference a few hours ago and said that the assailant had a bone to pick with a certain, unnamed religious organization, with which he believed that Abe was involved.
It’s just past midnight in Japan now, so I don’t think we will get any more updates until morning. It’s been a long day for me and I’m still processing a lot. I think we may have to wait a while for more information on motives. All we have right now are the evidently very disjointed statements that Tetsuya Yamagami has made to police.
I think I’m going to try and sleep now. The election will still be held on Sunday, and I am still planning to vote for the first time in Japan.
I just want to say please do not jump to conclusions about the motives right now. There are a lot of ugly, racist conspiracies going around on Japanese social media. The Ministry of Justice has even put out a warning to watch out for misinformation on social media, cautioning that libelous statements about certain ethnic groups may constitute human rights violations. I really don’t want to get into it right now, but Japan has a long and sad history of scapegoating ethnic Koreans and Chinese when these kinds of national tragedies happen. The Korean Consulate General in Fukuoka has even put out a warning for citizens to be careful of possible hate crimes. It makes me sick that these kinds of conspiracies are going around online. That’s not Japan. That’s a very small but very loud group of bigots.
Thanks for the dispatchers from the Land of the Rising Sun, I’ve been reading your posts in lieu of the vitriol that the hateful internet is no doubt saturated with. Cheers, and I hope your weekend ahead gets orders of magnitude greater!
in the past five years there have been 70 shootings with 14 fatalities. 49 of the 70 were yakuza related.
for comparison with what we regard as the inevitable, unavoidable result of freedumb!!! this makes the first shooting fatality in japan so far this year.
edited to add that the first sentence refers to japan. it obviously didn’t refer to the u.s.
Plus that would be considered half a kindergarten class here in the states. Six months without a single gun death would be considered quite astounding here for a population that size.
Well anyways, Chris Broad gave his thoughts and tried to present more context to folks overseas about this (he didn’t show graphic footage but he did show the moments leading into this so take that as a heads up warning)
The only information we’ve gotten on the motivation behind the assassination so far is that the assassin said that he ‘targeted Abe specifically because of Abe’s associations with a specific religious organization’. There hasn’t been any further clarification beyond this.
This thread shows the text from a newspaper article from a couple of years ago about Abe and his third cabinet’s connections with religious organizations. They are/were:
Shinto Association of Spirituality
Nippon Kaigi
All Japan Buddhist Church
Unification Church
(1) and (3) are general associations for their respective religions, similar to the National Council of Churches in the U.S. (2) Nippon Kaigi is a far-right ultra-nationalist NGO and lobby (of which Shinzo Abe and most prominent people in the LDP party are members) that promotes Shinto as a national religion and the cult of the Emperor, so it’s definitely religion-adjacent if not a religious organization in and of itself.
The inclusion of the Unification Church (i.e. Moonies) is a bit of an outlier, but Abe and the LDP have had close association with them for the past several years for two reasons:
The Unification Church in Japan supports the LDP because they (the church) are strongly anti-communist, and this aligns with the LDP’s right-wing anti-communist policies
They are a very political organization and bring in votes for the LDP.
The article goes on to explain that the Unification Church officially changed its name a couple of years ago to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, including in Japan, and that key members of Abe’s cabinet have attended various meetings, rallies, etc. run by the Unification Church.
What this means for the assassin’s motivations we still don’t know, but considering the Unification Church’s history and reputation of cult behaviors, it does make them stand out as low-hanging fruit so to speak.
from that bbc one box, and seen elsewhere on many reports about this
“in a country where people don’t think about violent crime.”
it’s a little off topic but i suspect japanese women think about violent crime. because: yes, crimes like murder - and assassination - are much less common than in other countries. but sexual violence and exploitation is a thing in japan like it is in many other places. it doesn’t show up much in crime stats because even when people report it - and reporting is rare - reports are often frequently dismissed by police
I heard on the radio that the japanese police said in a first statement that the assassin doesn´t seem to be all there mentally.
Or maybe he is going for an insanity plea, that way he may spend the rest of his days in a mental institution, instead of being hanged.
Agreed. Cynically, I can’t help but think there’s some political procedure/strategy behind anything like this. Like, it’s better that he officially dies while in a hospital under intensive care than out in some public space in front of a train station.
I felt the same sort of thing about Ayrton Senna’s death: chances are pretty good it was over and done with at the circuit, but it’s better for all concerned if officially he slipped away in hospital. (Even now, 27 years later, I still kind of tear up recalling the morning I heard that Senna had crashed and was killed.)
Obviously, that’s how conservative talking heads will spin this, knowing that their audience wouldn’t take into account how successfully Japan’s laws have squelched gun violence, even if said talking heads mentioned the near-elimination of gun violence in Japan — which they likely won’t. They may even attempt to make political hay out of Biden touching on gun violence in his offer of condolence.
Abe was the PM at that time and, yes, offered his condolences. But was he still flogging his ultra-nationalist views then and – if so – were there any editorials/commentary at that time on how Abe’s views may have spurred on the arsonist?
I have nothing to say either way. The guy appealed to extremists and Japan has a culture where its difficult for people vent their anger/hostilities easily or in a socially acceptable fashion.
- are much less common than in other countries. but sexual violence and exploitation is a thing in japan like it is in many other places. it doesn’t show up much in crime stats because even when people report it - and reporting is rare - reports are often frequently dismissed by police