Roundup: Controversial security bills passed in Japan's lower house committee amid strong opposition

The Japanese ruling coalition on Wednesday rammed through its controversial security bills at a lower house special committee amid strong opposition within and outside the parliament, and has set to push through the bills at the all-powerful chamber on Thursday.

Wednesday's passage paved the way for the ruling camp, which groups Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its small partner the Komeito Party, to vote the legislation in the lower house, in which it secures over two thirds of seats.

Thursday's vote is crucial for Japan's postwar defense posture since the bills, if enacted, will give the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) greater role worldwide, and according to Japanese law, if a bill was passed in the lower house but vetoed by the upper house, it could still be enacted after securing over two thirds of votes in a new poll in the lower house.

Under the security legislation package, the SDF could be dispatched overseas to engage in armed conflicts and help to defend others even if Japan itself is not attacked, or to exercise the right to collective self-defense, but opponents of the bills insist the bills are unconstitutional.

Japan's pacifist Constitution restricts the SDF to combat aboard and use the collective defense right. Recent polls said that about 90 percent of the country's constitutional academics believe that the legislation violates the Japanese supreme law.

During Wednesday's debate and vote at the special panel, opposition lawmakers posted banners reading "oppose ramming through the bills," "defeat the Abe administration" and "zero tolerance on Abe's politics" in an effort to stop and disturb the vote.

Kiyomi Tsujimoto, a lawmaker from the major opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), said during the debate that the ruling bloc's efforts to push through the bills destroyed Japan's democracy and pacifism and required the ruling parties to retract the bills.

Akira Nagatsuma, acting chief of the DPJ, questioned Prime Minister Abe over his historical revisionism that how could such a historical revisionist properly exercise the right to collective self-defense that would drag Japan into war again.

Although acknowledging that the bills failed to win sufficient public understandings, Abe said that the legislation should be approved on time before the end of the current Diet session in late September.

Recent polls released by major Japanese media showed that the majority of the Japanese population were opposed to the security legislation, with separate polls carried out by the Nikkei Daily, Mainichi Shimbun, NHK and Asahi Shimbun showing that at least 55 percent of those surveyed voiced their opposition, while only 30 percent supported the bills.

The poll taken by the center-right Yomiuri Shimbun also showed that about 50 percent were against the bills and only the survey conducted by the rightwing Sankei Shimbun showed that supporters of the bills surpassed the opponents with a reading of 49 percent to 43.8 percent.

About 1,000 Japanese protested outside the parliament building in downtown Tokyo when the panel passed the bills and larger protests will be held later the day and on Thursday. Over 20,000 demonstrators rallied in Hibiya Park Tuesday night showing their anger and opposition over the security bills. Endi