A man has set himself on fire near the Japanese prime minister’s office, apparently in protest against next week’s state funeral for the country’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
The man, who has not been identified, was initially unconscious and suffered burns all over his body after the incident in Tokyo on Wednesday morning, less than a week before the controversial ouster of Abe, who was killed shot in July.
Opposition to the Sept. 27 state funeral has grown since Abe’s death triggered revelations about the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s ties to the Unification Church, whose members are known coll… loosely like Moonies.
Media said the protester, in his 70s, regained consciousness and told police he had doused himself in oil before setting it on fire. A note was found near the scene saying he was “strongly opposed” to the funeral.
Kyodo news agency and other media said police were called to the scene around 7 a.m. after reports that someone was “surrounded by flames.” According to media reports, a police officer who put out the flames was also injured.
Tetsuya Yamagami, who is suspected of killing Abe on July 8 with a homemade gun, reportedly told investigators he attacked the politician because of his ties to the Unification Church.
Yamagami said his family had been plunged into poverty 20 years ago when his mother, a church member, donated large sums of money to the organization.
Abe was not a member of the church, but sent a congratulatory video message at an affiliate event last year. A recent survey by the ruling party of its 379 lawmakers found that almost half had had some sort of interaction with the Unification church.
The church, founded in South Korea in 1954 by self-proclaimed messiah Sun Myung Moon, was encouraged to establish a presence in Japan by Abe’s grandfather and postwar prime minister, Nobusuke Kishi, as opposed to communism and trade unionism. The organisation, known for its mass weddings, has been accused of pressuring believers to make donations they can’t afford, claims it has denied.
Revelations of links between Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers and the church have dominated the national news agenda for weeks and hardened opposition to the use of taxpayer money to pay for Abe’s funeral.
The scandal has also hurt Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who announced his support for a state funeral just days after Abe’s death. A Mainichi Shimbun poll conducted over the weekend showed support for Kishida at 29 percent, down six percentage points from late August.
Earlier this month, the government said the service at Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan hall would cost at least ¥1.7 billion ($12 million), with most of the money going to a huge security operation. A Kyodo news agency poll published on Sunday found 60.8 percent opposed the ceremony, with 38.5 percent expressing support. More than 75% said the government was spending “too much” on the funeral.
Foreign guests are expected to include US Vice President Kamala Harris and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. In total, around 6,000 people are expected to attend.
But many current and former leaders will not be present, including Barack Obama, who in 2016 was accompanied by Abe when he became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima.
The man who set himself on fire Wednesday is not the first to use self-immolation in a protest linked to Abe, a conservative whose legacy has inspired both warm tributes and fierce criticism.
In 2014, two men set themselves on fire in separate incidents to protest the planned introduction of security laws that critics say marked a reckless departure from Japan’s postwar pacifism. One of the men died.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, resigned in 2020 due to ill health but remained influential until he was shot dead while giving an election campaign speech in the western city of Nara.
With Reuters