Tokyo – Japan PM’s New Picks Deny Neo-Nazi Links

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    Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) arrives for a photo session with his newly appointed cabinet Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yuko Obuchi (2-L) and Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Sanae Takaichi (2-R), with veteran Finance Minister Taro Aso (R) and Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Akihiro Ohta (L) during a photo session at prime minister's official residence in Tokyo, Japan, 03 September 2014 following his cabinet reshuffle.  EPA/KIMIMASA MAYAMATokyo – Two newly-promoted Japanese politicians moved Monday to distance themselves from allegations of extremism after pictures emerged of them posing alongside the leader of a domestic neo-Nazi party.

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    Minister Sanae Takaichi and party policy chief Tomomi Inada are seen in separate photographs next to Kazunari Yamada on the home page of the National Socialist Japanese Workers Party.

    The pictures will add fuel to claims that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is increasingly surrounding himself with people on the right of Japanese politics.

    Yamada’s blog postings indicate admiration for Adolf Hitler and praise for the 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre.

    In video footage posted on the website, Yamada is seen wearing a stylised swastika during street demonstrations.

    Captions for the photographs claim they were taken “sometime in June or July 2011 when (Yamada) visited the conservative lawmakers for talks”.

    Spokesmen for both senior lawmakers acknowledged Monday that the photographs were genuine and had been taken in their offices over the last few years, but denied there was any political affiliation.

    “He was an assistant for an interviewer, and was taking notes and photos,” a member of staff at Takaichi’s office told AFP, referring to Yamada.

    “We had no idea who he was back then, but he requested a snap shot with her. (The minister) wouldn’t refuse such requests.”

    Following media enquiries, the office has asked that the pictures be removed, he said.

    “It was careless of us,” he said, adding that Takaichi did not share Yamada’s view “at all… it is a nuisance”.

    A staffer at Inada’s office said the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) policy chief did not subscribe to Nazi ideology.

    “It is disappointing if there are people who would misunderstand that she does,” he said.

    Abe has courted criticism for his strident nationalism and views on history that some find unpalatable.

    In particular his unwillingness to condemn Imperial Japan’s behaviour up to and during World War II has proved a sticking point in international relations.

    His equivocations about the formalised system of sex slavery — known euphemistically as “comfort women” — has particularly irked South Korea and China, and both regularly call on him to re-think his views.

    Abe’s new 18-strong cabinet, announced last week, includes a number of people with hawkish views.

    Takaichi and Inada have both visited Yasukuni Shrine, the supposed repository of the souls of Japan’s war dead, including a number of convicted war criminals. The shrine is seen in Asia as a symbol of Japan’s lack of repentance for the war.


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    9 years ago

    To this day, the Japanese Government has never acknowledged its atrocities, which it perpetrated against the civilian populations (as well as the POWs), of the countries, which fell under its sphere of influence, prior to and during World War Two. In fact, its portrays itself as “the victim”. Whenever American survivors of Japanese slave labor camps (including American Jews) tried to hold the Japanese government accountable, and when they tried to seek compensation, they were rebuffed at every point. Even our own State Department was not very helpful in that regard. Therefore, this matter will linger in perpetuity, until the Japanese government shows some contrition, in the same manner that the Germans did.