Lower house OKs bill outlawing Japanese flag desecration

Japan's House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill to outlaw desecration of the national flag, but all opposition parties were absent in protest at what they see as the high-handed way Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party pushed through the measure, a key plank of its conservative policy agenda.

Although the Democratic Party for the People and the Sanseito party joined the LDP and its coalition partner the Japan Innovation Party in submitting the bill, the two conservative forces were among the parties boycotting the lower house vote in protest at the governing bloc's steering of parliamentary debate.

With the LDP and JIP also facing a backlash as they seek to force through deliberations on other key bills, ruling party lawmakers believe that it will be hard to enact bills by July 17 when the ongoing Diet session ends and are starting to call for the session to be extended.

Whether the less powerful House of Councillors, where the ruling camp remains minority, will pass the flag desecration bill is unclear as major opposition parties are concerned that the legislation violates the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution.

Opposition parties, such as the Centrist Reform Alliance and the Komeito party, have also questioned the legal rationale for criminalizing vandalism of the national flag and the definition of punishable acts.

In the Feb. 8 general election, the LDP and the JIP jointly secured more than three-quarters of the lower house seats, well above the two-thirds threshold required to override the upper chamber when pushing through bills.

The bill calls for a prison sentence of up to two years or a fine of up to 200,000 yen for publicly damaging, removing or defiling the national flag in a way that arouses "strong feelings of discomfort or disgust" in others.

The proposed legislation, included in the LDP-JIP coalition agreement in October as a policy goal, is intended to correct a "contradiction" as provisions outlaw the desecration of the flags of other countries in the current Penal Code.

Some LDP lawmakers such as Takeshi Iwaya, a former foreign minister seen as a dovish moderate in the LDP, abstained on the vote. Iwaya told reporters that he does not oppose the party's decision but also cannot "proactively support" the bill.

"Respect for the national flag should be developed naturally and voluntarily, so it should not be imposed through criminal penalties," he said.

The other bills on which the ruling coalition has forcibly begun deliberations despite some opposition parties' refusal include one to reduce the number of lower house seats by about 10 percent and another to establish a "second capital" as a backup for Tokyo.

Intensifying confrontation between the ruling and opposition camps has clogged up parliamentary debate. Five opposition parties in the lower house told the chamber's speaker, Eisuke Mori, that they "absolutely cannot accept forcing deliberations through by the force of numbers."

Yoshihiko Isozaki, the LDP's upper house Diet affairs committee head, admitted at a press conference that it has become difficult to enact all the remaining 17 government-submitted bills and several lawmaker-initiated bills during the current parliamentary session.

© KYODO