The act is dramatically radical. A man set himself on fire Wednesday morning near the Japanese prime minister’s office in Tokyo to protest the controversial state funeral planned for September 27 for slain former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
According to several media in the archipelago which reported the facts, the man was then hospitalized in an unconscious state. Police, government and the Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment immediately.
A message of protest found
According to TV Asahi, the man set himself on fire after telling police he opposed the planned state funeral for Shinzo Abe. According to the Kyodo news agency, a message of protest against this tribute was also found next to him. The police were called to the scene around 7 a.m. this Wednesday (midnight in Paris) by one or more witnesses who spoke of a man “enveloped in flames”.
A personality as emblematic as it is controversial on the nationalist right in Japan, Shinzo Abe left power in 2020 for health reasons. He was shot dead on July 8 in the middle of an election rally in Nara (western Japan) at the age of 65. His alleged assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, immediately arrested after the fact, explained that he wanted for personal reasons the Unification Church, nicknamed the “Moon sect”, with which the former Prime Minister had links. , according to him.
Funeral estimated at 12 million euros
This assassination has moved in Japan and around the world. But the decision without prior consultation of the current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to organize a national funeral has raised a wave of disapproval of an unexpected magnitude in the country.
National funerals for politicians have indeed been extremely rare in Japan since the post-war period: the last ceremony of this magnitude for a Japanese Prime Minister dates back to 1967. The cost for the taxpayer of that planned for Shinzo Abe, in the presence of hundreds of foreign dignitaries, was estimated by the government at 1.7 billion yen (12 million euros).