Shinzo Abe state funeral: Japan fills with tension as Tokyo holds ceremony for ex-PM
Global News
Tokyo was under maximum security, with a large number of uniformed police mobilize around the Budokan hall, where the funeral is being held.
Japan is filled with tension, rather than sadness, on Tuesday as a rare state funeral for the assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, one of the most divisive leader, deeply splits the nation.
Tokyo was under maximum security, with a large number of uniformed police mobilize around the Budokan hall, where the funeral is being held, and major train stations. Roads around the venue are closed throughout the day, and coin lockers at main stations were sealed for security.
Hours before the ceremony began, dozens of people carrying bouquets of flowers queued at public flower-laying stands at nearby Kudanzaka park.
Opponents of the state-sponsored honor were to hold rallies elsewhere in Tokyo and around the country. They say tax money should be spent on more meaningful causes, such as to address widening economic disparities caused by Abe’s policies.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has been criticized for forcing the costly event for Abe, who was assassinated in July, amid widening controversy about him and the governing party’s decades-long cozy relations with the ultra-conservative Unification Church, accused of raking in huge donations by brainwashing adherents.
Kishida says the longest-serving leader in Japan’s modern political history deserves the honor.
The government says the funeral is not meant to force anyone to honor Abe. But most of the nation’s 47 prefectural governments are to fly the flag at half-staff and observe a moment of silence.
Opponents say Kishida’s one-sided decision without parliamentary approval was undemocratic, a reminder of how the prewar imperialist government used state funerals to fan nationalism. The prewar funeral law was abolished after World War II. The only postwar state funeral for a political leader, for Shigeru Yoshida in 1967, also faced criticism for lacking legal bases.