Abe's efforts to revise pacifist constitution encounter mass protest at home

Japanese Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe speaks during a rally for the protection of the Japan's pacifist Constitution in Yokohama, Japan, May 3, 2015. Thousands attended the rally on Japan's Constitution Day. [Photo/Xinhua]

Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese Nobel literature laureate, said during a pro-constitution gathering of some 30,000 people on Sunday that Abe lied when addressing a joint session in the US Congress.

He said the prime minister hawked the idea around to foreigners that it is for fighting together with the United States that Japan approved for the SDF to exercise the right to collective defense and adopted unconstitutional revision of security-related legislation. But back in Japan, he has made no explanation to the Japanese people and failed to get public support, Oe said.

The major figure in contemporary Japanese literature urged the Japanese people to protect the pacifist constitution and to oppose any legislation that may lead to war.

Yoichi Higuchi, a constitutional expert, also slashed the Abe administration, saying Abe is putting the Japanese people's right to existence at risk by allowing the SDF to exercise the right to collective defense.

He called on the Japanese people to stop Abe's coup against the constitution.

According to a latest nationwide poll conducted by Japan's mainstream daily the Asahi Shimbun, 48 percent of the respondents oppose the amendment to the constitution as advocated by Abe, while 43 percent of them support the revision.

The survey result released on Friday also showed that 63 percent of the surveyed expressed opposition against the revision of Article 9 of the pacifist constitution that bans Japan to use force overseas, while only 23 percent said they agree to lift the ban on the SDF.

In Yokohama, the demonstrators also protested against a Japan-US agreement to relocate the US Futenma airbase within Japan's Okinawa Prefecture as Abe and US President Barack Obama had reaffirmed the plan during their summit in Washington, despite Okinawan's public desire for moving the airbase outside the island prefecture.