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Tokyo (AP) — Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an arch conservative and one of his country’s most disruptive figures, was shot dead and seriously injured during a campaign speech in western Japan on Friday. He was airlifted to the hospital, but authorities said he wasn’t breathing and his heart stopped.
Police arrested the suspect at the scene of an attack that shocked many in Japan, which is one of the safest countries in the world and has some of the strictest gun control laws everywhere.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Abe is in a “serious state” and wants Abe to survive. Fumio Kishida and his ministers rushed back to Tokyo from campaign events nationwide after the shooting. He called it “sneaky and barbaric.”
Fumio Kishida told reporters, “I sincerely pray for the survival of Prime Minister Abe.”
67-year-old Abe Japan’s longest-serving leader According to Makoto Morimoto of the local fire department, before resigning in 2020, he was in a state of aerobic exercise and lung respiratory arrest because he was airlifted to the hospital.
NHK’s public broadcaster aired a dramatic video of Abe giving a speech outside a station in western Nara. He is standing, wearing a dark blue suit, and raising his fist when he hears a gunshot. The footage then shows Abe collapsed on the street, with guards running towards him. He held his chest and smeared his shirt with blood.
The next moment, the guard jumped over a man in a gray shirt lying down on the sidewalk. A double-barreled device that looks like a handmade gun can be seen on the ground.
The Nara Prefectural Police confirmed the arrest of Tetsuya Yamagami (41) on suspicion of attempted murder. NHK reported that the suspect served in the Maritime Self-Defense Force for three years in the 2000s.
Other footage of the scene showed the people involved in the campaign surrounding Abe. Former leaders are still influential in the governing Liberal Democratic Party and lead its largest faction, the Seiwakai. Japanese House of Councilors electionThe less powerful meeting room in Congress is Sunday.
“I use the harshest words to blame (acts),” Kishida said, struggling to control his emotions. She said the government was planning to review the security situation, but added that Prime Minister Abe provided the best protection.
Opposition leaders denounced the attack as a challenge to Japan’s democracy and prayed for Abe’s recovery. In Tokyo, people stopped by to get additional editions of the Yomiuri Shimbun and watch television coverage of the shootings.
When Prime Minister Abe resigned, ulcerative colitis had recurred since he was a teenager.
He told reporters at the time that leaving many of his goals unfinished was “root pain.” He talked about the failure to resolve the issue of the Japanese abducted by North Korea a few years ago, the territorial issue with Russia, and the revision of Japan’s war abandonment constitution.
Its final goal was a major reason he was such a divisive person.
His ultranationalism offended South Korea and China, and his push to create what he saw as a more normal defensive posture offended many Japanese. Prime Minister Abe was unable to achieve his important goal of formally rewriting the US conscription pacifist constitution due to lack of public support.
Loyalist said his legacy was a stronger US-Japan relationship intended to strengthen Japan’s defense capabilities. However, Prime Minister Abe created an enemy by forcing defense objectives and other controversial issues through parliament, despite strong public opposition.
Prime Minister Abe is a political blue blood that has been groomed to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi. His political rhetoric often focused on making Japan a “normal” and “beautiful” country with stronger military power and a greater role in international affairs.
many Foreign staff I shocked the shooting.
In response to the question, China’s Foreign Ministry Zhao Lijian said China was “shocked” by the “sudden incident.” “We are following the progress of the situation and hope that Abe will get out of the crisis and recover quickly,” Zhao told reporters.
“Our thoughts, our prayers are with him, his family, and the Japanese people,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during his attendance. A group of 20 foreign ministers Meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Prime Minister Abe said he was proud to lead the strengthening of the Japan-US security alliance and to visit the city of Hiroshima, where the US president dropped the atomic bomb, for the first time. He also helped Tokyo gain the right to host the 2020 Olympics by pledged to be “controlled” when the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster was “uncontrolled.”
Prime Minister Abe became Japan’s youngest prime minister at the age of 52 in 2006, but his first overly nationalistic mission abruptly ended a year later for his health.
The end of Abe’s scandal-filled first mission as Prime Minister was the beginning of a six-year yearly leadership change, remembered as an era of “revolving door” politics that lacked stability and long-term policy. did.
When Prime Minister Abe took office in 2012, he vowed to revitalize the country and lift the economy out of deflationary stagnation with a formula of “Abenomics” that combines fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms.
He won six national elections, seized power, strengthened Japan’s defense role and capabilities, and strengthened its security alliance with the United States. He also strengthened patriotic education at school and increased Japan’s international profile.
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