Reuters: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
TOKYO -A man set himself on fire near the Japanese prime minister\u2019s office on Wednesday in an apparent protest at the government\u2019s decision to hold a state funeral for former premier Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated earlier this year, media reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man was taken to hospital suffering burns to his entire body, while a police officer who tried to extinguish the flames was also injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man, in his 70s, was unconscious when first found but later told police that he had deliberately doused himself in oil, media said. A letter about Abe\u2019s state funeral and the words \u201cI strongly oppose it,\u201d was found nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police declined to confirm the incident, which took place on what would have been Abe\u2019s 68th birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have heard that police found a man who had suffered burns near government offices, and I\u2019m aware that police are investigating,\u201d chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abe, Japan\u2019s longest serving premier who stepped down in 2020 citing ill-health, was gunned down at a campaign rally on July 8. His state funeral is set for Sept. 27, with some 6,000 people from Japan and overseas set to take part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Opposition to the event has been growing due to revelations after Abe\u2019s killing of links between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), of which he was a powerful member, and the controversial Unification Church. The suspect in Abe\u2019s death has said the church bankrupted his mother and he felt the former prime minister supported it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Links to the Unification Church, founded in South Korea in the 1950s, have grown into a huge problem for current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the LDP since they emerged following Abe\u2019s killing. The LDP earlier this month said a survey showed nearly half of 379 LDP lawmakers had some form of interaction with the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Public sentiment was narrowly in favour of a state funeral at the time it was announced, shortly after Abe\u2019s death, but opinion has shifted sharply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reuters: TOKYO -A man set himself on fire near the Japanese prime minister\u2019s office on Wednesday in an apparent protest at the government\u2019s decision to hold a state funeral for former premier Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated earlier this year, media reported. The man was taken to hospital suffering burns to his entire body, while a police officer who tried to extinguish the flames was also injured. The man, in his 70s, was unconscious when first found but later told police that he had deliberately doused himself in oil, media said. A letter about Abe\u2019s state funeral and the words… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27366,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27364\/revisions\/27366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}