- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is being laid to rest with a rare state funeral.
- Abe was slain in July while out campaigning.
- Among the 4,000 mourners in attendance, are Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is being laid to rest with a rare state funeral that has polarised the country. Abe was slain in July while out campaigning.
The memorial service for Abe, who served as Japan’s prime leader for the longest period of time, is taking place on Tuesday. Among the 4,000 mourners in attendance are Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US Vice President Kamala Harris. At 2 p.m. local time (0 p.m. GMT), the ceremony officially began as Akie Abe, the late prime minister’s wife, brought his ashes inside Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan auditorium. The Self Defense Forces of Japan fired 19 salute shots in his honour.
Hundreds of Japanese citizens have been leaving floral tributes for Abe at a neighbouring park since early in the morning.
However, the $11.5 million event, as well as information regarding Abe’s relationship with the South Korean Unification Church and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), have caused a significant public uproar in Japan.
The religious organisation is accused by detractors of being a “predatory cult” that coerces its adherents in Japan into giving extravagant amounts of money.
Tetsuya Yamagami, who killed Abe, is said to have bankrupted his family after his mother gave a donation of about 100 million yen ($692,000) to the organisation. According to Yamagami, the reason he shot Abe on July 8 was because of the prime minister’s support for the church. Since then, an LDP internal poll has revealed that roughly half of the 379 national lawmakers from the ruling party had associations with religious institutions and related organisations.
These include participating in church events, giving to the church, and accepting volunteers to help with elections.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s approval rating has fallen below 30% as a result of the revelations.
Kishida, meanwhile, has defended the state funeral as essential, pointing to Abe’s “achievements” and around 1,700 condolence notes from more than 260 nations and territories. The event on Tuesday is being attended by 700 foreign leaders, including the Australian Prime Minister Antony Albanese.
Speaking during Abe’s burial will be Kishida, the leaders of Japan’s lower and upper houses of parliament, and the chief judge of the land.
Tokyo has strengthened security, closing schools near the funeral venue, and mobilising 20,000 police personnel to ensure the event’s safety. There are demonstrations against the burial in Tokyo as well; according to a survey conducted by the Mainichi newspaper, 62 per cent of respondents oppose having such an event.
The former leader was embroiled in scandals in which he was accused to have mishandled campaign finances and practised cronyism at the time of his resignation due to health issues in 2020. At the time, he was also under fire for how he handled the COVID-19 epidemic and for insisting on holding the Tokyo
Olympics and Paralympics in spite of the disease’s onset.
“Kishida’s choice to give Abe a state funeral without consulting the Diet or the court reeks of precisely the kind of power arrogance that the public identifies with Abe. The public opposes the state funeral by a 2-1 ratio, and a large part of this resistance can be due to Abe’s harmful legacies and meagre accomplishments, according to Jeffrey Kingston, history and Asian studies professor at Temple University in Japan.
Few people, according to polls, think Kishida handled the Church matter well, which may be in part to blame for his decline in popularity. Supporters are hoping that everything would blow away, but the attention from the media and the recent Olympic bribery scandals serve as additional reminders of the Abe government’s shady tactics.
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