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

A man holds a placard during a demonstration for the protection of the Japan's pacifist Constitution in Yokohama, Japan, May 3, 2015. Some hundreds of people participated in the protest on Japan's Constitution Day. [Photo/Xinhua]

TOKYO - The effort of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to emasculate and revise the country's war-renouncing constitution encountered a mass protest on Sunday, the country's 68th Constitution Memorial Day, when he returned from the United States with the updated bilateral defense guidelines that will result in unconstitutional revision of security-related legislation.

Thousands of demonstrators from across the country took to the streets in Yokohama, a southern port city, protesting against the prime minister's dangerous politics. They held banners that read "Firmly oppose destruction of the constitution," "No Abe administration," "Crush the ultra-right regime" and "Protect the pacifist constitution."

Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party is mulling to hold a referendum in 2017 to realize the first-ever amendment of the country's supreme law, and is seeking to start discussions with other political parties as early as possible to carry out the amending procedure at an early date.

However, the prime minister has reinterpreted that war- renouncing constitution last July to give the green light to the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to exercise the right to collective defense, allowing the SDF to engage combat overseas, which goes against the constitution that bans the SDF to fight outside Japan.

During Abe's week-long visit to the United States, foreign and defense ministers of the two countries revised their guidelines for bilateral defense cooperation for the first time in 18 years and the renewed guidelines gave Japan's SDF a more proactive role in supporting the US forces overseas with a more flexible concept involving the "use of force".

In line with the updated defense guidelines, Abe said he will try to achieve the revision of a series of security-related laws so as to legalize the exercise of the right to self-defense, even before the amendment of the pacifist constitution.