Abe's new security bills "violation of Japan's constitution": German media

The approval of controversial security bills Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushed through the lower house of parliament on Thursday despite rising public concerns was widely criticized as "a violation of Japan's constitution," German media have reported.

German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported Thursday that critics believed the bill was a violation of Japan's constitution and enhanced public concern that Japan would abandon its long-standing "pacifist" policy, which the country has been following since its capitulation at the end of World War II in 1945.

In a report titled "Japan is pursuing a new military doctrine", the Welt newspaper focused on the unpopularity of Abe's bill among Japanese opposition lawmakers and the public.

"The opposition left the chamber in protest and boycotted the vote," wrote the Welt, while reporting on Thursday's vote in the lower house of Japanese parliament.

The newspaper also followed concerns of many Japanese people that Japan would again become a war-ready country.

"A poll published by the broadcaster NHK shows that 61 percent of the Japanese surveyed have rejected the course of their government ... Worried Japanese have been protesting across the country. Ten thousand academics called on Abe to change his policy in an open letter," reported the German daily.

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition under the hawkish stewardship of Abe rammed the controversial security bills, that will allow for the scope of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to be widely expanded in the biggest security shift in the nation' s post-war history, through parliament's lower chamber on Thursday. Endit