From 1889-1891, conservative Prime Minister Aritomo Yamagata became prime minister and oversaw Japan’s first parliamentary elections and the first session of the elected Diet, but he soon became tired of battling the elected representatives of the people.
The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has occasioned a lot of valuable, eye-opening discussions in the media, but few if any have focused upon how Abe’s death could be seen as a form of karmic payback–what happens when you ignore the lessons of history in the pursuit of raw political power.
Since 2008, I have always devoted my end-year columns to counting down the Top Ten human rights issues as they pertain to Non-Japanese residents of Japan. This year I’m moving this feature to the Shingetsu News Agency.
Although there have been calls for immigration reform following the death of Sri Lankan national Wishma Sandamali in a detention center, the actual prospects for improvement in Japan’s controversial refugee and immigration system are not particularly bright.
SEALDs, short for Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy, was a student activist organization in Japan that provided an important spark to the large-scale protests against then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s 2015 “Legislation for Peace and Security” (i.e. the Abe War Law), deemed by the vast majority of Japan’s legal scholars in the field to be unconstitutional.
The 500 Dot Com casino bribery scandal was yet another instance of major corruption that first emerged in the Shinzo Abe era.
The Moritomo Gakuen school affair was the first of the major scandals that shook the government of Shinzo Abe beginning in February 2017. This a working timeline which the Shingetsu News Agency intends to fill out and update in the weeks and months ahead.
Tozen Union joined other labor unions and rights groups in a sit-in Wednesday outside Japan’s Diet Building, as the House of Councillors deliberated a bill to get tough on refugees, migrants, and other foreigners.
The Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau opened its Facebook page with a cute koala mascot at the same time that its refusal to provide medical treatment to a Sri Lankan detainee cost her life.
The Covid-19 crisis became a dominating issue for the world, and Japan is no exception. This is a timeline of the events so far.
