The shooter, a man, was identified as Tetsuya Yamagami. The former member of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force admitted to the police that he did not like Abe and intended to kill him.
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KOMPAS EDITOR
·3 minutes read
KOMPAS
Shinzo Abe
Former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has passed away after undergoing treatment. He was gunned down while campaigning for a parliamentary election in the Nara area on Friday (8/7/2022).
Abe was the longest-serving prime minister in Japan. The 67-year-old politician died at a hospital in Kashihara, Nara region, where he received medical treatment. Abe was in Nara to campaign for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), ahead of the upper house of parliament elections on Sunday (10/7).
The shooter, a man, was identified as Tetsuya Yamagami. The former member of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force admitted to the police that he did not like Abe and intended to kill him. Abe was shot from behind. Yamagami was arrested. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the shooting as a barbaric act. This act is also unforgivable and injures democracy.
Politically motivated violence is rare in Japan. The country strictly regulates the ownership and use of weapons. However, there have been a number of acts of violence against officials, including the Japanese PM (Kompas.id, 8/7/2022). Abe is the seventh prime minister or former prime minister of Japan to be the victim of violence, including a coup, since 1909. The most recent case was PM Takahashi Korekiyo, who was attacked by a group of young soldiers at his residence, in 1936.
Abe stepped down as PM in 2020 for health reasons.
In addition to holding office the longest, Abe was listed as the youngest PM since World War II. Abe stepped down as PM in 2020 for health reasons.
During his leadership in Japan, Abe was known to pay immense attention to matters of humanity and peace. He carried out Japanese diplomacy as a peacemaker, for example when there was tension between the United States and Iran. In 2019, he visited Iran to ask the country to return to dialogue with the US. Abe also opened dialogue with North Korea, China and Russia, which have border issues with Japan, as well as embracing other countries in Asia to cooperate.
AP PHOTO/KYODO NEWS
People react after gunshots in Nara, western Japan Friday, July 8, 2022. Japanâs former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in heart failure after apparently being shot during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan, NHK public television said Friday.
The agreement of US President Donald J Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to reduce trade tensions at the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan, in 2019 also can largely be attributed to Abe's role.
Domestically, apart from reforming the Japanese economy known as the "Abenomics" approach, Abe also paid attention to the human side of Japanese citizens. For example, in 2018, he encouraged husbands to take time off to accompany their wives during childbirth. Women were also given more opportunities to work in the country.
Japan faces the problem of an aging population.
Abe, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, in 2019 also introduced the vision of Society 5.0 (Society 5.0), which relies on human relations supported by technology, including telemedicine, replacing Industry 4.0, which prioritizes digitization. Japanese youth are encouraged to help the elderly to be more productive. Japan faces the problem of an aging population.
However, Abe, who was a pillar of humanitarianism, now has had his life taken away by violence, which denies humanity. This anti-human attitude must be stopped.
(This article was translated by Hendarsyah Tarmizi).
