Spotlight: Controversial bills "sets Japan on a very dangerous road": European media

The recent approval of controversial security bills that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bulldozed through the lower house of parliament on Thursday despite protests will break Japan's "explicitly pacifist constitution" and "sets Japan on a very dangerous road", British media have reported.

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 to be widely expanded in the biggest security shift in the nation' s post-war history, through parliament's lower chamber.

The changes are unpopular and thousands demonstrated outside parliament on Wednesday, BBC reported, noting that polls show more than half of Japanese citizens oppose them.

BBC quoting a correspondent reported that those in Japan who oppose the bills believe they break Japan's explicitly pacifist constitution and also distrust Abe, who is known for his right-wing views.

Organisers of a large protest which took place outside parliament on Wednesday night said about 100,000 people showed up, according to BBC.

"I'm angry at both the new security bill and Prime Minister Abe. The bill is against Japan's constitution ... Abe does not understand it," the report quoted a student Jinshiro Motoyama as saying.

Reuters reported that critics believe the proposed legislation to ease limits on the military is a step toward gutting not only the charter's pacifist Article 9, but basic principles such as respect for human rights.

"I think he (Abe) hates the concept of modern constitutionalism, the concept that the powers of the government should be restricted by the constitution," Reuters quoted Yasuo Hasebe, a constitutional scholar at Waseda University, as saying.

The Independent newspaper quoted Hasebe as saying that Abe's solution has been to ignore decades of legal consensus and read the constitution as he sees fit, which the scholar says "sets Japan on a very dangerous road."

Meanwhile, German media have reported the approval of the controversial security bills was widely criticized as "a violation of Japan's constitution".

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.

Commenting on the move, Polish television station tvn24 said "Japan is breaking off with pacifism".

A report by Polish Portal Wyborcza.pl asked, "Whether Japan will renounce its pacifistic constitution?" Newspaper Nowy Dziennik carried a report reflecting on "the silent remilitarization of Japan."

Polish media reports also drew attention to the protests of Japanese citizens against the amendments, stressing that the Japanese public did not want to engage in international military conflicts. Endit