A man set himself on fire near Japan’s prime minister’s office on Wednesday in an apparent protest over the government’s decision to hold a state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated earlier this year, media reported. The man was taken to hospital with burns all over his body, while a police officer who tried to put out the flames was also injured. The man, in his 70s, was unconscious when he was first found, but later told police he had deliberately doused himself with oil, media reported. A letter about Abe’s state funeral and the words “I strongly oppose,” was found nearby. Police declined to confirm the incident, which happened on Abe’s 68th birthday. “I have heard that the police found a man who had suffered burns near government offices, and I know that the police are investigating,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a news conference. Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister who resigned in 2020 due to ill health, was assassinated at a campaign rally on July 8. His state funeral is set for September 27, with around 6,000 people from Japan and overseas attending. Opposition to the event has grown due to revelations after Abe’s assassination of links between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), of which he was a powerful member, and the controversial Unification Church. The suspect in Abe’s death said the church bankrupted his mother and felt the former prime minister supported it. Links to the Unification Church, founded in South Korea in the 1950s, have become a huge problem for current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the LDP since they emerged after Abe’s assassination. The LDP earlier this month said a survey showed nearly half of the LDP’s 379 lawmakers had some form of interaction with the church. Public sentiment was almost in favor of a state funeral at the time it was announced, shortly after Abe’s death, but opinion has shifted sharply. Numerous polls show that a majority of Japanese now oppose the ceremony, contributing to Kishida’s drop in support. A Mainichi Daily poll over the weekend put his support at 29 percent, down six percentage points from late August — a level analysts say makes it difficult for a prime minister to have enough support to carry out his agenda. Support for the LDP fell 6 points to 23 percent, Mainichi said. Kishida has defended his decision repeatedly, but the vast majority of voters remain unconvinced, also questioning the need to hold such an expensive ceremony at a time of increasing economic pain for ordinary citizens. The latest government cost estimate is 1.65 billion yen ($12 million), which includes security and receptions. In 2014, two men set themselves on fire in separate incidents to protest Japan’s departure from postwar pacifism under the Abe administration. One of the men died. (Reporting by Mariko Katsumura, Kaori Kaneko and Elaine Lies; Writing by Elaine Lies; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Richard Pullin)
