Japan<\/a>ese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe\u2019s state funeral as they shouted slogans and waved banners Friday in a Tokyo park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cAbe\u2019s policies supported war,\u201d demonstrator Mayumi Ishida said, noting Abe consistently sought to raise defense spending. Like others at the protest, Ishida said he feared Abe\u2019s views heralded a step back to the days of Japan\u2019s militarism preceding World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abe, who was assassinated in July, was Japan\u2019s longest-serving leader and one of its most divisive in the postwar period because of his revisionist view of wartime history, support for a stronger military, and what critics call an autocratic approach and cronyism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Opposition to the state funeral has also grown because of politicians\u2019 close ties to the Unification Church. Social media posts attributed to the suspect in Abe’s assassination show he blamed the church for ruining his life, and police say he targeted Abe over his links to the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government plan for his state funeral to be held Tuesday has galvanized public opposition against the governing Liberal Democratic party, which has ruled Japan for nearly the entire postwar period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Protests and marches opposing the state funeral have been popping up nationwide, drawing hundreds of people. Earlier this week, a man set himself on fire by the prime minister\u2019s residence in what was described as a suicide attempt in apparent protest of the funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yoshiko Kamata, a part-time worker at a convenience store, acknowledged the state funeral couldn\u2019t be stopped, but it was an opportunity to drive home her message that Abe never stood with regular people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want to show where we stand,\u201d she said, noting dictators were being invited to the state funeral. \u201cJust because he is dead, we aren\u2019t going to forgive Abe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
State funerals in Japan have been historically reserved for the emperor. The decision to hold one for Abe was made by the Cabinet and did not go through parliamentary approval. Some lawyers\u2019 groups have challenged its legality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The official public tab for the funeral is about 1.7 billion yen ($12 million), but experts note hidden costs such as security add to the total. Police were out in droves at Friday\u2019s protest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABC News: TOKYO — Several hundred protesters demanded the cancellation of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe\u2019s state funeral as they shouted slogans and waved banners Friday in a Tokyo park. \u201cAbe\u2019s policies supported war,\u201d demonstrator Mayumi Ishida said, noting Abe consistently sought to raise defense spending. Like others at the protest, Ishida said he feared Abe\u2019s views heralded a step back to the days of Japan\u2019s militarism preceding World War II. Abe, who was assassinated in July, was Japan\u2019s longest-serving leader and one of its most divisive in the postwar period because of his revisionist view of wartime history,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27414","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\/27414","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=27414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27416,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27414\/revisions\/27416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}