In Japan, shaken by the assassination of one of the country’s most influential politicians, one day before the elections, the public and the media have difficulty in making sense of the attack.
The attacker allegedly harbored a grudge against Shinzo Abe for his “link to a religious organization that led to the disintegration of his family,” according to his deposition.
In the news in the Japanese media about the death of Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan, who lost his life in an armed attack while giving a speech in front of a train station during his election campaign, gun violence is condemned today and it is underlined that the attack was not only against Abe, but also against Japanese democracy. .
An editorial in the Japan Times reports that the newspaper originally intended to devote today’s article to criticizing the routine use of gun violence in the United States, but felt anger, shame and sadness at having to turn the issue into a similar violence in Japan after Abe’s shocking assassination yesterday.
“CHANGE HAPPENS IN ELECTIONS”
Describing the incident as a terrorist attack, the newspaper management says that such violence and behavior will never have a place in Japan, especially before the elections, and says, “We are a democracy where disagreements and differences of opinion are resolved by voting in the elections, not by violence.”
Reminding the example of Boris Johnson being overthrown by his own party and resigning as prime minister in the UK, it is said, “This is how political change is made”.
In addition to this, in another news, the officials of the National Police Organization say that it will be investigated whether there was a security weakness in yesterday’s incident and how the armed guards could not prevent the shooting of the former prime minister.
“PERSONAL REASONS, NOT POLITICAL”
Yomiuri Shimbun and Mainichi newspapers focused on the profile of the attacker Tetsuya Yamagami in their news.
The Mainichi newspaper, which obtained the police statement of the attacker, writes that the suspect said that he committed the attack because of his grudge against Abe.
According to this news report, the attacker’s mother claims that her family broke up after she was a member of a religious organization that Abe supports and lost her money to that organization, while the attacker confesses that he killed Abe for personal reasons, not because of his political views.
Although the Japanese police did not reveal the name of this religious organization, news circulating on social media reported that Abe spoke at the organizations of a controversial cult called Moonies, founded by Sun Myung Moon, who declared himself the messiah under the name Unification Church.
In the news where a home-made weapon and a bomb were seized in the raid on a one-room apartment on the eighth floor of a building three kilometers from the place where the assassin’s assassination took place in Yomiuri, there is a statement that the attacker, who quit his job in May, planned to kill Abe with these weapons.
The Yomiuri newspaper, which sought the information of a weapons expert journalist named Tetsuya Tsuda, stated that in the expert’s opinion, the attacker produced the explosive needed to shoot the bullet from the barrel from gunpowder, which is also used in fireworks and can be easily obtained from anywhere. .
The Japanese people and the media agree that Abe’s death left a huge void in the Japanese political scene.