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Japanese Civic Groups Hold Rallies to Protest Koizumi's Yasukuni Visit
Several Japanese civic groups held rallies in Tokyo on Wednesday on the 56th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II to protest Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine earlier this week.
Some 500 people participated in a gathering of the national anti-Yasukuni association of families of Japan's war dead, more than in usual years, apparently as a result of Koizumi's controversial visit on Monday, organizers said.
After the rally, participants marched in demonstration to near the shrine carrying placards and banners, one of which read " Swearing to renounce war before the souls of war criminals is a joke."
Elsewhere, about 200 people from other groups gathered to protest over Koizumi's visit to the Shinto shrine. Participants said the trend of allowing prime ministers to visit Yasukuni Shrine must be stopped.
Koizumi visited the Yasukuni shrine on Monday afternoon to pay homage to Japan's war dead, becoming the first serving Japanese prime minister in five years to visit the Shinto shrine, which is controversial because convicted war criminals are among those honored there.
Meanwhile, at the non-religious Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery, 600 meters away from Yasukuni, about 250 people including Diet (parliament) members from the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) held a peace rally, expressing their opposition to war and calling on Japan to keep going along the road of peaceful development.
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