Tokyo rails against PM Abe’s security bills

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered near Japan's Diet (parliament) building on Sunday to oppose legislation allowing the military to fight overseas, the latest sign of public mistrust in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security policy. In one of Japan's biggest protests in years - organizers put the crowd at 120,000 - people of all ages braved occasional rain to join the rally, chanting and holding up placards with slogans such as "No War" and "Abe, quit." Demonstrators swarmed into the street before parliament's main gate after the crowd size made it impossible for police, out in heavy numbers, to keep them to the sidewalks. A second nearby park area also filled with protesters. The rally was one of more than 300 in Japan this weekend protesting Abe's move to loosen the post-war, pacifist constitution's constraints on the military. The demonstration was believed to be the biggest in Tokyo since the mass protests against nuclear power in the summer of 2012, after the March 2011 Fukushima atomic disaster. "Sitting in front of a TV and just complaining wouldn't do," said Naoko Hiramatsu, a 44-year-old associate professor in French and one of the Tokyo protesters. "If I don't take action and try to put a stop on this, I will not be able to explain myself to my child in the future," said Hiramatsu, holding her 4-year-old son in her arms in the thick of the protest. The Japanese Prime Minister in July pushed through parliament's lower house a group of bills that let Japan's armed forces defend an ally under attack, a drastic shift in Japan's post-war security policy which has been widely criticized by many. The bills are now before the upper chamber, which is also controlled by Abe's ruling bloc and aims to pass the legislation before parliament's session ends on September 27. Abe's ratings have taken a hit from opposition to the security bills. Media surveys show those who oppose his government as outnumbering his supporters, and more than half are against the security bills. "We need to make the Abe government realize the public is having a sense of crisis and angry. Let's work together to have the bills scrapped," Katsuya Okada, head of Japan's largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, told the Tokyo rally. The Communist Party chief Kazuo Shii said that the Abe administration avoided directly answering questions over the bills during parliament deliberations, vowing to stop the bills' endorsement in the upper house. Meanwhile, Teiichi Tanigaki, secretary general of Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said the security legislation issue should be resolved during the current Diet session, hinting that the ruling party will steamroller the controversial bills through the Diet that has been extended to late September, broadcaster NHK said Sunday.