Project begins activities aimed at calling on members of local government assemblies to urge Japan’s government to ratify TPNW
Oct. 23, 2022
by Kentaro Tanaka, Staff Writer
October 22 marked the start of “Giin Watch 47,” a project that calls on local government assembly members to urge Japan’s national government to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), ahead of next spring’s nationwide local government elections in Japan. Project members, including university students originally from Fukuyama City, held an online meeting on the same day, at which they confirmed the project’s guidelines for working with supporters in locales across Japan, among other issues.
About 40 people, including Yuta Takahashi, 22, a fourth-year student at Tokyo’s Keio University who is from Fukuyama City, participated in the meeting. Mr. Takahashi and others announced the project’s plans to invite local government assembly members to events related to the topics of nuclear weapons and environmental issues and to request their efforts toward adoption of written opinions in favor of TPNW ratification in their respective local assemblies. The project group also reported its plans to visit the Shikoku and Kinki regions of Japan to meet with candidates running for prefectural governorships.
The new project aims to expand the activities into local regions of “Giin Watch,” a project that questions members of the Diet, Japan’s national parliament, for clarification regarding whether they support or oppose the TPNW. “The abolition of nuclear weapons should not be an issue of concern only for the national government, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are hoping to connect various movements in places across the nation through the power of young people,” said Mr. Takahashi of Keio University.
(Published on October 23, 2022)
October 22 marked the start of “Giin Watch 47,” a project that calls on local government assembly members to urge Japan’s national government to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), ahead of next spring’s nationwide local government elections in Japan. Project members, including university students originally from Fukuyama City, held an online meeting on the same day, at which they confirmed the project’s guidelines for working with supporters in locales across Japan, among other issues.
About 40 people, including Yuta Takahashi, 22, a fourth-year student at Tokyo’s Keio University who is from Fukuyama City, participated in the meeting. Mr. Takahashi and others announced the project’s plans to invite local government assembly members to events related to the topics of nuclear weapons and environmental issues and to request their efforts toward adoption of written opinions in favor of TPNW ratification in their respective local assemblies. The project group also reported its plans to visit the Shikoku and Kinki regions of Japan to meet with candidates running for prefectural governorships.
The new project aims to expand the activities into local regions of “Giin Watch,” a project that questions members of the Diet, Japan’s national parliament, for clarification regarding whether they support or oppose the TPNW. “The abolition of nuclear weapons should not be an issue of concern only for the national government, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are hoping to connect various movements in places across the nation through the power of young people,” said Mr. Takahashi of Keio University.
(Published on October 23, 2022)
