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Some 25,000 protesters surround Japan's Diet building against war legislation

Xinhua, June 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

About 25,000 protesters on Sunday surrounded Japan's Diet building to express their strong opposition against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's efforts to ram a series of security-related bills which are considered unconstitutional by constitutional experts.

The protesters likened Abe to Adolf Hitler and called the prime minister "Abedolf," saying that on the controversial "war legislation" issue Abe acted as a dictator who would drag Japan into armed conflicts again if the war bills were passed in the current Diet session.

The massive rally came after another one held on Saturday in Tokyo which was participated by about 16,000 demonstrators.

Leaders from the opposition parties also took part in Sunday's rally, with Social Democratic Party chief Tadatomo Yoshida criticizing that the prime minister ignored the parliament and nationals by promising that he will try to seek the passage of the bills during his visit to Washington.

Akira Nagatsuma, from Japan's major opposition Democratic Party of Japan, addressed at the rally that arguments claiming the bills are constitutional by the Abe administration are unconvincing.

Abe is seeking to lay the legal basis for the Self-Defense Forces to exercise the right to collective self-defense through the new security-related legislation package, but the Japanese war- renouncing Constitution clearly bans the country from defending other countries, or the right to collective defense.

Political heavyweights including former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, former defense chief and vice President of the LDP Taku Yamasaki, former Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Masayoshi Takemura and former LDP policy chief Shizuka Kamei all voiced against the new security legislation.

A survey conducted recently also showed that 81.4 percent of the Japanese population believe the government's explanations about the security-related bills are "not sufficient," while only 14.2 percent feel the opposite. Endi