 Lower House committee approves bill to designate Emperor Hirohito's birthday as 'Day of Showa': JCP opposes The House of Representatives Cabinet Committee meeting on April 1 approved a bill to revise the Holiday Law to make April 29, Emperor Hirohito's birthday, the "Day of Showa." The decision was made after just a one-hour discussion, with a majority vote of the Liberal Democratic, Komei, and Democratic parties. The JCP voted against. On behalf of the JCP, Yoshii Hidekatsu argued, "Emperor Showa (Hirohito) was the chief executive of Japan's war of aggression. It is against the ideas of the National Holidays Law to celebrate his birthday, and it also transgresses the constitutional principles of people's sovereignty, peace, and democracy." The National Holidays Law enacted in 1948 under the present Constitution abolished the prewar national holidays related to the imperial family and Shintoism, and chose holidays that accord with the constitutional ideals that people can support. The Komei Party's Fuyushiba Tetsuzo, who proposed the bill, insisted that the day was marked only to remember the "Showa era," trying to ignore the association with the war and the emperor. Yoshii in refutation said that the bill represents not only an attempt to reverse history but contradicts the standards of the National Holidays Law stipulating that holidays should be ones that people with various views can easily accept and participate in. It is five years since the amendment was first proposed. The bill was abandoned twice. (end) |