March 14, 2026

Japanese Communist Party representative Tatsumi Kotaro has demanded an apology from a ruling coalition lawmaker who had called him a spy.

During a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting on March 12, when Tatsumi raised the issue of tax hikes aimed at financing military expansion, a heckler from the ruling coalition benches shouted, “You communist spy!”

At the same committee on the following day, Tatsumi stated, “Calling political parties or committee members who hold different opinions ‘spies’ is something that I cannot overlook,” and demanded an apology and retraction of the remark.

Emphasizing that the JCP was the only political party to consistently oppose Japan’s war of aggression before and during WWII, Tatsumi noted, “During that time, those who opposed the war, including scholars, religious figures, and JCP members, were labeled as spies. Many of them were arrested, tortured, and killed by the special political police under the Public Order Maintenance Act.”

He added, “The National Diet and committees established under the postwar war-renouncing Constitution must not overlook such a defamatory remark.”