Shinzo Abe's death isn't Japan's first political assassination

By Catherine Taylor for the ABC

The calm and ordered veneer that has become a hallmark of Japanese society was shockingly ripped away on Friday when the country's former prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot at close range and killed while giving a political campaign speech in the historic town of Nara, not far from Kyoto.

Photo: AFP

Noted as one of the safest countries in the world, with a percentile rank of 87.5 for absence of violence and political violence in 2020, Abe's assassination seemed radically at odds with that image.

Yet while Japan's safe image is justified, the country is also well known for sporadic but significant examples of politically motivated violence.

In fact, this isn't the first time Abe has been targeted. In 2000, prior to becoming prime minister, the Kudo-kai yakuza group attacked his home with Molotov cocktails.

Nor is it the first time an assassination has been caught on camera.

In the 1960s the leader of the Japan Socialist Party, Inejiro Asanuma, was assassinated while he gave a televised political speech, by a 17-year-old ultranationalist with a wakizashi - a samurai short sword.

Japanese Socialist Party chairman Inejiro Asanuma was assassinated on live television while giving a speech at a political debate in 1960. Photo: AFP

Political assassinations

Japan has a long history of political assassinations, with several sitting or former prime ministers targeted.

In 1909 Ito Hirobumi, who was Japan's first prime minister, was shot by a Korean nationalist as he arrived at the Harbin railway station in what is now China to meet Russia's representative to Manchuria.

Hara Takashi is another sitting prime minister who was assassinated as he waited for a train to a party conference in Kyoto in 1921. His assassin, Nakaoka Kon'ichi, believed Hara was corrupt and planned to pass universal suffrage.

But it was the 1930s when a spate of assassinations made the role of Japanese prime minister very dangerous indeed.

In 1931 Japanese prime minister Hamaguchi Osachi died from infected wounds sustained in a 1930 assassination attempt by far-right group Aikokusha.

A year later, self-styled Buddhist preacher Nisshō Inoue founded a far-right militant organisation called Ketsumeidan - or League of Blood - designed to push for political reforms through violence. His slogan, "one person, one kill", led to a list of 20 politicians and business leaders who he planned to assassinate as a method for restoring political power to Japan's Emperor.

In 1932 he distributed automatic pistols to his followers but only two carried out the plan - killing former finance minister Junnosuke Inoue and businessman Dan Takuma.

Inukai Tsuyoshi - prime minister for just six months - was shot by 11 junior Navy officers at his home in Tokyo in May 1932. Inukai had been attempting to rein in the power of the military and wanted to limit troop deployment with China. The original plan included killing film star Charlie Chaplin who had arrived in Japan the day before as Inukai's guest. But Chaplin was watching a sumo match when the assassins struck and was not at home.

The last prime ministerial assassination in Japan was 86 years ago, where two former leaders were killed on one day along with other politicians in an attempted coup in 1936.

The first was Takahashi Korekiyo, who was in office from 1921-1922. Following his political career, Takahashi worked for the Bank of Japan and introduced a series of controversial policies. But it was his decision to cut government spending, and ensuing unrest within the Japanese military, that saw him targeted. Viscount Saitō Makoto - PM in 1932-34 - was also shot dead at home.

People lay a bouquet of flowers and offer a plastic bottle with a Japanese national flag at the site where former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot to death near Yamato Saidaiji Station in Nara Prefecture on July 8, 2022. Photo: OSAMU KANAZAWA
The far right, the far left and the Yakuza

Violent militant groups representing the far left and far right have also been a feature of Japan's political scene.

The Japanese Red Army or JRA carried out multiple attacks around the world during the 1970s and 1980s including airline hijackings and hostage taking.

Co-founder and leader Fusako Shigenobu was arrested in Osaka in 2000 for her part in the 1974 attack on the French Embassy in the Netherlands. She was released just this year, in May.

Ultranationalist far right groups, known as Uyoku dantai in Japanese, are also active in Japan, with the National Police Agency estimating as many as 1000 groups operate with up to 100,000 members.

These groups engage in a wide range of activities including non-violent ones such as using noisy trucks with loudspeakers that drive through the streets promoting Japanese nationalism.

One of these right-wing groups - Aikokusha, or the Society of Patriots - was responsible for the 1930 assassination attempt on Prime Minister Hamguchi Osachi.

Many of the right-wing groups are affiliated with Japan's so-called yakuza - mafia-style criminal gangs that operate widely in the country controlling drugs and human trafficking as well as collecting feudal tax and extortion as forms of protection rackets.

Competition and rivalry between yakuza gangs can lead to violent battles for control.

The Kudo-kai based in Japan's southern island of Kyushu is particularly feared for its violence.

In 1998 a 70-year-old man was gunned down in broad daylight for allegedly refusing to give special treatment to yakuza in a public works deal.

Kudo-kai has also thrown grenades at the home of executives of Kyushu Electric Power, and were the group that attacked Abe in 2000.

Shinzo Abe with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 2018. Photo: AFP

Anpo protests

Japan has also had a violent protest reminiscent of the January 6 attacks on the Capitol building in Washington.

A series of huge public demonstrations held during 1959 and 1960, and again in 1970, were designed to protest Japan's security treaty with the US that allowed US military bases to be built on Japanese soil.

In June 1960 hundreds of thousands of protesters surrounded Japan's parliament building in Tokyo every day.

On June 15 protesters attacked the building itself, smashing their way inside and clashing violently with police. Soon after 6.4 million Japanese workers went on strike, the largest in history.

A Tokyo University student, Michiko Kanba, was killed. A planned visit to Japan by US president Dwight D. Eisenhower was cancelled and Japan's prime minister Nobusuke Kishi resigned.

Shoko Asahara. Photo: AFP

Aum Shinrikyo and the sarin gas attacks

Another infamous political movement in Japan's history was the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo.

Aum Shinrikyo is a designated terrorist group in the EU as well as Canada, Russia and Kazakhstan. This year the US added the group to its list of terrorist groups.

Founded in 1987 by Shoko Asahara, the group is best known for two deadly sarin gas attacks, but they've also carried out murders, kidnappings and tried to manufacture 1000 assault rifles.

In 1994 the group released sarin in the city of Mansumoto, using a converted refrigerator truck to spread a cloud of gas close to the homes of judges overseeing a lawsuit predicted to go against the cult.

The attacked killed eight people and 500 more fell ill.

A police investigation failed to identify Aum Shinrikyo as the perpetrator of the attack and so its activities continued.

A few months later another sarin attack - this time in Osaka - was followed by a much larger attack on the Tokyo subway in which 13 people were killed and more than 980 injured, 54 seriously.

The full scale of the cult's activities was now under investigation. Asahara and more than 150 of the organisation's members were arrested and charged with various offences including 23 counts of murder.

In 2018 Asahara and 12 followers were executed but a new generation, using a new name - Aleph - is now active.

In 2019 a sympathiser drove a car into Harajuku's famous Takeshita Street in Tokyo to protest the execution of Asahara and his cult members. Nine people were injured.

- ABC