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Buddhist Group Asks Japanese PM Not to Visit Yasukuni Shrine
A Japanese Buddhist group on Tuesday urged Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori not to make an official visit to Yasukuni Shrine, a leading Shinto shrine dedicated to Japan's war dead, Kyodo News reported.
Japan Buddhist Federation, a group comprising 103 Buddhist organizations across Japan, said the shrine is a purely religious facility that pays homage to those who died in various wars.
"An official visit to the shrine by the prime minister and other official figures violates 'freedom of religion' and 'the separation of religion and politics' as stipulated by the Constitution," the group said.
The shrine, which is located in central Tokyo, was a bastion of government-sponsored Shintoism and a symbol of Japanese militarism before and during World War II. It enshrines some 2.4 million Japanese military personnel and officials who died in wars after 1853.
The shrine is particularly controversial because seven Japanese class-A war criminals hanged after the end of World War II are among those enshrined.
Visits to the shrine by the former Japanese prime ministers and other government ministers have drawn criticism from Japan's neighboring countries.
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