27,000 people participate in rally for blocking adverse revision of education law

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27,000 people participate in rally for blocking adverse revision of education law

On October 14, the voices of 27,000 people calling for scrapping a bill to adversely revise the Fundamental Law of Education echoed in a Tokyo park.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo delivered to the rally participants an address in which he stressed that the government bill to revise the education law needs to be scrapped because the bill contains two major problems that will deprive children of their future in violation of the Constitution.

One is forcibly fostering patriotism and other moral frameworks in violation of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of conscience. The other is allowing the state to make limitless interventions into the substance of education.

Shii pointed out the significance of a Tokyo District Court's epoch-making judgment of September 21 that ruled forcing to stand up for the Hinomaru and sing Kimigayo at Tokyo schools as illegal.

Stressing that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's educational reform plan is full of measures to force children to fiercely compete with each other and divide them into "winners" and "losers," he criticized the plan for turning public schools into a dog-eat-dog world.

Shii called the Abe plan as a program for the "destruction of education" and appealed to participants to work together to block the bill.

Tokyo Teachers and Staff Union Chair Nakayama Shin and National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) President Bannai Mitsuo also gave speeches. A mother, a disabled person, a person of religious faith, a primary school teacher, and a lawyer in turn expressed their determination.

Social Democratic Party Leader Fukushima Mizuho's message was read out at the rally.

One of the participants, a 32-year-old woman with a baby, said, "In order to give children a bright future, I want to defend education from the Abe Cabinet's scheme to force children to compete without mercy."
- Akahata, October 15, 2006